Palaniuk: No point in looking at points

When I was constantly checking out the standings, I was only looking for enough fish to get by.

I’m very pleased with the way my season turned out, but if you go back just a few months the idea that I’d be in 13th place in the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year (AOY) race would’ve seemed ludicrous.

I started off the year with a 101st place finish at the Sabine River, which earned me zero points. I crunched the numbers after that tournament and figured that I’d need to average a 35th place finish over the next seven events to make the Bassmaster Classic.

That seemed reasonable and I got off to a good start toward that goal at Guntersville – I was in 14th place after the first day. I thought to myself that I was well on my way to a Top 35, and then the wheels fell off. I only caught 11 pounds the next day and fell to 60th, outside of the cut.

At that point I decided I wasn’t going to look at the AOY standings the rest of the year. I’d fish every tournament to win and let the chips fall where they may. I’m proud to say that despite the occasional temptation I stayed true to that pledge, and I hadn’t looked at the standings until right before I walked on stage on Day 4 at the St. Clair Elite.

After Guntersville I came on strong with five checks in six events, the only exception being a near miss (59th) at Kentucky Lake. Four of those five finishes were Top 20s and at both Havasu and St. Clair I made it all the way to the last day. Before I looked at the standings I figured that I was probably somewhere between 28th and 32nd place. It was a very pleasant surprise to see that I was well inside the Classic cut in 13th. That eased the pain of finishing second at St. Clair just a little bit.

I’m glad that this strategy worked and in hindsight I can see why it did. When I was constantly checking out the standings, I was only looking for enough fish to get by. If you’re just looking for a Top 35, you’ll almost always come up short. Once I stopped, it completely changed my decision making process.

The Chesapeake Bay tournament is a good example. The tides and conditions were so messed up that if I’d just been looking for a Top 35, I probably would’ve stayed close to the launch site and fished for released fish. A few guys did well doing that, but many did not. Instead, I focused on a completely different area that I had almost entirely to myself. That alone gave me an advantage, and if you look at my weights, they went up each day. I was 47th after Day 1, 32nd after Day 2, and I moved up to 20th on Day 3. I gambled a little more each day and it paid off.

It may seem like I’ve been fishing professionally for a while, but I’m still fairly new and fairly young, and learning to take calculated gambles is all part of the mental side of the sport. I’m still maturing in that respect. What this has taught me is that I need to fish to win from the start next year. As Aaron Martens showed, even if you’re leading at the halfway mark, no one else lets up, so you have to keep your foot on the gas from start to finish.

Of course, there’s a difference between just saying that you’re fishing to win and actually practicing to put yourself in position to get the job done. Believe me, there’s always a temptation to do whatever is best just to keep yourself up in the points, but I’m learning that I do best when I make all of my decisions based on what will allow me to catch the most weight each day without depleting them too much for the next day. I’m not happy that I started off the year by digging myself into a hole, but the end result may benefit me in the long term.