While cleaning out my Triton for the winter, this fall, I made a huge discovery. "I had entirely too much stuff in my boat." The storage compartments were jammed full of hundreds and hundreds of bags containing various soft plastic baits. There were at least ten bags of every size, style, and color of each product that Gary Yamamoto makes. While each of these baits is very productive in various situations, having such a large selection with me, all of the time led to some confusion, wasted time, and second-guessing.
After looking back and analyzing my past season and determining adjustments that needed to be made, I decided that my soft plastic selection had to be condensed. The amount of time I spent digging through the compartments looking for a specific color and size of a lure could have allowed me to catch one or two more fish per tournament day. Would that make a difference? I don't know, but I am willing to take corrective measures as long as it is a possibility. Today's competition in bass tournaments is so good that you need to take advantage of every moment you spend on the water. A few wasted minutes here and there could mean the difference between winning the tournament and not making a check at all.
To help eliminate wasting valuable tournament time, I will choose about five or six colors of each bait. These colors will be the ones that I feel will be most productive for the body of water that I will be fishing. Factors that will assist with my selection process will be water clarity, natural forage, bottom composition, and confidence level. For example, if I am fishing in a tournament on the muddy Mississippi River, there is a good chance that I will not use bubble gum or white Senko. Therefore, I do not need to have them in my boat for that tournament. Experience and common sense tell me that colors like green pumpkin, watermelon, and Junebug are very effective in this type of water. My confidence level is also very high in colors like black with blue flakes and oxblood in muddy water, so I would add these additional colors to my arsenal before waging war in this tournament.
Pre-fishing is an excellent time determining what ammunition you will carry in the boat during tournament hours. If you take a few baits of each color and try them during practice, you can get an excellent idea of what you need to have in the boat once the tournament begins. This is also an excellent time to determine the number of lures you need to bring. If the bite is relatively slow during practice and you aren't going through very many soft baits, you probably do not need to take twenty bags with you during the tournament. Just make sure that you have an ample supply, so you don't run out of them and don't go overboard. Excessive quantities take up a lot of room and add unwanted weight to your boat.
Competitive bass fishing is a game of numbers, and usually, the margins are very slim. Reducing your idle time allows you to keep your bait wet a little longer. We all know that no matter how well a MegaStrike-coated Senko works, you will never catch anything on it when the lure isn't even in the water.
Until next time, Fish Hard and Fish Often.
