Adapt techniques or suffer

Every Bassmaster Elite Series offseason is filled with the business aspects of being a professional angler. It takes a surprisingly significant amount of time to order tournament jerseys, rig our new boats, negotiate contracts and make sponsor appearances. While none of us became pro anglers in order to sit behind a desk, it’s a necessary part of the job and none of us have any right to complain about it as we know that most of our fans would trade lifestyles with us in a heartbeat.

Offseason prep isn’t just limited to office work and tackle organization. It’s a key time to learn new techniques. Trust me, you don’t want to be trying something that makes you uncomfortable during a tournament with a Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year title, a Classic berth or a much-needed check on the line. Therefore it makes sense to use a significant portion of your “downtime” testing out new presentations.

The Internet has made that process somewhat easier, but I’m still pretty hardheaded about things. I tend to avoid help from friends because I like to go through the trial and error period on my own. Otherwise, you end up fishing something exactly the way that other people do. I know that even with my own confidence techniques like cranking, there are little twists that might work only for me and not for others, so I assume that it’s the same when I’m trying things that don’t come quite as naturally. By the time I get to a specific event, I want to be reasonably capable with any technique that’s likely to be a major player. Otherwise the tendency is to try to force feed the fish things they don’t want to eat and that’s a recipe for disaster.

Looking ahead to this year’s schedule it seems pretty clear that the event that is most likely to throw a curveball at many of us is the season opener on Cherokee Lake. The water is going to be very cold and the fish are probably not going to respond to power fishing presentations. That takes a lot of my favorite ways to catch them off the table. With that in mind I’ve spent a lot of time trying to learn things that I’ve heard about but haven’t really experimented with previously.

At times it’s not fun. You sit there in your hotel room rigging up tackle and you’re not sure if you have the right gear. Then you get out on the water and you might go an hour – or several hours – without a bite. That’s when the doubt really starts to play tricks on your mind. You may never really dial it in, but some of the most rewarding times I’ve spent in tournament preparation have come when I finally figured out how to make something work.

I don’t know exactly how you’ll know when you’ve mastered something new. For me, I know I’m tournament ready when I can pull up on a school and truly believe that I’m catching them better on that technique than I could on anything else. Sometimes you’ll catch a few on something new, then experiment with something in your comfort zone and realize that you’ve made the right choice. When it looks and feels good to you, that’s when it’s tournament ready.

Of course just because you understand how to implement a particular game plan doesn’t mean you are 100 percent ready to make it happen. Sometimes in order to maximize your effectiveness you need different equipment, including things that don’t yet exist. Fortunately, I have great sponsors like Power Tackle Rods and Strike King who are willing to work with me to put the right tools in my hands.

I got back from a pre-fishing trip to Cherokee Lake just before a major storm nailed the Southeast and I immediately got on the phone to some of my industry friends to try to get a few products ready before the season starts. It’ll be a rush, of course, and it’ll require some time behind the desk, but that’s a small price to pay to give myself the best opportunity at a great season on tour.