Competitive Fishing

[Mobasser]

The year was 1985. I was 28 years old then, and belonged to a bass club, which had just a handful of good anglers.                                              Our club had been invited to compete in a big tournament on Missouri's Truman lake, with other clubs from the four state area.                                                   My partner was my age, and we'd both been bass fishing about ten years at that point. For two weeks prior to the event, we got together many evenings and studied maps of the lake.                 We practiced casting, and spooled fresh line. We organized our tackle, sharpened hooks, and did everything we possibly could to be ready.                                        We arrived the night before, checked into our rooms and did more preparation. We thought we were pretty good, and,  stood a good chance of winning this event, or at least placing in the top.                                           Our plans didn't work out. No matter what we tried, it just wasn't working. We caught one fish, which was barely legal size, to bring to the weigh in.                                      It was a humbling, almost embarrassing experience. The man who won that event came with his small club from Iowa, and, had never fished Truman lake before.                                              On the drive home, we kicked ourselves, and made excuses why we didn't do better. Looking back, we were out fished and outclassed by much better anglers, who knew the importance of having a good back up plan.                                    Later, I did better in a few events thanks to an older man, who taught me about tournament fishing.             Now I'm 65, and I haven't fished a tournament for a long time. I enjoy leisurely fishing, at my place.                       Tournament bass fishing is not for everyone. The competition is fierce.               How did it go for you in your early tournaments? Did you do well? 

[Choporoz]

I didn't cash a check until last tournament of my second full year fishing tournaments.  Finally won one in my third year, and was competing for AOY from fourth year on.   

   The most humbling was probably Kayak Bass Fishing National Championship on Guntersville.  I went down expecting 100" days from such a storied lake.  Three days of tough pre-fishing and I still wasn't smart enough to know I was in trouble.  I had trouble just putting a limit on the board each day.  It wasn't much fun....should have been, though.   I was much too serious 

[Tennessee Boy]

My experience was similar.  I actually did well early in my first full year in my bass club.  With my fishing style at the time I almost always caught at least one keeper.  I fished every tournament and weighed fish in all of them.  I didn’t place in any of them but with my consistency I was in 1st place on May 1st with around 12 pounds total for the year.  Then we got to the time of year when it took 20+ pounds to win a tournament.  I went from 1st place to around 15th place after the first tournament in May and it was all down hill from there.

[J Francho]

I didn't do well until I got my own boat, and had control of where and how I fished. 

[TnRiver46]

I guess I’ve fished in maybe 3, we caught some in one of them 

[KSanford33]

This year was my first year of tournament angling, and I had a similar experience. I competed in three tournaments and didn't end up catching a bass until the third tournament. I caught a bunch of perch and rock bass in the first two tournaments, but that was it. 

 

 I initially went out with the thought of catching a quick limit of 12-15" bass and then work on culling the rest of the day. That didn't work. Now I go out and just try to get 5 big bites.

[scaleface]

I started club tournaments at 18 . There wasnt  a major reservoir any where close so fished small Mo. Cons. Dept lakes with equipped  jonboats  . I won three of those .  When a major reservoir was completed I fished buddy tournaments for a few years . Had several top 5's and a cousin and I won the largest event ever held on the lake . Nearly 500 boats in it from all over the region . Tom Mann was the Emcee .

 

 Heres a photo from an early tournament .Im  standing second from the left  wearing a Manns hat .

[Mobasser]

14 minutes ago, scaleface said:

I started club tournaments at 18 . There wasnt  a major reservoir any where close so fished small Mo. Cons. Dept lakes with equipped  jonboats  . I won three of those .  When a major reservoir was completed I fished buddy tournaments for a few years . Had several top 5's and a cousin and I won the largest event ever held on the lake . Nearly 500 boats in it from all over the state . Tom Mann was the Emcee .

 

 Heres a photo from an early tournament .Im  standing second from the left  wearing a Manns hat .

Pretty cool youve still got this photo

[scaleface]

2 minutes ago, Mobasser said:

Pretty cool youve still got this photo

Yeah, this was 45 years ago and some of the people in this pic are no longer with us .

[Captain Phil]

I fished my first bass tournament in the seventies.  My fishing buddy and I joined a local bass club so we could learn.  We were amazed at the fish those guys caught. Clearly, they were in a different league than we were at the time.  In the mid seventies, I fished a B.A.S.S. State Federation tournament on the St, John's river.  I had a Terry bass trihull bass boat with a 75 hp Johnson.  The take off was a flare start and I thought I was going to be washed out of the river when all those boats took off at once.  This was before high performance bass boats and guys had bolted bass seats on the front deck of ski boats with 150 Mercs.

 

I learned a lot from those early tournaments and eventually began to have more success.  Fishing tournaments is the only way to tell where you are.   It's not the same as fishing for fun.  You may believe you are a pretty good fisherman until you get to the weigh in and someone makes your bag look small.  Even on the worst days imaginable, someone always finds fish.   As you get older, it gets harder to win consistently.  Tom Mann wrote about this in his book "Think Like a Fish".   Your body is tired and you can't compete at the same level as a younger person.   This makes Rick Clunn at 76 all the more amazing. 

[J Francho]

Terry made a great boat.

 

[gim]

The amount of time devotion to fish in a tournament or a weekly league or circuit is absurd.  Pre-fishing, potentially for days in advance, is a lot of time on the water.  And if you aren't pre-fishing, all you're doing is setting up yourself to fail.  I doubt I would be competitive even if I had the time anyways.  I'm not really a jack of all trades when it comes to presentations.

 

I fish in an annual, yearlong work contest every year (multi-species based on North American In-Fisherman Master Angler rules), a work bass derby, and a derby against my Father and his friend every year.  That's good enough for me.

[scaleface]

2 hours ago, Captain Phil said:

I had a Terry bass trihull bass boat with a 75 hp Johnson.

Around 20 years of age I bought a 15 foot Skeeter tri-hull with a 70hp Johnson .

[Big Hands]

I consider 'competitive fishing' to be tournament fishing.

 

In 1991, a friend that had been doing well in some regional tournaments (he had won two boats in those tournaments) invited me to fish as a co-angler at a Pro-Am at Lake Mead. Some things happened at that tournament that are still good memories and very poignant learning experiences. For the TL/DR crowd, those lessons learned will be bullet points at the end.

 

1) Aaron Martens had cut his teeth on Castaic and I had seen him and his mother at many tournaments and just fishing in general, but didn't actually know him. The night before the tournament, I was out for a late night walk and he was in the motel parking lot getting his boat ready for the tournament and I got to have a nice chat with him. 

 

2) First day of the tournament, I get paired with a pro that was someone I didn't really know of. He had little to nothing to say the night before except what time and where to meet him. This was a tournament where the amateur's and the pro's weight was combined for their five fish limit. To say our styles didn't mesh well would be a massive understatement, and in hindsight, I think he really just wanted to 'backseat' me as much as possible so I wouldn't interfere with what he wanted to do. He basically just hauled but down the bank. Unless I was willing to cast past/over him, I couldn't get a bait to the bottom fast enough before it was so far behind me that I had no time to do anything other than reel it in and cast again. If I tried to fish behind the boat, it was way to deep. I imagine that he figured he wasn't going to get any help from a co-angler and he surely didn't want to be interfered with either. Frustrating to say the least, but I figured it was his world and I was just living in it.

 

3) In the afternoon of the first day, we were screaming out across the basin and I looked up for a second, and whooooosh, my new Ranger cap blows off of my head. He looks over and asks me "was that your hat?" I said "Yes, it was." He grunts "Huh" and just keeps haulin' across the lake. I can laugh about it now, but not having a spare cap on Lake Mead for the rest of the day and the next day was less than wonderful.

 

4) The second day, I got paired with the guy that leading after day one, Dewayne "Doc" Watson. He was a well known local pro that had his own TV show and always a contender in Lake Mead tournaments.

 

We met the night before and he asked me what gear I had with me and he told me which of my rods he wanted me to bring and we discussed what baits we would be using (mostly buzzbaits that he handmade, which he would provide). He told me exactly how he wanted me to fish. He told me that he wanted me to get up on the front deck as the boat came off the pad and begin casting until he was able to get up there himself (he said I would probably make 3 casts in before he would be able to get up there and deploy the trolling motor), and then go to the back unless he told me to stay on the front deck with him. He also wanted me to keep casting until he got ready to actually put the boat in gear so we could maximize the number of casts. It was like a well coordinated, well executed military exercise . A totally different experience from the first day to say the least.

 

5) We start the day right next to the marina at Hemenway harbor. Right away, I catch a 2.24 lb bass (a solid tournament fish at Lake Mead) on a buzzbait and he catches one short bass. We fished several places and he manages one more short fish. He tells me that he knows there is a keeper fish on a very specific salt cedar bush, but it will be a 60 mile boat ride to get there, way up in Grand Wash. But he really needs to get at least another keeper.

 

We take the long ride (including a stop at Temple Bar for fuel) up into Grand Wash and he said that we would stop about 100 yards from the salt cedar bush and when we get close that he wants me to hold up so he can make sure he gets the cast he wants at this submerged bush. I cease casting when he asks ne too and when he gets in range, he fires his buzzbait right over the bush and right on cue a keeper bass nails it as he came over the top. He gets the fish next to the boat and I had the net in the water just as he had instructed me to the night before, and for some reason that is still unknown to both of us, he lowers the rod tip at the last second and the fish comes off. . . . I'm stunned that we just took a 60 mile run for this fish, it bites and he loses it at the boat. He assured me it was his fault and he doesn't know why he did it. I get another hit a ways down the wash where the bass came out of the water to hit it like Willie Mays tracking down a long fly ball. I paused a second before setting the hook, but it doesn't stick. Brutal. We didn't get another bite the rest of the day.

 

6) We get back to the weigh-in site at the marina, and his wife is waiting for him at the end of the first dock we come to. She has a freshly ironed shirt and a vest with all of his sponsor patches on it so he looks sharp. He tells his wife that he's upset with himself that he finally gets a co-angler that can fish and he couldn't put us on fish. He drops me off at the dock with the fish to weigh it in, and he goes to the ramp where his wife has the trailer backed in and is waiting for him when he gets there. I weigh in our lone 2.24 lb fish. He comes back to the weigh-in and they interview him he tells them we had a rough day, and that's that. He still finished in 5th overall for the tournament.

 

7) We go to the awards ceremony at some auditorium and they are handing out awards, etc. and they get to the prize (a new trolling motor) for amateur big fish and they call out 2.24 lbs and some guy's name that wasn't mine. Doc and the guy I came to the tournament with both look at me like I don't understand? 

 

I went up to the TD afterwards and they said that I didn't tell them that it was me that caught the fish at the weigh-in, so they assumed it was the pro that caught the fish and that's the way it was going to stay. I didn't want to make a point of it at the weigh-in because I didn't want to embarrass Doc. Oh well, dookie happens.

 

• Some pros are truly professional in every sense of the word. They prepare well, and they are meticulous in every aspect of the game.
• Many pros, even those at the top of the heap, are very gracious, nice people who love doing what they do. 
• Some pros are there because they can, through other means, afford to enjoy being a part of it, but are not necessarily able or willing to do what it takes to be a top shelf professional and make a living at it. 
• If you want to win a little money being a professional bass fisherman, you often have to start with a lot of money.
• Tournament Directors have a tough job.
• A tournament fisherman that doesn't just want to throw their entry fee to other anglers needs to take it more seriously, and be OK with much if not most of their fishing time being spent 'pre-fishing', not necessarily 'fun-fishing'. After a while, it becomes like a job. . . because it is a job. For most, it isn't a career where you get paid regardless of your results. It's speculative and what you make very much depends on where you finish, and not much else. Even being sponsored with a boat doesn't mean it's easy to make a living at it. It's not.
• Tournaments are fun once in a while for me, but until I win the lottery (which is probably not going to happen if I only buy a few tickets every year or two), I mostly prefer to fish for my own enjoyment and to sometimes have fun with others. If by some random chance I did win the lottery, I might want to fish a circuit as a co-angler (where my weight only counts as my own), or serve as a marshall. That sounds like fun. . . most days.
• I don't have to fish for maximum weight or fish count. Most days, I simply want to fish where I want to, how I want to and basically do what I want to do when I want to do it. At the end of the day, I want to already be looking forward to my next fishing adventure.
• I am, at my core, a 'soul fisherman'.

[Captain Phil]

59 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Terry made a great boat.

 

I had three of them, a 15' with stick steering, a 17' with a 70 Johnson and an American Bass Fisherman with a 150 Merc.

[Bluebasser86]

I started tournament fishing in an adult club when I was 16. Finished in 2nd my first tournament, along with the 28 other guys that blanked. There was no boater and co-angler separation in that club, we all fished against each other. I won twice that season, back-to-back wins, and ended up with Rookie of the Year, Backseater of the Year, and 3rd place in the AOY standings. 

[Big Hands]

1 hour ago, J Francho said:

Terry made a great boat.

 

Looks like they stole those seats from a barber shop.

[J Francho]

16 minutes ago, Big Hands said:

Looks like they stole those seats from a barber shop.

They weren't the only ones with those style seats. It was definitely a thing back when. 

[GreenPig]

I fished local tournements for 8 years and did pretty good but grew tired of the do everything fast fast fast. It became a chore

[thomas15]

There are weekly tournaments locally, small, 25-30 boats. I have entered two of them, both the same year about 6 years ago. Used my little modest boat which was maybe slightly more humble than average but for this lake and tournament it's ok.

 

The first one my partner caught 1 fish, that put us in I think 5th we were just outside of the money. Second one about a month later we caught nothing. For the rest of the season and a few the following year, I launched and fished like I was in the event but not entered I was just trying to figure this out under real life conditions. In all this time only a few boats had caught anything and given this lake is literally a half mile from home I  couldn't believe how big some of those fish are like I had not seen anything like those. 

 

I'm a reasonably decent competitive handgun shooter and I assume that to be competitive in fishing requires a similar training and practice ethic and if so it is a lot of effort to become good at this kind of fishing. After this I have concluded that I lack the desire to be a competitive bass fishermen, I was trying to use it to become better at recreational fishing that's mainly it. I can see the draw to the sport however and it's fun to be nothing but business-like while fishing in a tournament where you have to think about what you are doing. 

 

I drive right past this lake on the way home from work and on tourney nights sometimes I stop in and watch the launch or sometimes I go over and watch the weigh in. This year most of the boats are top line bass boats, big 225+ outboards, power poles literally the works, all on this 900 acre lake. It seems like a lot more emotion on display compared to the past years. Anyway I'm all for it, tournaments that is. it's just too stressful and time consuming for me.

[J Francho]

If I could offer any advice about how to approach tournament fishing, it would be to try and find a team format and above all, have fun. Fish the way you fish. If you want to maximize baits in the water, do that. If you love topwaters and do well with them, do that. If you can stomach drowning senkos when the bite seems slow, do that. Be you on the water. When I figured that out, I did a lot better. 

[Columbia Craw]

NextBack in the late 70’s I fished  it was forclub events and points, not cash. I loved. It.  Those events were fun a no pressure. That club dissolved. I had done okay each year. For the next 20 years I only fun fished.  That was fine.  My buddy had a nephew who wanted to fish a small open. I knew the lake and we won.  I fished with two other guys in 2000’s and we won several events and had numerous top ten fishes.  
 

Fact is, I didn’t really enjoy it.  Too busy. I cut way back to just club events where small money was on the line.  I wasn’t excited about those events and last year, called it quits to any competition based fishing. Just not my thing I guess.  I like to relax and experiment.  Don’t get me wrong, I whiffed enough in events to deflate any ego one might have.  So, have fun.

[Captain Phil]

Over the years I have fished in hundreds of bass tournaments.  I've won money, boats, outboard engines and a trophy nearly as tall as me (took it home in a truck bed).   Of all the tournaments I have ever been in, winning the "Top Rod" in our bass club was the most competitive.  Those guys were awesome fishermen and fought like tigers the whole year long.  I was lucky enough to win it twice and that trophy is worth more to me than anything else I ever won.  Fishing against Top Water Charlie was challenging as well.  I can't tell you how humbling that was.  I loved tournament fishing.  It adds something to bass fishing that you can't get by fishing alone.   It's not for everyone.   

[WRB]

My 1st tournament experience was1968 All American at lake Eufaula. A friend called me asking if I would take his place with Rip Nunnery the Mustad rep for California. Didn’t know Rip was travel phobic and ended driving all the way towing a boat from California to Alabama as Rip sleep. We arrived after the tournament dinner and pairing draw. I assumed it was a team derby not a blind draw event. 

My boater was introduced before the start and he suggested we flip a coin to see who gets the 1st half of the day, I won the coin toss and had no idea where to start and my boater was no help. Not knowing the lake I decided to run up by the dam and fish points. The 1st point I found ran nearly across the lake and was loaded with bass at the point end near the main lake river channel. I am very familiar with structure fishing California lakes and using a PVJ ( purple vinyl jig w/ purple Pedigo pork trailer caught 15 bass weighing 105 lbs. My partner refused offers to use what I had. 

After boating 15 bass, gave the front of the boat to the boater.

He said I wouldn’t let him fish the shore line and the bite was over. He headed back to the marina lodging a complaint that I refused to let him fish in the morning. The result was I was DQ’d.

Tom Mann tried to argue that I was wrongfully DQ’d, my consolation was a life member to B.A.S.S. 

Rip set the 1 day weight record at 97 lbs.

That was my 1st and would be last B.A.S.S. tournament!

Fished the Peices San Diego bass club events in 1969-1970 and WON Bass events for a few years, thought I had to win and the competitive stress was overwhelming at a young age.

Decided to focus on catching a world record LMB in lieu of competing in derbies. 

When my son was old enough we competed in ABA team night charity events and enjoyed those, good memories.

Tom

 

[scaleface]

I enjoyed tournament fishing until I   won some actual  money . After that it  wasnt the same . It became serious . So I quit and  fished for the pure enjoyment of it .