Fletcher Shryock learned a hard lesson yesterday about practicing too hard for a tournament. Yes, there is such a thing. Shryock worked every possible hour during the three-day practice period on the Sabine River. He was trying to make up for a 105th-place finish at Lake Travis, which dropped him to 63rd place in Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year points.
“I practiced 37 hours,” Shryock said. “(Gerald) Swindle told me, ‘Dude, you can’t be doing that. You get tired and you don’t think straight.'”
And that’s exactly what happened to Shryock on Thursday. He left in the first flight with a 3 p.m. check-in time. After catching a limit weighing about 8 pounds, he started thinking so much about Day 2, when he’d be in the fourth flight with a 4 p.m. check-in time, that he forgot what day it was.
“I let 4 o’clock run around in my head too long,” Shryock said.
With a one pound penalty assessed for every minute you’re late to check-in, Shryock’s catch was totally wiped out when he was 42 minutes late Thursday.
“Once it hit me, I just laid down,” Shryock said. With the penalty, Shryock was the only angler not to weigh-in at least two bass.
“Four hours of sleep a night, 100-degree heat index, jacked up clocks (on his sonar) that I should have taken care of, I just had my head all over the place,” he said.
And he paid a heavy price for it. Lesson learned the hard way. Shryock might want to invest in a Sharpie, like some of these guys do who write their check-in time on the back of one hand every tournament day.