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Old 05-06-11, 01:23 PM   #1
jcw1503
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Default first tourney in a year. good and bad

I fished my first tourney in a while yesterday. First off my partner couldn't make it so I had to fish myself verse 30 other boats with 2 ppl in them. AS It went on I kept catching a bunch of 12 inch fish. THE size limit was 14. I only had 3 keepers so I thought I would get killed. I finished 6. I was 2.5 pounds from winning it and 4 ounces from big fish. OVErall I didn't place in the money but I came out with a little confidence since I haven't fish that lake in a year and they fish it about every week.
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Old 05-06-11, 03:31 PM   #2
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Ok during the 3.5 hour tournament I spent 2 hours on one rocky dam wall and caught my 3 keepers there. I then made the decision to move and I didn't catch anything else. Did I make a mistake?
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Old 05-07-11, 06:08 PM   #3
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Cudos on the finish! I would say no on the mistake. You made a decision and stuck with it, it just didn't pay off. I believe if your gonna make a decision you should commit to it. Staying may or may not have paid off either, and then you would think " I should have moved". I try not to leave fish to find fish, but have done just that plenty of times.
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Old 05-07-11, 06:35 PM   #4
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Mistake or not was a decision you made based on either a slow bite or thinking the grass is greener over on the other side of the fence,it often is.
That said why do we always leave fish to go find fish,if one must move find same type of fishing like a bluff wall,here on ky lake right now they are stacking on such.Only mud ones here not rocky ones.
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Old 05-07-11, 07:36 PM   #5
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Congratulations on the respectable finish. I don't believe you made a mistake, I think you made a decision that didn't work out and you ended up with a learning opportunity. Without being there and seeing how the day unfolded for you it's going to be hard for anyone to correctly diagnose what happened with your decision. I think all of us tourney anglers let that little voice in our heads talk us into making some decisions that we later regret, but there are times when that little voice will bail your butt out of a bad situation too. It's all about knowing when to listen to that little voice and when not to. I have to ask though, when you left the spot where you caught your fish did you revisit it later in the day to try and fill out your limit when you were striking out everywhere else or to maybe see if some bigger fish moved up throughout the day? No way of knowing if it would have made a difference or not but maybe it's something to keep in mind next time. One of the hardest things to do in tournament fishing is to stick to a decision when it doesn't pay off quickly. Knowing that time is money and you are spinning your wheels is a recipe for a mental meltdown, so you did the right thing by sticking to your decision. It's just a matter of making the best possible decisions and that is a trial and error process that doesn't always work out so don't lose too much sleep over it. I wish I had a dollar for everytime I made a decision that I knew was the right one and came up empty handed. When you get home and look at it in a different frame of mind and still think you made the right decision but came up empty then you know it just wasn't your day.
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Old 05-07-11, 08:16 PM   #6
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I wouldn't say you made a mistake. From what you have said, the size of the bass were smaller than what you wanted, and so you were simply trying to locate better fish. You had no way of knowing what size bass the other anglers were catching. Had I been in your shoes, may I would have done the same thing. But maybe waitted untill I had my limit first. But not having been in your boat, I'm not going to say that for sure. Follow your gut instinct. It will pay off more often than not.
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Old 05-07-11, 09:36 PM   #7
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I have heard that you don't leave fish to find fish unless you havea limit and are looking for cull fish. Just what I have heard. Good solo finish!
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Old 05-07-11, 09:48 PM   #8
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THE tournament was only 3.5 hours long. I spent 2+ hours at the same spot. AND no bites for the last 45 minutes. It's not like there is a lot of time waste. SO staying there to finish my limit is very tough to tell yourself to do. I guess I will never know.
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Old 05-07-11, 10:33 PM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jcw1503 View Post
THE tournament was only 3.5 hours long. I spent 2+ hours at the same spot. AND no bites for the last 45 minutes. It's not like there is a lot of time waste. SO staying there to finish my limit is very tough to tell yourself to do. I guess I will never know.
With those circumstances I say that leaving that area to try and top off a limit and possibly upgrade was the right decision. It just so happens that it didn't work out, but things hardly ever work out like you plan in your head. That is what makes it so special when things do work out. I think it boils down to a good decision and a bad outcome. Don't worry too much about it, it will all fall into place for you one of these days.
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Old 05-22-11, 06:30 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jcw1503 View Post
Ok during the 3.5 hour tournament I spent 2 hours on one rocky dam wall and caught my 3 keepers there. I then made the decision to move and I didn't catch anything else. Did I make a mistake?
The obvious answer is yes you made a mistake! ...It's a simple fact; you didn't upgrade your stringer so you can call it a mistake.

HOWEVER; I think you made the right decision. I think this based on something else you said: "As it went on I kept catching a bunch of 12 inch fish. The size limit was 14. I only had 3 keepers so I thought I would get killed." Based on that statement it sounds like you THOUGHT you needed to catch one or two much larger fish to win and the area you were in only had smaller fish. Needing one or two larger fish is typically the case in tournaments. IMHO... if you have your limit and don't think there are larger fish where you're at, it is correct to move.

You did tell us that you had 3 keepers and that the minimum size limit was 14 inches. What you didn't tell us was how much each of your fish weighed and how many total bass you could weigh... I'm assuming it was a 3 bass limit and that your 3 bass were between 14 and 16 inches? If you had caught a 5+ pounder, I might have been inclined to stay in the area you were at hoping another big fish might be lurking. Also, if the limit was 4 bass I might have stayed long enough to catch a limit before trying to move to find a bigger fish.

Then again, I've only fished 3 tournaments: One tournament I didn't catch a single keeper and another tournament I didn't catch a single fish... so doing the exact opposite of what I think might be a pretty good strategy!

Last edited by IowaBasser; 05-22-11 at 06:35 AM.
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Old 05-27-11, 06:40 PM   #11
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I think you did the right thing. Being that you didn't have much time left and not a hook up in 45 min. Right thing to do. Good luck on the next one!
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