Improve Your Fishing Game by Setting Goals

It’s the beginning of a new year, and for many of us it’s the hardest time of the year for bass fishing. With cold water temps the bite is much harder to come by. A single bite might be all we have to show for hours of fishing. But instead of focusing on how tough conditions are right now, I am setting new goals for myself for the year and focusing on what I can add to my arsenal of skills.

2022 was a very successful year of fishing for me personally. I’m not a tournament angler. I don’t have a boat or an Instagram-worthy kayak. I mostly beat the banks at local ponds and lakes, and if the weather is nice I will take my $200 kayak out to reach places I can’t normally get to. Our fishing journeys are unique, and I must constantly remind myself that mine cannot be compared to anyone else’s, especially not those I see on social media. Of course I am inspired by the double-digit bass I see posted, and I try to take note of what others are doing that I don’t know how to do.

In 2022 I caught two new personal best bass. I learned a handful of new techniques that paid off in a big way. I caught them in every single month of the year and gained a lot of confidence in areas that I previously had none. I think most of it had to do with my mindset. At the beginning of the year I set a few fishing goals and that is where I focused my efforts for the entire year. If you’re looking to up your game and catch more fish (and who isn’t?), now is the perfect time to decide what you want to get out of the new year.

My number one goal of 2022 was learning how to walk a hollow-body frog. It seems simple, but being fairly new to fishing, it was a difficult thing for me to learn. The previous year I had watched videos and read articles and I would pick it up every now and then, but I got frustrated and gave up. Once I really committed to learning it and set that goal, I started practicing every time I went out, whether they were biting topwater or not. Slowly I started to get the hang of it. It would walk for a few seconds at a time before I lost it, and I would put it down and try again later. Then one day muscle memory kicked in and it became second-nature, and I think that’s the point where I finally felt like a “real angler”, as silly as that might sound. I caught a lot of bass on frogs last summer and it gave me so much confidence because I had previously felt so limited in my abilities. Later in the year I learned to use a jerkbait, a technique that has been invaluable in the cold water and at least doubled the number of fish I’ve been able to catch in the late fall and winter months. I even caught a personal best bass on a glide bait, an often intimidating lure simply because of its size.

All of that to say, pick something to learn this year that you don’t have confidence in. Write down your fishing goals. It could be as simple as trying a new body of water. Designate days to go out and use a lure that you’re uncomfortable with and stick with it through the rough patches. It may not become your favorite technique, but that first catch with something new is a always rewarding and it might just be something that changes the way you fish.

My fishing goals for this year include improving my casting (getting better at skipping, flipping, and pitching), and becoming more comfortable with bottom-fishing lures like jigs and worms. What are your goals or improvements that you want to make? Let us know in the comments!