There’s an old, old adage that should be repeated here:
A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work.
Ah, but you can fish without casting. 
Casting (well, accurate casting) takes skill. Fishing doesn’t.
Now don’t get me wrong, in my circles you ain’t nothing if you don’t have at least a double digit black (largemouth) bass on your wall. Of course we don’t even have that, we have fiberglass replicas of double digit bass on our walls since we never keep the fish, just a quick weight and a pic and on to the next one.
There is no such thing as a bad day fishing…
i’d like to subscribe to your newsletter… what circle are you in? My best so far is an 8.5 LM (and for Ky, that aint bad)… my wifes best SM went 7.5…
Strictly CPR, except for the occasional Walleye… them’s good eatin.
All of our 10+ fish have come from either Lake Fork or Lake Ray Roberts, both in north east Texas, close to DFW. I’ve had some very good days on both. We are very layed back and have discovered patterns that yield some big fish while 95% of the other guys are pounding the bank with spinnerbaits. We don’t fish tournaments.
As for pro fishermen having skills? My main fishing buddy lived on Lake Louisville near Dallas, we fished it pretty often. Never had a lot of luck on bass. Kevin VanDam shows up for a tourney and catches the lake record.
We spent the nite at Lake Fork… didn’t have time to fish it before driving back…
We don’t fish tourneys either…
I talked to KVD at length about his last Classic win…about how he chose that particular bait… that man is constantly thinking…it’s like a chess grandmaster that already knows how the game will end after you make your first move…
Not a fisherman myself, but I read an interview years ago of a professional bass fisher who attributed his sucess almost entirely to his ability to “read” the water. This enabled him to decide on strategy and/or whether or not to move on to another location. The actual fishing itself he practically considered a foregone conclusion.