We swap it up - he's totally cool about spots. One of the "bad times" we were at a favorite spot and he's catching like mad on my left. After a while when he sees my teeth grinding, he says let's switch. Ten minutes later he's pulling them out on my right and I'm skunking in his former hot spot. I do out catch him sometimes...got the first great fish of the year including the biggest chain pickerel I've ever seen, but over time he out performs, sometimes spectacularly.

I will try anything at this point... Never heard of strumming the rig, will do though.

Another outing like today and I'm only fishing alone or making a bonfire of the gear. I fish with a buddy who's been at it longer than me. I sometimes land more than him, particularly when the conditions are variable - I'm more experimental than he, probably more than is good, so I've expanded our range with crayfish and swim patterns. Most of the time he's killing it, pulling out bigger fish on average. A few times it's down right humiliating; today for instance we wound up at this river location and he pulled out maybe ten bass. I'm casting and casting, getting a few hits and landing one small one while he throws and - boom!!! - fish, starting small and getting bigger ones progressively.

He has a better set than I do, for sure...but that much better? He does know plastic worms inside and out, better than me. Today we were fishing the venerable green pumpkin/black flake senkos, doing almost entirely the same thing from what I could tell, and I was totally flummoxed while he was getting tired from hauling them in. The total lopsided outcomes have happened a few times, always with plastic worms as I recall.

Any ideas? Is it the way he's playing it (he gets more bites in general), the way he sets, or some difference in gear I'm missing? Poor guy gets sheepish, trying to pull in the bass quiet somehow, like I'm not going to notice!!