What’s the difference between making a check and finding yourself scrolling to the next page of the standings to find your name?
What’s the difference between closing out a victory and simply making a mediocre paycheck?
From my experience so far, they are very thin lines
Every so often that line is much wider, such as when you just can’t figure the fish out and you aren’t on much from practice up until the time th scales close. But for those instances where the difference between success and failure comes down to small mistakes along the way, I am beginning to see that I have a little work to do on the finite details of my fishing.
Mediocre Trending
Evaluating my performance at last week’s Western FLW Rayovac Series event on Lake Havasu, I couldn’t help but dwell on about the string of mediocre finishes I’ve experienced in my last five semipro-level events. With finishes of 77th at Smith Lake, 74th at Douglas Lake, 41st t Champlain, 79th at Lake Norman and a 66th at Havasu, I’ve been frustrated with the numerous opportunities that I let slip through my fingers each time.
Though I guess I could find small consolation in the fact that I could have ended up much lower, I am, however, finding great frustration in the fact that I've been letting myself make the same mistakes over and over again without putting forth the work to correct the weakest parts of my fishing.
The common thread that all these events share is an above-normal amount of lost fish that have directly accounted for missed cuts.
I understand that losing fish is part of the game, but I 've been using that phenomenon as an excuse for my lack of effort to re-train myself how to successfully hook and land fish under pressure.
For a while I would half-jokingly blame my misfortune on bad luck, or possibly the idea that I was cursed. I even tried to recall if I had maybe cut in front of a voodoo queen in a Popeye’s on my way through Louisiana, resulting in a retaliatory hex. Or maybe the fishing gods are getting even for a tiny fish that may have flown over my head and into the horizon as a result of an overzealous hook-set.
In reality, there is no bad luck. There is no curse. I’ve just simply made some bad mistakes and haven’t put the effort into fixing the problem – until now.
Sometimes making the simplest adjustments are the hardest. I mean, something as simple as setting the hook is one of the first things you learn as an angler and it can be hard to accept the fact that you need to do better job at it. But in tournament fishing, sometimes you get so caught up in the broader picture that some of the most basic skills get neglected.
Havasu Mishaps
Havasu was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. My practice was awful, but I had found two separate patterns that I knew I could produce a limit each day and would also give me a good shot at making a quality check.
When I say practice was brutal, I mean it. One day I had spent all day breaking down several beaver dams to get to a backwater that yielded little more than a sun burn and a sore back (I found out later that the beavers had re-built the dams overnight). The rest of the time I tried getting something to work on the main lake, but would literally struggle for a bite or two all day.
Finally, I found an area on the lower part of the lake that, as the water warmed, quality largemouth started to funnel into. On my last day of practice I got six quality flipping bites rather quickly, which was really good under such tough conditions. I had also found some success fishing some docks in the London Bridge area, skipping a “ned-rigged” Z-man TRD for pre-spawn fish.
The first day of the event I ended up getting the bites that I needed to do well, but I lost the first three fish of the day and missed a couple other key bites. I finished the day one fish short of a limit, but was still in contention for a check.
The second day went very similarly. Again, I missed three bites early on, and another good fish later in the day, and left my flipping area to try to salvage my day with the TRD near the London Bridge. My fishing was a little bit better and I was able to quickly catch two more keepers, but I also lost my best bite in the area because I was fishing too fast and wasn’t in a good position to set the hook around the dock.
In the end, a single fish more each day and I would have easily made a good check.
I wasn’t even really that bummed about the lost dock fish, or the fact that I didn’t give myself enough time to fish the dock pattern in the first place. What really burned me, was the fact that I set the hook so poorly on my flipping fish – and flipping is my deal! I could feel it the entire time. I was fishing too fast, and even though that was how I was getting the bites, I wasn’t paying enough attention to the moment the fish would bite.
I would lift up to check the bait and the fish would feel me. Instead of just giving the fish a moment to reposition the bait in its mouth, I'd set the hook out of reaction, which is how I lost six key bites flipping those reeds.
No Such Thing As A 'Little Weakness'
I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about losing fish, because it is part of the game and everyone deals with it, but there’s a big difference between that and recognizing that you are performing poorly.
In sports, if a small weakness is allowed to continue unchecked or chalked up to luck, it can be a big problem down the line. Fortunately, I’m recognizing what my weaknesses are, and now I can work on them.
I guess, deep down, one of the biggest things that makes tournament fishing so rewarding, is the fact that you are constantly trying to overcome the odds, and work on your weaknesses, in an effort to best a creature in its own environment. Sometimes this means that you need to continue to best yourself, even in areas you thought you were already good at.
There will always be “little” things that come down the line that make a big difference in my performance in this sport. But as long as I take it in stride, I believe I can keep the weaknesses small.
(Miles "Sonar" Burghoff is a graduate of the University of Central Florida and an aspiring tour pro. To visit his website, click here. You can also visit him on Facebook and Twitter.
