The Pareto Principle

     The Pareto Principle:   In 1906 an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, famously noted that 80% of all land in Italy was owned by only 20% of the Italian population... and this has everything to do with bass fishing.  No, really, it does.  We're about to get philosophical up in here!

     In the 100+ years since Pareto's observation, this 80/20 split has been observed time after time in many different situations and on many different levels.  Pareto's original economic observation remains true today not only in Italy, but everywhere else in the world!  Today, 20% of the world's population controls 82.7% of the world-wide wealth.  Hang in there... I promise this has to do with fishing.

     Below are some facts I found on the Internet, and if they're on the Internet they must be true, right?  For real though, the pages I took them from cite various sources and studies that look as legitimate as any other study, so let's just go with it. I'll post some sources at the end of this post (or maybe not), but I've already got enough to bore you with for now:

In Marketing/Sales: 

-80% of a company's profit comes from only 20% of a company's products. 

-80% of sales are made by 20% of the company's sales team.   

 In Technology: 

-80% of software crashes are cause by 20% of bugs. 

-80% of software users only use 20% of a software's features.   

In Literature/Art: 

-80% of words in written record consist of the same 20% of all words (in every language). 

-80% of all music is derived from 20% of possible chord progressions.   

     The above examples can be researched by looking at years and years of data.  Here are some examples that you can observe in your own life, if you think I'm wrong, I'd love to see your own personal research over the next three years:   

-20% of the carpet in your home receives 80% of the wear and tear.

-20% of the tools in your tool box will complete 80% of your home improvement tasks. 

-20% of the clothes in your wardrobe are worn 80% of the time.   

     I would hypothesize (that's a fancy sciencey word for "guess") that the inverse of each of those statements hold true as well, for example:  80% of the carpet in your home receives only 20% of all the wear and tear.   We're almost getting to the fishing part....

 

     The Pareto Principle comes down to a simple cause and effect ratio:  80% of effects come from 20% of the causes while 20% of the causes, cause 80% of the effects.  

     All of the above examples are derived from mankind.  Man created the economy, man created business practices, man created technology, language, and art.  You might say that the Pareto Principle is human nature.  But, is it human?  Or nature?   

     After Vilfredo Pareto made his economical observation of Italy, he decided to take a stroll through his pea garden.  Why?  Maybe to contemplate how awesome his name is, maybe he just wanted to contemplate life, the universe, and everything, or maybe he just needed to take a pea.  Regardless, it was there, peeing in his garden, that he made an even more incredible observation: 80% of his peas came from 20% of his plants.  The 80/20 rule stayed consistent even through nature, not just human creation.   (Bravo to you if you're still reading and didn't just skip ahead to the fishing part.  We've still got just a little bit to go, hang in there.)   

     Try this nifty little experiment:  Do a google search for "Pareto Principle in...".  Google will give you a short list of common searches based on key words used across the Internet.  Everything I mentioned above is included (business, technology, language, music), with the exception of "nature".  Now, maybe it's simply a matter of not enough people searching for "Pareto Principle in Nature".  Maybe the problem is that we can only observe instances in nature, we can't set up human-created experiments to observe nature in it's natural state.  But we can, however, think about it from a philosophical stand point, yeah?   

- Approximately how much of an iceberg is underwater? 

- Approximately how much of the Earth's surface is covered in dry land? 

- Approximately how much of the Earth's atmosphere is breathable? 

 And here it is, the fishing part....  Approximately how much of the water we can fish, actually holds fish?   

     The old saying goes 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water.  If we look at how it relates to all these other patterns we observe, we see that it's entirely possible that the saying might be exaggerated.  Even if those truly are the exact statistics, we can claim that the 80/20 rule is just an average of all the examples we can observe.  For example, we all know that the Earth's surface is about 71% water, not 80%.  But hey, it's close enough, right?   

     The Pareto Principle may not be an exact science, in fact it's not even technically a theory.  It may even be complete BS.  However, patterns this consistent are hard to ignore.  So, as an angler, here's my hypothesis:   20% of the lures in your tackle box are responsible for 80% of your catches.

This is my terminal tackle box. The stuff circled in blue is is responsible for the vast majority of my fish. 80/20? Possibly so....

  

     What do you think, am I right?   If so, how can you use this perspective to your advantage?  Corporations, politicians, artists, and many others take advantage of this knowledge all the time.  What else could it mean for us anglers?   I know what it means for me, but I'm curious about your thoughts!  Comment below or let me know on social media @davejakesfishin #paretoprinciple.       

Tight Lines!