I will be totally blunt with this, catching fish is not rocket science at all ! Yes there are a million factors to consider but on a very low starting level you can catch fish with 2 to 3 baits and one fishing rod on any day of the year.
Why I say this is I catch fish on every outing, ONLY time I struggle is when there are too many factors against me on that day. When you are battling too many weather changes/issues, major water pressure due to too many people fishing, the fish are just turned off for reasons we may not be able to figure out, these are all things that are out of our control.
In the end I have stopped at small lakes while driving home from a fishing out and decided to cast a few times, when you know what to do and how to tackle a NEW situation like this you can pretty much catch at least a couple of fish.