Where there’s a will, there’s ...

Can an angler will his or her way to success? Some say it’s possible, that fishing can indeed by a mind-over-matter game.

Confidence is the key for those who just flat-out catch fish when others fail. I report on this topic from time to time because I believe there is something to it. I believe that sometimes, maybe more often than we think, a force that we cannot comprehend is influential in our fishing fortunes.

It happened to me last week.

Tournament teammate Steve Zarbaugh and I were competing in a bass event at Berlin Reservoir. We had done OK in the early hours of the tournament, putting three keeper largemouths in the boat as the sun was breaking over the horizon.

Then we hit a dead spell, several hours of fruitless casting as we doodled around likely bass water trying to figure out the changes that were combining to make Sunday a decidedly tough day. The sun was high and bright, and the breeze was nonexistent.

Still water under piercingly bright sunshine is one of the more extreme sets of circumstances a bass angler can face. But we fished on past the noon hour confident we’d round out our five-bass limit for the upcoming weigh-in.

Another 60 minutes passed and Steve hooked up with a keeper that whacked his crankbait as he bounced it off the end of a fallen treetop. With two hours left, and victory a possibility, we knuckled down in pursuit of the prized fifth bass.

The clock ticked on. Our crankbaits churned through good-looking water, but dredged up nothing save for an occasional stick or waterlogged leaf. As we eased up to a mass of drowned limbs and tree trunks, we knew opportunity was knocking.

Had to be a bass in that mess. Somewhere, in the tangle of wood extending out from the bank to a depth of six feet, a bass was lurking. Our job became our mission. Get that bass to bite and then get it into the livewell for transport to the scales.

Steve combed the cover with the crankbait to jar a feeding or reaction instinct in a resident bass’s brain. He delivered the lure with pinpoint precision and expertly guided it along alleys in the lumber where experience proves bass are likely to hold. I, meanwhile, dragged a soft plastic creature bait into and through the gnarliest crevices.

After 10 minutes of picking and probing, the bass we knew had to be in there hadn’t showed itself. Just as we were about to turn our attention further up the bank, I decided to make one more drag along the shaded side of a large-diameter tree trunk.

The bait was soaking for upward of a full minute — an eternity in such situations — as I jiggled it along the wood. I used the rod tip to literally inch the lure along. Then I felt a subtle tick. Without hesitation, I set the hook and knew instantly it was a good fish.

At better than 2 Ω pounds, it certainly was not a trophy. But for a tough day on Berlin, it was by far our best fish and it looked mighty handsome later that afternoon swimming in our weigh-in bag back at the Bonner Road ramp’s parking lot.

Out on the lake, after I dropped the kicker bass into the livewell, Steve shook his head and declared that we’d simply “willed” that fish into striking.

He was right. It would have been perfectly excusable if we’d moved on after meticulously working the cover without success. It happens every day, all day as fishermen work their water.

But when you are confident that a fish just has to be where you’re putting your bait, it pays to parlay that confidence into an extra effort.

Give them another look. Try another lure. Alter your presentation or approach from a different angle.

Try it and you’ll prove to yourself that indeed you can “will” an extra fish or two into your boat.

jwwollitz@aol.com