When fishing in tournaments you can be catching ever fish that hits or sometimes it just seems like everything that can go wrong will go wrong. At the beginning of the month I couldn’t do anything wrong, but July has proven to be a problem for me. I have now had 5 straight tournaments that I feel were way below my potential. Especially, since 3 of them have been on my home water of Lake Arthur.
So, I have been asking alot of question to myself. It is easy to go out and ask guys how they are catching them and using dock talk to my advantage but that can get in your head. Instead I plan to go back to the basics. First, I need to get on the water to practice. It will make a huge difference. Throughout the course of the day you may pick up on a pattern or area that you need to be fishing. Next, I need to go back through my notes and look at the areas that I have caught fish in the past during the same weeks. Guys really under estimate how much of a difference good notes will make. Finally, I have to keep a positive attitude when on the water. This may be the most difficult thing to do when you have consectutive bad tournaments. Confidence and mental toughness are key in any sport and fishing is no different.
I am going to do my best to pull myself from the slump that I am in this weekend with my partner Jon Parker. We will be fishing an open tournament at Lake Wilhelm. Hope to see you all there.
I fished up Wilhelm yesterday and saw your truck (I’m guessing) with the sticker on it for the website. Anyhow, I was just fishing for fun. I did not realize there was a big tournament going on, what a zoo that lake was! How did you do in the tournament and what was the winning weight?
My buddy and I managed 13 keepers between us, with our biggest going 3-15.
We didn’t do very well at all, had a some 2 to 2.5 lbers nothing worth talking about. We fished deep all day looking for the big bites like last year and didn’t get it.
I’m not 100% the winning weight but I heard someone had like 17-9 or something.
I would say you guys did better then average, it was tough up there on Sunday.
We had a bad day in the tournament. We just couldn’t make a connection with where the fish were located. I believe we had 4 keepers that only went around 8 pounds. We had caught other small 12 -13 inch keepers that we just threw back. In a tournament like that you know you are going to need more than 15 pounds to have a shot at the money. I truly don’t know what won, but I heard there were 2 teams over 18 pounds.
I hear you on the offshore stuff not producing like usual there. Shoot me an email at greg4579@gmail.com and I’ll give you our full report. For 5 fish I’d say we would’ve had 14 and some change.