>All the right technique specific gear – check.
>In depth knowledge of seasonal patterns – check.
>Lots and lots of time on the water – check.
So what’s going to be the outcome of your next bassin’ trip?
What if your success, or failure, is all just an outcome of random chance?
What about KVD’s success?
You buying it…?
Every basser has heard the axiom that 10% of the anglers catch 90% of the fish. Studies have actually been undertaken to show that in many cases this is indeed what happens out on the water. We already know from creel surveys that most anglers never catch their limit. We also know that in lakes with lots of fish, catch equality tends to even out more among all anglers, whereas in bodies of water with smaller populations, catch inequality starts occuring, where a select few can account for a majority of the catch in any given time period. The recently published paper* I was reading asked the question of whether or not this tendency could be explained by random chance.
They used what are called “Lorenz curves” and “Gini coefficients”, terms typically used to explain economic measurements of wealth distribution, and applied them to fit angler catch distributions. The results were interesting. So while they couldn’t “…rule out the possibility that skill, equipment, and other factors could result in the same distribution that random chance does”, they also couldn’t rule out ‘chance’ as the cause of highly unequal fish catches, since both scenarios would result in the same outcome distributions seen in the study.
So for now, it depends on which side of the fence you fall on, and whether or not you believe that “chance” or “luck” might play an important role in fish catching. After all, nobody whacks them every single trip – not even KVD.
*Seekell, David A.(2011) ‘Recreational Freshwater Angler Success Is Not Significantly Different from a Random Catch Model’, North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 31: 2, 203 — 208, First published on: 12 April 2011 (iFirst)
6 Comments
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Chad Keogh
April 18, 2011 at 8:18 am
I don’t believe luck plays much of a role at all in competitive bass angling. Like it’s been said before, “luck is where preparedness meets opportunity”.
Meaning, you make your own “luck” by being in the right place, at the right time, throwing the right bait, the right way, and then execute the hookset/fight/landing without error.
Bass Pundit
April 19, 2011 at 3:46 am
I think there is a bit of a luck factor in whether or not a fish hooks up in the first place and stays hooked. The attack angle the fish takes on your lure and how the hooks position in or outside the mouth are factors largely outside of angler control. You can do everything as well as possible and still miss or lose fish. It’s like they say in war, the enemy gets a vote. Well the bass gets a vote too.
Dwain
April 18, 2011 at 10:39 am
I’m lucky if i have time to go fishing haha
BryanT
April 18, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Luck must be a huge part of fishing. I know I’m better than KVD, but seem to always suck on tourney day. So I’m lucky as hell, just the wrong kind.
Bass Pundit
April 19, 2011 at 4:19 am
“So what’s going to be the outcome of your next bassin’ trip?
What if your success, or failure, is all just an outcome of random chance?”
Fishing and bass fishing is basically an educated guessing game. Depending on circumstances the odds change as to whether or not those guesses are more or less likely to be the correct one’s.
I think you can have some idea about when you have been lucky versus unlucky versus when luck (randomness) has played almost no factor in your success or failure.
Mike
April 27, 2011 at 11:39 am
“Did I catch 5 fish or only 4?”