Nothing in tournament fishing has ever come super easy for me! That is ok. When I started I always figured luck could play a huge role in me starting to shave the learning curve of the incredibley complex sport of bass fishing quickley. However the reality is that hard work and time on the water are the only way to excell at this sport. I always thought that I could avoid all of the rookie mistakes by just knowing about them. Not the case. So far I have made mistakes. Here is the list for those who want a good chuckle.
#!
Throwing fish back that I thought would not keep because they were 14" when I thought they had to be 15". They only had to be 14" That was three fish in my first tournament ever that was a very tough one. Those three fish would have given me a decent limit that day. But instead I weighed 2 fish.
Running out of gas in practice.
Running out of 2 stroke oil in practice
Missing weigh in with mechanical issues.
Not to be mentioned
Not to be mentioned
So I show up for the first tournament of the year. Long story long I had a good practice. Located fish quickley. Did not pound them in practice. Found more fish. Had a soid plan. Then of course the day before the tournament a cold front roared through Eastern Texas.
Of course this took good fishing and completely changed the game. Day one of the tournament I raced about 35 miles north of the take-off to way up north in the main river feeding Sam Rayburn. I knew that there were good fish up there. I just had to figure out how to catch them while the cold was coming through. The day before the Tournament the lake had been whipped by 40 mph winds. I got to my first spot and started to flip the buck brush and cypress trees. I got one good bite. set the hook on a good 2.5 - 3 pounder and lost it! Then my co angler caught a 2 pounder and that spot was over. Moved to Spot #2 started fishing and bang my co-angler catches a 4 pounder. Me nothing. Then I went to my best spot. The water had warmed up enough for me to go to a ditch where I knew there were a bunch of pre-spawn fish loaded. Some good ones! I had about 14.8 pounds in an hour after Carolina Rigging a Hoax Fish Scam Shad. Got to cull 2 times for that limit. Went to the weigh in and weighed my 14.8 and was in 60th place out of 210 after day one. I was super excited about day 2 because I had more water just like my honey hole that I had not even touched.
Day 2
Takeoff 7am Air temp 35 degrees. Farenheight. Cold morning no wind no current. I stayed up river too long should have moved to mid lake at noon. But I didn't move until 1. Had two good keepers in the boat and desperatley need 3 more quickley. Pulled into my secondary mid lake area. I immediatley started to get bites by flipping a drop shot around the cypress tree roots. Lost another keeper and then just flat ran out of time. Ended that day with only two keepers and had to leave the fish biting to get to the weigh in. Lots of lessons learned!
