Cumberland is one of the most humbling lakes I have ever fished so I know how you feel. Years ago when I primarily used live bait I was pretty consistent on that lake. Now that I rarely use live bait I sometimes struggle.

In March of 2016 I had my best day smallmouth fishing that specific lake. I have had better days on other lakes but this was my best day on Cumberland. If my memory is correct I had a dozen or more smallmouth in the 16"-19" range. I stopped counting anything that was 15" or under. Once I found what bait they wanted and what type of structure they were on I could pick my spot and knew I was getting a bite before I made a cast.

The next days weather forecast was an exact repeat of the day I caught them good. I had not planned on fishing two days in a row but since I was on them good I decided to go again the next day. I traced my exact steps from the day before and had zero bites. After a couple of hours I was really puzzled so I started changing things and still had zero bites. Finally I scraped my game plan and went somewhere totally different and caught 2-3 small fish. I went from king of the mountain to questioning my ability to catch one keeper fish. Odd thing is Cumberland has always been somewhat of a feast or famine lake for me. I have a couple other lakes that I often fish and I have confidence I can at least figure them out enough to make my trip worthwhile but when it comes to Cumberland it can be 0 keepers or a very nice limit. It seems like there no in between.