Getting Back Into Tournament Form
Tournament anglers, especially those who don’t fish full time are constantly forced to make tough decisions as to when and where to fish the next series of events. Last year, I chose to sit the tournament season out and I ran for mayor of Provo, Utah, my adopted hometown. Although I still fished a little, especially after I lost a close race in the primaries, I spent less than a week on the water. Late in the fall, I put together a plan to get back into tournament form and decided to again fish a few tournaments in 2010.
By January, I had recommitted to fish at least the Utah individual tournaments for both the FLW and B.A.S.S. federations. Since I’ve been a “professional angler” since 2001, I know all too well how difficult it is to pick up your tools and immediately be considered competitive in this sport. Not only were my rods, reels, and tackle in disarray, I wasn’t in tournament shape. Although my weight wasn’t a problem nor was my activity level (I play basketball three days a week for two hours a day), when I’m fishing bass tournaments the prefishing days are 14 hours long, and tournament days are very intense, and I NEVER use a seat on my boat except to drive. My greatest fear was not being able to remain focused as I shook off the rust and learned once again how to fish tournaments.
The first series of events were on Lake Powell in April. I took two trips to the lake, one in March and the other just before the off-limits period began, to become reacquainted with one of my favorite fisheries. Believe it or not, the toughest part of the prefishing period was finding fish. That was literally a first at Lake Powell. The water level was 20 feet higher than the previous year and I couldn’t pattern fish activity. Oh, I caught a few fish here and there, but I struggled to put a five-fish limit in the boat. Suddenly, Lake Powell began to grow. None of my go-to spots were producing and that meant I had to begin to cut the reservoir into pieces looking for “new” water, a daunting task when you consider that Lake Powell has close to 2000 miles of shoreline.
I decided after a couple of days in which I did find some pretty good water, that those areas weren’t special enough to convince me to run almost 40 miles north of our launch area at Bullfrog to spend my tournament days. So, when it came time for our one-day prefish in preparation for two one-day FLW/TBF tournaments near the middle of April, I stayed close to the ramp and looked for fish within a few miles.
I found plenty of fish close by but I doubted I had the stamina, patience, and skill set necessary to finish in the top ten of a very talented group of anglers. My hook-setting abilities still suffered, and my reflexes weren’t as sharp as they should have been. The stars would need to align for me to be competitive.
On day one of the event, I fished within a few miles of the launch ramp in Bullfrog and Hall’s bay, and found some very nice fish that were in the pre-spawn mode. I was able to catch 9 fish, culling four for a limit of largemouth bass that weighed 16.72 pounds. That was good enough for second place by a couple of ounces. Remember, I only had to finish in the top ten to be in the driver’s seat for making the state team. So, day one was a huge success and gave me some confidence going into day two.
On day two, after a mishap with the net at the boat on a very large fish, I still was able to finish 7th with 13.75 pounds of bass. Although I was drained beyond belief after each day’s event, I thanks the Lord for granting me a nice come back from my time off. However, the quest to get back into true tournament form was not over … not by a long shot. In the next post, I’ll continue describing the process of coming back after a long break from the rigors of tournament angling.
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