All was not lost the other day on Lake Enterprise. The fluorocarbon line I have been using was great for everything but casting. Least bit of wind in your face or a light bait and it’s a backlash guaranteed. To start a new year I decided to try a new line. The one I chose was Suffix Advance. It is a slick low stretch line. When I put it on I had to go out into the yard and see how it would cast. First three times = backlash each time. After making some adjustments it did just OK but it still worried me. On the lake it did much better maybe fuzzing up only a couple of times. The distance with it was good but I didn’t try to get the maximum. It’s going to be good after a little fine tuning.

“Bad start makes a good ending” is what one of my employees told me after we had a terrible first day of fieldwork on the farm. I took it as pure rationalization of not doing a good job of preparation. Bad start is what happened today and preparation had nothing to do with it. The fish just did not bite on Lake Enterprise. Jackson and I went even though we knew that the winner of a two day tournament had two fish that weighed 3 pounds. We also knew that Tom fished there five times recently and caught only two fish and he is an ace on Lake Enterprise. We must be a little hardheaded.  Three years ago there I went with Tom and we caught 20 with a water temperature within a degree of what it was today. We caught them in the same places and with the same baits we tried today and in the same spots as we tried today. Recency bias, if you want to call three years recent, may have come into play. Desperation played a part too as I haven’t been fishing in two months. With Tom three years ago:

The bottom line is no fish and even no bites. A bitter pill to swallow on the first trip. I WILL be back!!