Lessons learned...

If a fisherman can learn something each time he goes out on the water, then it is a productive day.
Although I did not qualify for the Toyota Texas Bass Classic at the qualifier down on Choke Canyon in Texas this year in February, I was able to learn several valuable things during practice and in the tournament that will help me in my career. The top of the list of things that I learned was sight fishing. I will be the first to admit that I am not an expert when it comes to this technique. Here at home we are very limited in the time we have to practice this and it has cost me in a few events. At Choke Canyon the fish were moving up faster than I was expecting and by tournament time they were on the bank. I had to either learn quickly or sink right then and there if I were to have any chance at all in weighing in a fish. I tied on three different lures to entice the fish. The first was a Strike King seven inch finesse worm. The second was a Strike King white tube and the third was a shad looking swim bait. I ended up catching fifty percent of my fish looking at them, forty nine percent of them blind casting to bedding fish, and only one fish on the bait that I had caught all of my fish on in practice which was a Kevin VanDam three quarter ounce spinner bait. The other important lesson was to prepare for any changing weather conditions and what the fish will do in the event that the weather does change. On the first day of practice the temperature was around 40 degrees. The water temp was 57. I focused on trees at the mouths of big pockets in about ten feet of water. I caught eight keepers out of the trees and my best five would easily top over twenty pounds. The next day the weather warmed and I looked in only a couple of pockets for bedding fish. The water temp was also warming. I had no idea that fish would move up that fast and I was basically caught with my pants down. I had to scramble. I managed to salvage both days of the event with around twenty eight pounds but I ran out of fish. Lesson learned. I need to learn to bed fish more and anticipate fish movement the best I can. This is just another hurdle that I had to jump over. That is why they call it fishing, not catching.