Well, I fished the ATX Bassmasters tournament on Lake Travis yesterday and ended up with mediocre results finishing right in the middle of the pack. \u00a0Overall, I’m satisfied with how I fished, but a few events during the tournament have left me with some thoughts and lessons to chew on. \u00a0I say that I’m satisfied with how I fished because I felt like I made mostly good decisions and I was on the fish needed to win. \u00a0I caught my limit, which I’m always happy about, but unfortunately, I lost a few fish that very possibly could have culled out some of the smaller fish I had in my limit at the end of the day. \u00a0The more and more I fish tournaments, the more and more I realize how vitally important it is to be what I call “mechanically perfect.” \u00a0More often than not, the difference between first place and second or third place is one fish. \u00a0Whether it is one big fish that helped put a guy to the top, or whether it’s one fish that the guy in second place lost. \u00a0The difference is usually one fish. \u00a0With that same line of thinking, in my case during yesterday’s tournament, the difference between first and finishing in the middle of the pack… was a few fish. \u00a0I lost three fish yesterday, and I’m sure at least one of them would’ve upped my weight, if not all three of them.<\/p>\n
Basically, what I mean by being mechanically perfect is that in order to consistently win tournaments, you need to operate almost as a well maintained machine. \u00a0This includes hundreds of aspects when it comes to putting together a flawless tournament. \u00a0My flaws yesterday rested on two things:<\/p>\n
1) Two of the bass I lost yesterday were lost fishing a drop-shot rig in water over 40ft deep (that’s fishing \u00a0really deep in the bass fishing world). \u00a0I believe I lost those fish because I was using a rod that was too short and too soft of action for that type of fishing. \u00a0That resulted in poor hook-sets. \u00a0I knew the rod was too short and too soft, but out of laziness and not wanting to re-tie a different rod, I used it anyway. \u00a0The shorter rod doesn’t pick up as much line as you sweep the rod up to set the hook, and the ultra light action of the rod had way too much give for fishing that deep. \u00a0You also have to consider that I was using monofilament fishing line and that stuff stretches an inch for every foot of line. \u00a0All bad combinations. \u00a0Bad decision on my part to stick with using that rod…<\/p>\n
2) The third fish I lost was a result of what I believe was a dull hook. \u00a0I was throwing a shaky head and had caught several fish on it already. \u00a0After unhooking one fish, I noticed that my hook point was beginning to look a little dull, so I pulled out my hook hone to sharpen it. \u00a0After sharpening it, I noticed that the hook was starting to look like it had been sharpened one too many times and was going to be impossible to restore a good sharp point on. \u00a0I thought I should probably tie on a new one and throw this one out, but the frugal part of me wanted to try and push it. \u00a0I continued using it and that’s when I lost the fish. \u00a0Needless to say, after losing it, I tied on a new one and threw out the dull one. \u00a0However, I should have done that immediately when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to sharpen it. \u00a0While some shaky heads might be a little pricy, this one was not. \u00a0It probably cost me less than 10 cents. \u00a0I should have thrown it out. \u00a0Stupid decision…<\/p>\n
I think that being mechanically perfect is continually a learning process. \u00a0At least I can check off a couple more things that will help me get there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, I fished the ATX Bassmasters tournament on Lake Travis yesterday and ended up with mediocre results finishing right in the middle of the pack. \u00a0Overall, I’m satisfied with how I fished, but a few events during the tournament have left me with some thoughts and lessons to chew on. \u00a0I say that I’m satisfied […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-89","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-fishing","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andermeine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}