Christie: Maintaining tournament focus

After two events, the points are tight, but doing well at Guntersville got me out of a hole.

Tournament fishing can be a real roller coaster ride and my seventh-place finish at last week’s Elite Series event on Lake Guntersville was a good example. It’s always nice to make a Top 10, but this one was really important because it got me back on track after a tough start to the season.

Our Elite Series opener on the Sabine River was a total disaster for me. I struggled at that event and ended up finishing 81st.

That’s a hard way to start the season, but it was especially difficult because B.A.S.S. had just recently announced that the 2016 Classic would be held on Grand Lake, in my home state of Oklahoma. Realizing that I may have jeopardized my chance of qualifying was tough.

I’ll admit I was probably a little hard to be around at the house. But it’s good to have that momentum swing back in my favor.

I still have to be solid the rest of the year, but this puts me back where I need to be. After two events, the points are tight, but doing well at Guntersville got me out of that hole.

I was especially thankful to do well in the Guntersville tournament because this one got off to a rocky start for me.

On the first day of practice, I caught about 30 pounds by fishing a swimbait, a bladed jig and a squarebill over rocks. I only had a few bites, but they were all big fish.

After catching them like that, I thought I had a game plan where I could catch 17-18 pounds early and then just go fishing. But that’s not how it turned out.

In the tournament, I only caught one fish on what I thought was my primary pattern. After that, I just scrambled around and fished everything from rocks to grass to docks.

I ended up fishing a bunch of different baits and that was tough for me. I’m the kind of guy who likes to have about four rods on the deck, but at times, I had 15. That’s just not me, but that’s what I had to do.

I said I was thankful to do well, but I wasn’t sure I’d be saying that after the whole deal almost went south on that first day of the tournament

Looking back, I should have had a big stringer that first day. I pull up to my first spot and lose a 4-pounder. Then I lose a 3-pounder and that got the day off to a bad start.

Later that day, I got lucky and got a 7-pounder and another good one, but I lost a 5-pounder on a bed.

I actually caught that bed fish, but she ate the bait backward and was hooked outside the mouth. In keeping with tournament rules, I had to let her go.

That was a tough blow, because not only did I have to give up a good fish that day, I boogered her up for the rest of the tournament.

I ended up weighing two big ones and three little ones so those big ones would have given me some nice culls.

Getting back to that roller coaster comparison, the third day of the event was, by far, the most volatile for me. After a tough morning, I had 9 pounds at 2 o’clock and I had to be in at 3 p.m.

I’ll be honest with you; I was starting to feel pretty low. My old lip was hanging down and I was wondering if this was going to be another disappointment. But at 2:20, I had 24 pounds.

This tournament was a good example of the “grind” we often talk about. On Guntersville, if you grind it out and get lucky, you have the opportunity to catch a big fish.

In 15 minutes, I went from probably 50th place to fourth. That’s a lot of points that I made in just a few minutes.

This is why you have to discipline yourself to maintain your focus throughout the entire event. We’re all really excited to pull up to our first spot, but we have to be as excited to fish our last spot.

The last 15 minutes of a day are just as important as the first 15 minutes.

And the people there are really knowledgeable about the sport. After the weigh-ins, I stayed around for an hour and half signing autographs and talking about products. It was really nice to interact with our fans – especially when I had a good finish to talk about.

It’ll also be nice if I can do the same thing after a good finish at our next event on the California Delta.