If I held up a photo of every fish I've caught, chances are I could share a story with unique details about each and every catch. I've saved about 350 fishing photos to a memory card. As I went through them, little details of each catch popped into my head and it was easy to recall where I was, the weather conditions and what bait I used. Of course, some of those details stand out right there in the picture. But other details about particular catches may not be as obvious.
They say in professional sports you have to have a short memory to continue to perform at a high level. A pitcher must forget about the bad inning ten minutes ago. A quarterback must forget about the three interceptions he threw in one game. A race car driver must forget about his fuel strategy when he ran out of gas with two laps to go. You get the point. A short memory is no different for an avid angler. Take me for instance: A few weeks ago I fished for nine hours straight. Twenty minutes into my trip I caught two bass. The third didn't come until hour five and after that not one bite. Pair the long day in the baking sun with a handful of equipment issues and two lost lures and it's easy to question why I was out fishing in the first place.
Weeks earlier I had caught an almost five pound giant at the same location. Thinking I would walk right back up and have the same outcome was definitely foolish of me. But that's exactly what I did. The results were drastically different. To make matters worse, I was currently fishing an online tournament and was pressuring myself to catch big fish. Two days later I went out with a fellow angler and made up my mind to just have fun. Not worry about a tournament, not fret about size or culling and definitely not try to replicate a prior trip to the water. The results: 8 fish on the day and a lot of fun.
Each catch is unique in its own way. Even the pros will tell you horror stories of long days without a bite. They'll also recall the exact details of the best catch of their life. However, one small detail changes everything: Fish swim. The odds of a fish being in the same spot as where you caught it before are slim to none. Is it an impossibility? No, but it's not likely either. The best odds for this to actually happen would be going after nesting females during the pre-spawning and spawning periods. I've learned that some anglers put in a crazy amount of hours to familiarize themselves with specific bodies of water. Catch consistency will increase once they learn the details of a specific area.
So here comes the contradiction. Avid anglers must have a long memory. "But didn't you just say anglers must have a short memory"? I did. A short and long memory are required in the fishing world. What I mean is this: Great anglers perform best by making adjustments of the fly. They can remove crucial mistakes from there memory bank and at the same time recall precisely what they did a week ago. Results are never guaranteed but it's said that bass only have a memory of about 15 minutes. Bass don't think, they react. So while you maybe making a hundred adjustments outside the water - under the surface a six pound bass may be just cruising around looking for its next meal.
