Patience. Patience.

Patience has never been my strong suit. To this day I still find it highly overrated. “You have to be patient,” my dad used to tell me as we fished on a nearby pond. With my Zebco 33 in hand, I would make a perfect cast only to re-reel for another five minutes later. Sometimes I would catch one; sometimes I never did. What I have found is patience—in some ways—can be helpful, but its persistence that separates you from the crowd.

There is nothing worse than days on my kayak when the bite is slow or you get skunked. It never makes for a good story. Nobody wants to hear about the one that got away, especially if it was never there in the first place. However, after much reflection, there is a story to be told.

What I learned from failure—aka skunk days—was this; it’s a mistake to believe that patience will get you many fish. Instead, pay attention to your good days. Try to remember what lures worked and in what locations and even on what days. Unsurprisingly, I’d do this very thing and then go back and try the same tactics again and again, often for hours. But my tactics didn’t take into account the time of year, time of day, pressure, weather, water temperature, and fish behavior. The sooner you start to consider those factors, the sooner you begin to realize that you rarely fish the same situation twice.

Although it’s clever to attempt to replicate what worked before, you’d be a fool to think that it’ll work every time. Want my advice? Probably not, but I’ll give it anyway. Once you’ve tried something and it isn’t working, switch it up! That’s the difference between being patient and persistent.

Develop a game plan, one you have created based on trial and error, and stick to it. Makes changes on your presentation, sure, just don’t stray too far from the plan. If you don’t believe me just watch an episode of Major League Fishing or Bass Master Classic. The guys who had the right game plan—and stuck with it—are the ones on the leaderboard. 

“Keep Hammering,” says Cameron Hanes, an avid bowhunting athlete on his mission to be the Ultimate Predator. Keep casting until you make the right cast, with the right lure, in the right location. Keep hunting until you make the right choice based on wind direction, and time of day, and feeding/breeding habits. Be persistent and you will see results. Persistence is what blazes the trail to success.