Jacob Wheeler never fished a tournament on Toledo Bend until yesterday. By day’s end he led with 25 pounds. It’s certainly not all luck that he’s in contention to win a second Bassmaster Elite Series event of the season. Wheeler is one of the best on the tour.
Part of the reason why is worth discussing. Case in point was Cherokee Lake, where he won the first Elite Series event of the season. Wheeler confronted mechanical problems and other mental distractions, channeled them aside and won in impressive fashion.
How he did that was a combination of skill and, as he describes it, flying by the seat of his pants. Here he is again, and I quote him from yesterday.
“The biggest thing is just keeping an open mind,” he said. “I’m going to fly by the seat of my pants, fish what looks good, just roll with it.”
He went on to tell me that fishing his gut, instead of worrrying about putting together a full-scale pattern, is a wise move on unfamiliar water.
Think about that statement. Toledo Bend is 188,000 acres. Wheeler never fished here before in a tournament. No stressing over how to take it all fit into a pattern. The lesson the average angler can learn is focusing on a specifc area, instead of running around trying to fit the entire lake into a day of fishing.