You Only Get To Weigh Five Fish
Nov/Dec 2007 Issue
I don't watch much TV, I'd rather be fishing – but my wife is a big fan of Jeopardy.
When I watch it with her, I root for the guys who play aggressively, the guys who wager a ton of money on a daily double. Recently, we watched an episode where a guy was leading by a mile, but he bet everything on Final Jeopardy and lost.
Some people would say he was dumb. Not me. I wanted to go up and shake his hand. He wanted to win and win big and I can respect that.
Whether it's fishing, Jeopardy, golf, checkers or any kind of competition, in the end it's all about winning. Yes, sportsmanship and enjoyment matter, but we compete for a reason, and no one wants to lose. You can't win unless you try to win.
Fishing Chicken – Again
Simply put, when I fish conservatively to catch a limit, I tend to stink the place up. But when I come out swinging for the fences, that's when I tend to win tournaments, boats, money and respect.
In 2001, I was thinking about quitting the sport. I'm not kidding.. I had started fishing for limits and I had my worst year ever. It destroyed me. Then in 2002 I totally changed the way I fished. I may not have won every tournament, but I was always in the hunt. I had ten top 3's and a 43rd place finish, and on the way to that 43rd I was actually in second place after the first day.
I was fishing my brains out and won Angler of the Year and the Ranger Cup in both circuits. You'd think that going for the win in every event would produce an uneven year, but I was remarkably consistent. When you're on a roll, it's easy.
You might be wondering how I got on that roll. How do you get in that position where you're "in the zone"? I don't really know, but I know you can't fish chicken.
Look at the year Skeet Reese had on the BASS Elite tour. He's fishing with confidence. He doesn't hope he's going to catch a big bag, he knows he's going to catch them. I'm not saying you can will yourself to that point, but if you go out looking to weigh in five rats every day and hope for a big bite or two, I guarantee you you'll never get there.
Don't Doubt Yourself
A good friend of mine, and I won't name him because it would embarrass him, was sitting in the top 5 at an FLW Series tournament on the California Delta after the first day of the tournament. There were only a handful of guys who had a chance to win. The rest of us were just fishing for a check.
He was catching 30 fish a day in his key area, so he certainly didn't have to worry about catching a limit, but for some reason he was scared that his stuff wouldn't hold up past day one. He got his best bites in the first two hours, most of them in the first hour. You can imagine how shocked I was when he told me he was going to start in Sherman, where I was fishing. I didn't mind him coming in there, but I wanted him to win and he wasn't going to win in there. He might catch 15 or 16 pounds, but that wasn't nearly enough to do anything in that tournament.
He bailed out of there with about 15 pounds and went back to his main area, where he culled out his whole livewell for about 24 pounds. Imagine what he could have done if he'd been there at his best time. He totally screwed up.
I chewed his ass out [him out?] over that decision and let him know he made me sick. I wasn't trying to be mean – I truly wanted him to win and he was just letting his big fish sit there, wasting time.
So what did he do on the third day? The same damn thing. He went back out to Sherman for a limit. He must've been afraid to come in with anything less than a limit. Tide and time of day was critical and he continued to fall down the leader board.
Fortunately, he made it into the fourth day and I harassed him until I convinced him to go back to his big fish area. He stayed there 30 minutes and then he bailed and went back to his limit spot. By the time he got back there it was too late.
I don't know if he would've won if he'd committed to the big fish area, but if I were him I'd sure like to know. You don't want to strike out looking at a pitch. If I strike out, you can be sure I'm going to take my best swing. I just might connect and knock it out of the park.
When you fish to win, you win more often.
Live By Your Gut
When you're on a big fish pattern, you're not going to get that many bites. But you only get to weigh five fish – if I catch five 4-pounders, that'll still beat you catching a hundred 2-pounders.
If you do the math, you don't even need to catch five: catch a couple of eights and you'll crush the guy who weighs in a limit of two pounders. And if you can fill in your limit with a few little ones, even better!
You can't bank on luck to get there. You have to put yourself in a position to make your own luck. That means going out and throwing a swimbait when that bite exists instead of sticking with the four-inch worm. It’s not easy to do, but if you don't try you definitely won't get there.
Gut instinct produces winners. Not everyone has that gut instinct, or has it to the same extent, but I think that you can cultivate it and make it work for you. The way to do that is by fishing a lot -- not just fun fishing, but fishing in timed competition.
I was sitting in the lead after the first day at a recent tournament but they just weren't biting. I had committed to throwing a topwater all day and all I had by noon were a seven and a four and a half. Those were the only two bites I'd had all day. I needed to fill out my limit. Then I got the wild idea to run to the other end of the lake.
It was going to take me 20 minutes to get there and 20 minutes to get back, which would leave me with 25 minutes to fish, but I knew that if they'd bite, I'd win. My gut told me to go, I really felt like they'd bite, and when you're fishing well you have to follow your gut. I did and I won the tournament.
To win consistently, you have to get out of that limit mindset. There’s no other way around it – probably 80 % of fishermen fish better with five fish in the livewell. I guess I'm the exception. I'm pissed off if I have five in the boat that I have to cull.
I don't know if you can teach yourself that gut instinct. Some guys have it, some guys don't, but if you hear that voice in your ear, you'd better be able to pull the trigger.
The Gambler
Finesse fishermen have their days, particularly when fishing is really tough, but if another bite is on, finesse is not going to produce many wins.
If there's a reaction bite going on, you're seriously handicapping yourself by sticking with finesse-type tackle. In those circumstances, I live for presentations like jerkbaits, topwaters, swimbaits and flipping. I consider flipping a reaction bite because you're putting bait in front of the fish and forcing him to make a decision in a split second.
True, some of the gambles that failed to pay off still gnaw at me occasionally, but they're outshined by those times when I took a big gamble and it paid off. Those tournaments will always be really special to me.
Much of my gambling takes place at the beginning of the day. If the tide or conditions are "wrong" according to the textbook, that's when I'm looking for a big bite. I always fish aggressively first thing. It may not happen, but if I do catch a good one I consider it a 100% bonus.
On the flip side you have to keep the faith that when conditions get right, you can catch the snot out of them, even if it means sitting through some slow hours and odd looks from your co-angler. At a Delta tournament a while back I had a spot where I rolled in around 1 o'clock and loaded the boat. The key was that that's when the tide went out and compelled the big fish to bite.
People saw me do it, so I knew I had to protect the spot. We sat on it the entire next day. I told my partner that in the last hour and a half we were going to wear them out. At 1:15 all we had were three rats, but when the tide drained out, we caught probably 30 or 40 fish in that last hour and finished second.
Even when it's not a pure late afternoon bite, I still catch a lot of my fish later in the day. Even if I don't catch them first thing, I keep fishing hard when most other fishermen let down. Simply put, there's no telling when that school of big bass is going to feed, so you have to be ready when they are.
Every circuit has a few guys who win more than everyone else. Maybe they're better fishermen, but are they really that much better than everyone else?
I don't remember the fourth, fifth and tenth place finishes. I remember the wins. I also remember the times that I tried for the win and didn't make it, but I don't regret those tournaments half as much as the times I fished chicken and didn't trust my gut.
The competition is so much better today than when I started fishing. You can't handicap yourself at all or you'll be an also-ran. The biggest impediment to winning is not what you do with your flipping stick – it's not using the power in between your ears.
When it comes time for Final Jeopardy, bet it all and don't look back.