worth the effort. I won't say I told you so when someone tells me about a line breaking at the knot; I have been there. I do believe however that it is the attention to the little things that do make the difference on the water. Let us say that it is the middle of the summer and you are fishing on a lake that you are somewhat familiar with and after several hours of casting a fish in the mid40 inch range shows up behind your bait but does not hit. What goes through your head? Was the fish active or passive? Were her gills flaring or was her mouth snapping? Was the fish suspended or did it come off of structure? Did she come out of the weeds or was she in logs or rocks? Was there any wind? Was current influencing where she was? Some people are just happy to see a fish and don't think too much about it. But the more successful fishermen will try to understand as much as they can about why that fish was there. One fish encounter may only provide a few possible clues, but multiple encounters often allow the piecing together of the overall puzzle of fish location... Patterns emerge. Over years of time on the same body of water, the idiosyncrasies of that Lake and individual spots become increasingly clear and the learning curve on any specific day is shortened. All the books and the magazines and seminars and videos can only take you so far. There is no substitute for time on the water. Going a little further with this example, let us say that it is a cloudy day and the fish came off of the point of a small rock bar
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