I'm think I'm in a tournament rut

[@reelChris]

I think I’m in a tournament rut.  I’ve fished four tournaments this year in a small trail on natural lakes I generally get limited practice on before game day.  As a result, I find myself trying to find offshore fish for an hour or two before giving up and hitting docks with a wacky worm just to have something to weigh in at the end of the day.  I like fishing docks, but I want to expand beyond the easiest most obvious lures and locations.  I’m fairly new to finding fish and not very confident in my ability to locate them away from visible cover or structure.  I’ve tried graphing, but most lakes are so weedy that electronics are basically for mapping only.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  

[Tennessee Boy]

I've never fished on a natural lake so my experience might not apply.   My experience is that finding offshore fish takes time that is best done when prefishing.  If it was me,  I would use any pre fishing time searching offshore for fish.  If I didn't find any or didn't get a chance to pre fish, I would hit the docks hard and try catch enough to win the tournament.  Many tournament have been won fishing docks, even at the highest level.  Nothing wrong with doing the obvious,  the key is to do it better than everyone else.

[Team9nine]

On natural lakes, outside of docks, especially this time of year, you’re either doing something in the weeds on the flats, or doing something on the edge of the deep weedline. The exception being cloudy/windy/rainy days when the shallow bite can really turn on. The alternative daytime shallow sunny option is the slop.

[12poundbass]

Mark Zona said it best about weeknight tournaments, “get 5 fish first, then go look for the big bass”.

[dickenscpa]

18 hours ago, 12poundbass said:

Mark Zona said it best about weeknight tournaments, “get 5 fish first, then go look for the big bass”.

This is what I do. It does something to my psyche and takes a weight off me just to have my limit. I might not catch any bigger fish afterwards but it relaxes me and if I do it tends to come after getting a limit.

[TnRiver46]

3 hours ago, dickenscpa said:

This is what I do. It does something to my psyche and takes a weight off me just to have my limit. I might not catch any bigger fish afterwards but it relaxes me and if I do it tends to come after getting a limit.

If I get a limit of bass, I’m going home to call the New York Times and see if they want to run the story in tomorrow’s edition

[NHBull]

Try fishing as a coangler with an experienced guy.

You can learn a lot if you are open minded 

[Jigfishn10]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

If I get a limit of bass, I’m going home to call the New York Times and see if they want to run the story in tomorrow’s edition

Couldn’t spell Washington Post, huh?

No worries, I thought it was funny anyway.

[dickenscpa]

On 7/14/2021 at 2:52 PM, TnRiver46 said:

If I get a limit of bass, I’m going home to call the New York Times and see if they want to run the story in tomorrow’s edition

Getting my limit doesn't seem to win me anything! LOL! I can find fish, a pattern and catch a few. My problem is I can never get on size. I can whip out five 12-15"ers but in my local KBF Trail I got Rus Snyders, Josh Sharp, Josh Stewart and Josh Skelton. Which is fine, it's my job to beat them, but three of those guys are full time national pros so they spend a lot more time scouting etc. Plus Chad Hoover lives maybe 15 miles from me so a lot of people in his org will get close to the top as well.

 

I'm not complaining, all of those people are really nice and helpful but Old hickory and Percy Priest aren't really known as bass meccas but they seem to always find 5 in that 20-22" range and the rest of us carry a 14-15" average.

 

Like the one I just finished was limited to Old Hickory, Percy Priest and Center Hill Lake (I'm hoping being from TN you're a little familiar with those three). Out of 48 anglers I finished 12th with 81.25" and for these waters that's not bad. 1st-->8th place was well over 100" and 9th --> 28th was 79-84". The balance were people who didn't get a 5 fish limit or skunked.

 

There have been Elite, FLW and BFLs, Toyota, etc here in the past where a daily 7-8lb bag won it.

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, dickenscpa said:

Getting my limit doesn't seem to win me anything! LOL! I can find fish, a pattern and catch a few. My problem is I can never get on size. I can whip out five 12-15"ers but in my local KBF Trail I got Rus Snyders, Josh Sharp, Josh Stewart and Josh Skelton. Which is fine, it's my job to beat them, but three of those guys are full time national pros so they spend a lot more time scouting etc. Plus Chad Hoover lives maybe 15 miles from me so a lot of people in his org will get close to the top as well.

 

I'm not complaining, all of those people are really nice and helpful but Old hickory and Percy Priest aren't really known as bass meccas but they seem to always find 5 in that 20-22" range and the rest of us carry a 14-15" average.

 

Like the one I just finished was limited to Old Hickory, Percy Priest and Center Hill Lake (I'm hoping being from TN you're a little familiar with those three). Out of 48 anglers I finished 12th with 81.25" and for these waters that's not bad. 1st-->8th place was well over 100" and 9th --> 28th was 79-84". The balance were people who didn't get a 5 fish limit or skunked.

 

There have been Elite, FLW and BFLs, Toyota, etc here in the past where a daily 7-8lb bag won it.

I know a Josh sharp (I think) that has a YouTube channel called bass n beer but it may be a different guy by the same name, he lives in Knoxville. I’ve fished center hill a time or two, I really like it. I’ve never been on priest or hickory but I’ve laid eyes on them a time or three

[dickenscpa]

On 7/16/2021 at 1:27 PM, TnRiver46 said:

I know a Josh sharp (I think) that has a YouTube channel called bass n beer but it may be a different guy by the same name, he lives in Knoxville. I’ve fished center hill a time or two, I really like it. I’ve never been on priest or hickory but I’ve laid eyes on them a time or three

I'm pretty sure the Josh Sharpe that fishes here lives in Franklin, TN. I think. Rus Snyders wins everything here local. He's won AOY '18, '19 and '20 and he's leading the AOY race in KBF and Hobie BOS this year. Pretty hard for me to compete with someone of his caliber on my skillset. LOL! But it's fun and only $37 a pop.

 

Josh Stewart is the only guy that has qualified for the Tennvitational every year since it's been in existence. So for a lot of us when we sign up for a tournament and see any of those names we know we're donors.

[nappyboy28]

On 7/13/2021 at 3:27 PM, @reelChris said:

 

I think I’m in a tournament rut.  I’ve fished four tournaments this year in a small trail on natural lakes I generally get limited practice on before game day.  As a result, I find myself trying to find offshore fish for an hour or two before giving up and hitting docks with a wacky worm just to have something to weigh in at the end of the day.  I like fishing docks, but I want to expand beyond the easiest most obvious lures and locations.  I’m fairly new to finding fish and not very confident in my ability to locate them away from visible cover or structure.  I’ve tried graphing, but most lakes are so weedy that electronics are basically for mapping only.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  

I'm in the same circumstance as you. I can't prefish 99% of my tournaments. I rely heavily on Google Earth and Navionics Webapp. This video made me instantly boost my average tournament bag by a pound or two. 

 

[Bluebasser86]

I try to formulate a plan prior to the tournament and stick with it. The times that I've done that, I've done well. It's the tournaments that I spin out and scramble that I suck. The first 4 tournaments I fished this year, I won. 1st one, never left the bank I started on despite heavy fishing pressure and a slow bite. 2nd one, long run, fished 1 bank all day. 3rd, long run into heavy winds, I fished a single small pocket the entire day. 4th, fished the same cove and 100 yards of bank all day. 

 

Since then I've gotten out of my game plans except for the last one that I won, when we fished the same pattern all night despite a tough bite and ground out the bites we needed. 

 

It's only 5 bites. You've got more than a hour per bite to make it happen on an average tournament day. Have to keep yourself calm and believe in what you're doing. It's not going to work every time, but scrambling around has done nothing but frustrate myself. I believe I'd have been in the money at least one of the other times if I'd have sat down and fished, because second place came from the area I started, he said the bite didn't start until mid morning after I left.