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Cast accuracy paramount to success in catching fish

For much of what we do in our lives, proper aim is everything. That includes fishing.

Babies soon learn the importance of eye-hand coordination as they master the skills necessary to eat. Proper aim is required to deliver spoons of pudding where they can feed their hunger.

Anglers can learn from babies. Just as misdirected spoons waste nutritious food, misdirected casts waste valuable opportunities to put fish on our lines.

Whether you are fishing the Mahoning River, Mosquito Lake or the pond down the road, accuracy is paramount. It’s the ticket if you are pitching baits to bass-holding lairs in thick cover, dragging jigs at the perfect stump-bumping depth for wary walleyes or flicking a fly to the eddy where a timid trout awaits a floating insect.

The bass angler who misses the target and snags his jig will spook the fish. The walleye angler whose lure is too high in the water column will miss all the bottom-hugging fish. The trout angler whose fly misses the seam and drags in the current will trick no fish that are conditioned to sip only the bugs that are floating in perfect synchronization with the flow of the water.

In fishing, proper aim and picture perfect presentations are paramount for success. A miss of an inch might as well be a mile when it comes to pitching baits at finicky fish.

The anglers who earn the most respect at the dock are the ones whose lures rarely miss their mark.

Bass anglers catch more fish when their baits are presented precisely. The whacky-rigged worm skipped under a low-hanging dock or whipped between the pontoons of a platform boat is going to score more strikes than the rig that bangs off the dock post or clanks against the aluminum.

Walleye anglers capitalize on the opportunities showcased on their sonar screens when they put their lures in the zones where the big fish reside.

Likewise crappie anglers who land their slip-bobber set-ups exactly next to a flooded willow bush pick off more slabs than their friends who splash down a safe, albeit fishless, distance away.

Regardless of the species and the technique anglers are using to catch them, accurate casts, drifts and trolls are the secret weapon of the most successful anglers.

Practice, practice and more practice is required. The angler who is a mediocre caster will gain strikes by becoming more accurate. Those who learn to feather their jigs to the depth just deep enough to nerf the cover but not so deep that they snag up will fill their limits.

All of this points to one of the most important laws of fishing: Most of the fish in a lake live in a relatively small percentage of the water. The angler’s job is to find the populations of catchable fish and pinpoint the manner in which those fish can be tempted into biting.

In other words, we must put our lure where the fish live. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. The only problem is tuning our brains, eyes, arms and hands to work in unison to pitch, flick or drift our bait where the fish are thought to be swimming.

Learn to make more casts with pinpoint accuracy. The fish will let you know when you’re on target.

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