93% of the lures sold in America never get wet. I remember that quote like it was yesterday. It was in the mid-80s and I was a young full-time professional angler with the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society. Sponsorship is a big part of the game when you make your living as a professional fisherman. Most all of the top players on the tour had major endorsement contracts with lure companies. When you sign a lure endorsement contract not only are you paid a monthly salary to promote that bait but you're also obligated to visit the factory and work with the manufacturer in the development of new products. At one of those visits to the factory we had a large meeting that involved myself and several other top professional angler's. I remember the lure company president explaining how they had done surveys and as close as they could figure about 93% of the lures purchased in this country never get fished. I remember setting their and his quote absolutely floored me. But I began thinking about myself all the lures that I had purchased up until that time. I thought about all of the times I visited tackle stores across the country and purchased lures as we traveled on tour. And the more I thought about it I started to believe that this thought might absolutely be true. Even with myself, when I walk into a store and purchased something I'll take my bag of baits and walk out to my car. From there when I get home I will take that bag of baits and they go into one of two places at that point. I either put them in a storage spot where I keep a lot of my tackle. Or I take the baits and put them inside my boat. Once they're in the boat a majority of them wind up being taken out of the package and put into my tackle box. But the chances of me actually reaching into my tackle box and tying that bait onto my monofilament fishing line and casting it out and that bait hitting the water is actually a very small percentage. I mean it really does make sense. It's probably pretty true that only a small percentage of the lures that are produced in this country ever actually hit the water. With that being said I've kind of come up with this phrase "The 7% Solution". What I'm trying to get at is I'd really like you to focus your efforts on those 7% of the lures that you own that are actually really and truly productive. The 7% of the colors that you use that are actually productive. This is what the pros do. I give you an example. When I fish the U.S. Open I have a spinner bait that I have used for over 20 years at Lake Mead. When I go to the U.S. Open I don't buy 10 of those spinner baits in a variety of colors. I buy 10 of those spinner baits all in exactly the same weight in the same color. I know what color works best there. So therefore I focus all of my attention on that one color and size. This is making a "7% Solution" choice. I'm focusing on the color and weight of bait that has brought me the greatest success over the longest period of time. Also what this does is it instills a tremendous amount of confidence to you the angler. We all know confidence is the name of the game in this sport. Why confuse yourself and throw yourself off track by experimenting with five colors of your favorite bait. I see so many anglers when I am guiding at Lake Casitas that once they catch a fish on a bait, they right away go into their tackle box and start to experiment with other colors in the same bait or lure that is very similar. Professional anglers do not do this. This is why when you fished the U.S. Open you don't see top name fisherman change the color of their top water bait once competition begins. You don't see top name professional fisherman change the color of their plastic worm once competition begins. During the practice session there's a small amount of flexibility that professional anglers give themselves. But once competition begins these anglers are very focused on exactly what color their going to use during competition. An example would be this: Professional anglers know that there have been more bass caught on a chartreuse and white spinner bait then all the other spinner bait colors combined. What I'm trying to get at with this column is to continue to buy the same number of crank baits, spinner baits, plastic worms and so on but try to focus on those baits in just a few colors that have produced the greatest amount of success for you in your fishing career. Whether you are right or wrong with the colors that you have selected what this does is developed a tremendous amount of confidence in what you are using. If you believe that the color you selected is the very best color to use, your success on a consistent basis will increase. As I've told many anglers, no bass has ever talked, so therefore the entire sport is based on the theory. The more that you fish the better your theory will become. When you go to purchase fishing lures focus on the top two or three colors in your opinion in each particular bait you buy. Stay away from buying your favorite lure in 15 different colors. Instead by 15 of your favorite lures in just three of your favorite colors. Experimenting with a variety of baits and colors is what makes the sport of bass fishing so much fun. But if you really want to increase your production level when you're on the water try to focus your efforts on your absolute favorite fishing lures, in the top two or three colors in your opinion. Use this approach at Lake Casitas and it will help your success.