New to tournament ts

[Tin Man]

What advice would you give someone who has never fished a tournament who is thinking of joining a club and competing ? What should he / she be thinking of doing to prepare to compete. First time boat owner as well.

[BrianinMD]

Fully honest answer.....do the first season as a coangler. You will learn so much and be better prepared to be a boater.

[Catt]

Can you limit out every day?

[corn-on-the-rob]

At low level tournaments AND as a beginner, don't expect to make money off of these tournaments. The cost of fishing them compared to what you can win is only barely significant even if you are consistently doing very well. All I am saying is at this point in your tournament career, do it for the fun and experience, not the money!

 

If the club needs boaters, and you are okay with taking your punches until you get experience, do it.

 

If they need co-anglers, even though you have a boat, do this. It will help get your feet wet in tournament fishing in general, and you will get a feel for how other boaters in the club fish the lakes.

 

Either way, go out and have fun, don't over think it, and catch some fish!

[Catt]

At this point in your career you have decided I'm good enough to compete!

 

It ain't about the money, it's about knowing I put together a game winning plan.

[WTnPuddleJumper]

Just go out there and do what you do best-----FISH!!!  its not you against the other boats, its you vs the fish.  Start off with a game plan and then have a couple of plan b's in the bag when plan a goes south (which it will)  this past weekend I fished a tournament with the intention of being successful with bream colored cranks, so I had them on about 5 rods in various depth ranges and that is how I started my day.  About a hour into it, with no bites, 

I switched to a Carolina rig and put the rest of the rods back in the box for the rest of the day. Ended up catching around 20.  But never got on a good one.  It happens.  But the most important thing of all is make sure you are having fun, and the rest will fall into place.

[J Francho]

On 2/24/2017 at 7:36 PM, BrianinMD said:

Fully honest answer.....do the first season as a coangler. You will learn so much and be better prepared to be a boater.

 

This right here is good advice.  In fact, I know some clubs that require you start as a co-angler/non-boater.

[Tin Man]

Thanks for the info. Appreciate it.

[Todd_Clark]

4 hours ago, J Francho said:

 

This right here is good advice.  In fact, I know some clubs that require you start as a co-angler/non-boater.

yep.  i started last year (just did a few) and doing 16 of them this year, STILL as a co-angler, and STILL learning.  You'll learn the in's/out's of the tournament scene itself, then you'll know what to expect when you want to start doing it out of your own boat.  

 

Good luck!!!  I'm having a blast even tho i've yet make it into the money. 

[WIGuide]

Given your situation with being a first time boat owner and never having fished a tournament before, I'd also suggest fishing the first year as a co-angler. There are things you need to learn about running your boat and being in control of it before you jump onto the tournament scene as a boater. Things like learning how it handles and responds in adverse conditions, boat wakes, even just boat control while fishing. You can practice all of that while you prefish for the tourneys. The other thing I would suggest as well, is maybe when a different club has a tournament, go out and start fishing the same lake they do and fish until weigh in. Keep your best 5 in the livewell, and either ask to weigh them after the tourney, or use your own scale and compare how you did against the other boaters. This will allow you to see how you hang with the boaters and let you gauge if you want to make that jump to being a boater without having to drop some coin and potentially get your rear end handed to you to find out.

 

Lastly, when it comes to the actual tournament, it's important to remember that you aren't competing against other anglers, you're competing against the fish. So many people have a tendency to constantly be thinking how other anglers are doing, or see one catch a fish and second guess if you're making the right decision. You can't get caught up in that game as it never ends well, just have confidence that you're making the right decision for yourself, and at the end of the day you'll find out if you unlocked the bass's secrets better than others did. If you didn't use it as a learning experience and figure out where you went wrong, along the way.