Today I’m letting the cat out of the bag and revealing to you all the secret lure of fishing. This lure has been used by elite anglers for generations separating the pros from the amateurs year after year, and once I reveal it, you too will be catching more fish than ever before. Here it comes. The secret lure IS….. YOU! Well that was disappointing wasn’t it? You may have clicked on this blog hoping to hear about an earth shattering new lure or technique you’ve never heard of before. Instead, I’m going to give you my perspective on how you can take your fishing to the next level.

To start off, I do want to point out that there are indeed secrets in fishing. Secret spots, secret techniques, and even secret lures. One good way to spot one of these secrets is if anyone ever says a little something about a lure or a spot and you overhear the next person say “shhhh”. Write that one down because someone just let a little something slip. That being said, I’m here to tell you that those secrets pale in comparison to developing your skills as an angler.

Instead of focusing on lures and developing “secret lure syndrome”, focus on developing your own style of fishing. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses that we can work on. What works for one person might not work for someone else, and if something does work for you, why change it because of what someone else said? If something doesn’t work for you, then you can go back, study it, and maybe adapt it to your style of fishing. If you still can’t get it to apply then forget about it, and move on to more important things.

We’ve all heard about having confidence on the water, but what exactly should we put our confidence in? If you have confidence in a lure or a technique then that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I would say to have confidence in yourself first. Imagine if you made a cast with a crankbait and caught your personal best fish of whatever species. A lot of people would fall in love with that crankbait. However, YOU were the one that picked the spot, YOU tied on that lure, and YOU made that cast. Place that confidence in yourself instead of the lure. You probably could have caught that fish on any crankbait you presented in the same manner to that fish.

Now I’m not saying to ignore what other people may try to teach you. There’s a lot of great anglers out there who share a ton of great information and I try to learn all I can from other anglers. However, you need to apply it to your style of fishing and make it work for you. Once you do that, then you’ve got all the secret lures you need right in your own head.