By Bob Lechel
Southwestern Staff Writer
August 16, 2010
The mental aspect of tournament fishing is often overshadowed by the physical one. But the choices an angler makes and the time at which they make them are as critical if not more critical than the physical aspects of actually putting the lure in the water and hooking and landing fish.
How long does one stay and fish a particular location? This is an age old question with no single right answer. While on the water during a tournament I often hear a song (in my head of course) which was played on just about every rock radio station and MTV (remember when MTV played music videos?) in the 1980’s; the Clash single “Should I Stay or Should I Go”. They played this song over and over and over again. It was burned into my psyche. I don’t necessarily even like the Clash, but their lyrics pop up at each of my tournaments and have some applicability to every tournament fisherman in the country.
Picture this. As tournament anglers we head out on the water on tournament day and get to our 
chosen location, which had plenty of fish during practice or the previous tournament day. We fish, then we fish some more. We change baits, retrieves and colors with little or no success. This is typically the point when the angler’s internal clock starts ticking (or at least it should). TICK, TICK, TICK. Should you stay or should you go? Here are a couple of factors that come into play in my decision making.
Confidence is Key
If I’m fishing a location and it is not panning out for one reason or another and I start to lose confidence in the spot I will leave. Maybe I will come back later, maybe even several times later; it helps me to try something else and come back with a fresh and confident mental attitude. My confidence begins to wane when I start to fish faster and faster and stop focusing completely on fishing the current spot. Typically, nothing good can come of this situation. Confidence is a major factor in successful tournament fishing. A good friend of mine fished the BASS Elite Series as a co-angler for several years and told me something that has stuck with me to this day. He said, “In the Elite Series you could really see the difference when you got in the boat with one of the top producing guys versus some of the other pros. The top pros knew they were going to catch them and fished that way and the other guys hoped they were going to catch them.”
Pressure
The amount of fishing pressure a lake or spot receives definitely comes into play on my decision making. When fishing a tournament on a small lake or a lake with lots of boats all piled into small areas, I’m more likely to spend some extra time in my chosen location. The other spots are likely being pounded and it can be a “take a number” fishing situation. If I’m in a good location, I will just slow down and fish thoroughly and change up presentations to get the fish to bite. This doesn’t mean that I won’t move, but my moves are more calculated and I generally move around less in these situations.
What’s the Bite?
What seasonal pattern the fish are in is a major factor in determining how long I fish a certain spot. For instance, in the spring and fall when fish can be much more scattered and you are less likely to find one spot holding numbers of quality fish, I tend to move more. Conversely, during the heat of summer where the fish are often bunched up on offshore structure I will devote some extra time to each spot. In many instances, if you can just get one fish to bite, it will trigger the school to start biting and you can “get well in a hurry”. Sometimes it takes making multiple casts with multiple presentations before you get that first one to commit. This usually requires a investing a little more time in a particular location.
Quality Counts
If I know the quality of fish that inhabit an area are the right ones to do well in the tournament, I’m much more likely to devote some extra time to it, especially with a limit in the livewell. Pre-fish and knowledge of the location and the fishery come into play at this point. Generally I have a good idea of the quality of fish necessary to win or perform well in a tournament on a specific body of water. A look at recent tournament results will give me that information. Also, a few kicker fish in the well can do a lot for your mental state. However, if the spot I’ve chosen is just a keeper location and they aren’t biting, then I’m much less inclined to work it over for an extended period.
The lyrics to the Clash song “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” start out, “Darling you got to let me know, should I stay or should I go?” As most tournament anglers don’t have their own personal “lady of the lake” to give guidance on whether to stay put or leave a chosen fishing location, the angler must make decisions based on many factors (like the ones listed above) and live with it. There could be additional factors that may come into play such as weather, time of day, timing when the fish are active (that’s another article) and many more. It still boils down to the angler utilizing that grey matter between their ears and making calculated decisions based on the variables presented to them on a given day. It just depends on the variables in each situation, use of your decision making based on the variables presented and a little gut instinct in processing those variables. Anglers who do this well are the ones you see consistently at the top of the standings.
