By my calculations, I’ve gone fishing more than a thousand times in my adult life, so one might guess I’ve learned a thing or two about the ways of the wily fish I target and how I might tempt them into biting my baits.

I was thinking about this topic last week as I prepared the 14 rods I stow under the Bass Cat’s deck. Each rod serves a purpose — like the clubs in a golfer’s bag — so they are rigged with the right line for the job and the lures to match the task.

It takes an hour and a half before each fishing trip to sort through the mayhem that results from the previous 8-hour stint on the lake. It’s a job that also gives me a little “me” time to contemplate where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Along the way, I ponder weighty questions like whether to buy more lures, when to next go fishing and what I have learned over the past 50 years.

The following list is by no means comprehensive, but it does represent some learnings that readers might find interesting.

For example, no fishing trip is a waste of time. If you have an opportunity to go fishing, but the weather is not perfect or you are suffering a sniffle, go to the lake and work through it. Some of my best fishing lessons were learned when I had to set adversity aside and make the best of difficult situations.

Every cast counts. I learned through tournament experiences that every time I put my lure in the water, there is a chance a fish will eat it. I can recall too many times when I dunked my jig in a brush pile or weed patch and fish I wasn’t expecting caught me off guard.

So that leads to the next tip: Do not get distracted. Day-dreaming anglers may spot gliding eagles, drinking deer and strutting turkeys, but they also may miss skittering minnows, a twitching line, or the finning of a feeding game fish.

Even with many decades of fishing days stored under my hat, I still can be lulled into complacency. Just in the past month, I can cite three times when I casted my lure, looked ahead for the next target and returned my attention to my cast only to discover the line had “swam” a dozen feet from where I’d tossed it.

Every fish is a clue in the daily puzzle. Don’t just hook and boat those fish; rather, consider where the fish was holding relative to the cover or structure, the depth and color of the water, the location of the sun and shadows, current, wind speed, cloud cover and other conditions.

Was the bite subtle or aggressive? Was it on the drop or the lift? Close to the boat or at a distance? Fast retrieve or slow? The answers to all of these and more are clues that can make the next catch come sooner.

A big fish will bite when you least expect it. In my experience, it is possible to put together a pattern for big fish, but it’s also possible that an oversized specimen may come without a hint or a warning. I’ve caught big walleyes while weeding through hammer-handle size fish and lunker bass in the middle of a streak of dinks. Consider, too, the crappie fishers whose tackles were trashed by monster muskies.

Lures don’t need wiggling appendages and waggling tails. For years, I was convinced the best soft-plastic lures undulated like a hula dancer. But then along came Sluggos, Senkos and Ned worms and that theory flew out the window.

No color is too gaudy. I’ve never seen a parrot-colored baitfish, but a neon red, chartreuse, blue and yellow crankbait will put a lot of bass in my boat. And then we have the ignobly-named “monkey puke” spoons adored by walleye anglers and even the “Sammy the Bull” color lure-maker Bandit named after walleye pro Sammy Cappelli of Poland.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot, forgotten even more and leave you with one final learning: The best time to go fishing is any time you can.

Jack Wollitz’s book, “The Common Angler,” is a collection of stories that explain why anglers are passionate about fishing. Send a note to jackbbaass@gmail.com.