Your tournament season is getting into full swing right now. If you still need to have your first event, you will soon. When was the last time you won one? I know everyone can't win every year. But be honest with yourself, has it been one year, two years, five years, or more? If it has, you know you're doing something wrong with some aspect of your tournament preparation. You'll need to look at all phases, such as pre-fishing, practice days, locations, techniques, and your actual tournament.
You'll first need to look over your goals for this upcoming season. All successful tournament anglers start with a goal. Of course, everyone is different, and your goal will be different. Is your goal to win one event this year or even more than one? Be realistic with your goals. No one wins them all. Or is your goal to make it to the championship?
If you're not in your first few years of tournament fishing, one of your goals should be to win one. Pick a lake you have confidence in. Every lake will have its own personality. Everyone has their favorite lake. Pick that lake to put most of your effort into. The lakes you might be weaker on set a different goal other than winning. You might go for a limit or try for a decent finish on these lakes. Try to learn about the lake better, and find new areas that might be productive.
We all go through slumps, but a streak lacking wins over a couple of seasons will tell you that you need to overhaul your thinking. The first thing to look at is your partner. They might be your best friends, but your fishing styles might be different from each other. Are you strong in the spring and weak in the summer? Then find a partner that's good in the summer. Does your job prohibit you and your partner from pre-fishing as much as you should? So many teams spend several days and even weeks pre-fishing. You're at a disadvantage if you can't put in your own time. A good way around this is to get a partner with more free time and maybe help pay their expenses for pre-fishing.
Let's say you have plenty of practice time and a great partner, and you still haven't had a win. Then let's face it, it's got to be your fishing. In my own fishing, I always go back to the basics if things seem to be going differently than I feel they should. For me, that's power fishing, covering lots of water, and throwing a spinnerbait or crankbait. None of the drop-shotting or split-setting techniques that you always read about. I usually win on a spot when I hole-sit or have a solid pattern that I can rely on. But if one of these goes south on me, I'm lucky if I don't zero. Your odds naturally increase if you avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.
Sometimes it will be better if you keep your goals simple. Maybe your best goal will be one bass at a time. Just you and the fish; don't worry about other anglers, conditions, or things you can't control. Just concentrate on your next fish and nothing else. You'll sometimes be surprised approaching your tournament in this manner at how well you'll have done at the end of the day.
The last goal of the year is always the hardest, the championship. You've made it, and now you'll want to win it. How do you go about it? In last year's Honey Hole Championship, A. R. and Jimmy Johnson found a way to win on Sam Rayburn (Texas). They'll be easy to spot in two ways, one is they're fishing this year out of a new Legend bass boat, and the other is Jimmy's dog Jesse, a minute dachshund, will always be with him.
Let's look at how they won, and you can apply it to your tournament. They pre-fished on Rayburn the two weekends before the actual tournament. They discovered that they could catch some good-quality bass by concentrating on isolated grass patches. The only way they could find these areas was with their electronics. The best grass was about six to nine feet deep. The lower end of the lake in Farmers Flat, Buck Bay, and Needmore produced most of their winning weight. They had their limit the first day in the first 30 minutes on 1/2-ounce Joe Baby smoke green flake spinnerbaits. They said two key things they picked up on that were the key to their win. The first was when the lake started to generate every day at about 11:00 a.m. They could count on catching bigger bass on the down-current side of the grass. The second and most important thing was that the bigger bass wanted a red-bug wacky worm on 12-pound fluorocarbon line. On the first day, they weighed in 18-pounds plus, with a 6.80-pound kicker, and on the second day, they only had three fish but with a big bass of 9.17 and a total weight of 16 pounds. The other factor that helped their win was fishing the non-visible deep grass.
Hopefully, some of these techniques and ideas will help you reach your goals.
Good luck, and God Bless.
Bill Wilcox is sponsored by Ranger Boats, Yamaha Outboards, MCMC, BG Products, Pro Rule, Johnson Fiberglass, Brown's Automotive, Continental Batteries, Kistler Rods, Swamp Hog Lures, Strike King Lures, Fun-n-Sun Sports Center.
