When was the last time you had a tough day out on the water? Did you take some time to think about what went wrong, or ask yourself what you could've done differently? Taking the time to learn from those rough days that all of us experience is crucial to becoming a better angler. But if you simply chalk it up to another tough day of fishing then you aren’t doing yourself any favors.

Everyone has rough days on the water, it's part of fishing. Trust me, I’ve had my fair share of them just like the rest of us. I’m talking about those days where it feels like mother nature is working against you and nothing seems to be going your way. Anything that can go wrong does go wrong. You can’t seem to get on a pattern and you're not getting bit. Or maybe it's one of those days where you continue to lose fish after fish and break off a few times. You tried every technique and spot that you thought would work today, but you’ve barely caught anything. All fishermen experience days like this, but few people handle them correctly. So, what should you do when this happens to you, because I promise it will happen to you if you fish long enough!

Well you have two choices:

Choice #1 - Let your frustration get the best of you and spiral out of control the rest of the day until you go home mad. This is probably the easiest choice to make and one that I’ve made quite a few times myself. However, this is not the best way to handle a tough day of fishing because you won’t benefit from this situation whatsoever. Your day will be a total loss and nothing will be gained from getting frustrated. You will be more likely to repeat the same mistakes on future fishing trips resulting in further frustration down the road.

Choice #2 - Keep your cool and reflect on your struggles in order to better yourself for future trips. Unlike choice number 1 this is not always easy to do, but it can be extremely beneficial if you are able to remain calm. If you can find a way to keep your focus and composure on a tough day you can learn a lot from a rough outing. This means reflecting on the decisions you made throughout the day and trying to see where and why things went wrong. Here are some really good questions I like to ask myself after a tough day of fishing. 

• What could I have done differently today? 

• Was it the area I was fishing or possibly my bait selection, or maybe both?

• Did I pay attention to the weather and water conditions properly?

• If I lost a bunch of fish I ask myself: Why did I lose those fish? Did I horse them in, or use the wrong gear? Are my hooks dull?

• How could I have got more bites today? 

• Did I fish any specific area too fast that I could have worked through better or with a different bait?

Most fishermen, myself included, tend to reflect and remember most from our best days on the water. There's no doubt it’s a lot easier to remember the days where we caught a ton of fish instead of the days we got skunked. It makes sense because we tend to block out a lot of our bad memories from the past. It's human nature to do so. However, I can’t stress enough the importance of taking notes from both your good and bad days on the water. You will soon come to find out that you can learn an awful lot from those absolutely brutal days of fishing. Gathering a log of your fishing information will begin to reveal secrets to catch more fish! So I want to challenge everyone reading this to take notes from their next tough day on the water and see for yourself how much you can learn. You will find that you’ll be making the same mistakes less and less and improving your skills tremendously! Be sure to check out my downloadable Fishing Log Book so you can easily track all the information from your fishing trips in one convenient location!