The Little Things

Ask any professional bass tournament angler what is the one secret that he has that
makes him successful and more than likely he will tell that there is no such thing
as one secret bait or technique.  He will probably go on to tell you that it is 
the hundred or so little things that he does that add up to success.

The little things:  small, subtle, things that we do each day we are on the water.
The little things:  tasks, real or fake, that cause our confidence to increase. 
The little things: time saving maneuvers or pre planning that allow us to take advantage
of every minute of our fishing day.

I fished in a buddy tournament the other day with my good friend Charlie.  We fished
hard all day long and caught a lot of fish.  By our count we caught 18 keeper sized
fish, (counting the ones that I farmed!)

On the drive home, arms and shoulders sore from deep cranking half of the day, my
mind began to wander as I tried to decide how many casts we had to make to catch
one fish.  It is really simple math, decide how many casts we made all day long 
and divide that by the number of fish.  

Between the deep cranking pattern we had going in the morning, and the flipping 
bite we had in the afternoon, I decided we must have averaged about two casts per
angler  or four casts per boat for each minute of our fishing day.

With 60 minutes in an hour, I figure our average per hour was 240 casts.  Our tournament
day was eight hours long, so doing the math, I concluded that in total, Charlie 
and I made one thousand, nine hundred and twenty casts during the coarse of the 
day.

Now it is time to figure the amount of casts I need to make to catch a keeper fish.
Doing the simple calculation, I discovered that between Charlie and I, we made an
average of 160 casts to catch one fish.  So, we could expect to catch one keeper
fish every 160 casts.

Our day on the water turned out to be pretty uneventful. We never caught a big fish
to go with our limit and we finished in 27th place.  The thing that haunts me is
that I knew I would catch a bigger fish if I could just fish a little longer.

The answer that keeps coming back to me is to find a way to increase the number 
of casts that I can make, so that I give myself a chance to catch that next fish.

Professional tour pro, Darryl Burkhardt dedicates himself to a rigorous physical
training schedule that he says allows him to cope with physical stress that goes
with fishing hard all day long.  Burkhardt is convinced that his workout allows 
him to fish at a strong pace all day long.  If I am in good shape, can I fish as
hard the last hour as I did the first?  Would a strict exercise program allow me
to make an extra 160 casts in a day?

Connecticut pro Terry Baksay uses a device called the ultimate lure saver, which
he says allows him to fish in heavier cover and to retrieve his bait fast when it
hangs up on a deep log.  Instead of retying, Baksay, just clips a new hook on and
he is off to fishing. Would using a quick release clip allow me to make an extra
160  casts in a day?

Fellow Californian and FLW pro, Fred Roumbanis has taken to fishing braided fishing
lines exclusively.  He says that with braided line, he never has to re tie his lures.
Hey, I bet I retied my crank bait about 15 times this past weekend.  How long does
it take to re tie a crank bait?  Could using braided line save me the time of having
to re tie my crank bait 15 times in a day?  Would that allow me make an extra 160
casts in a day?

I think you can see where this is going.  The pros are the ones who take control
of all they can control.  Ultimately you cannot control whether the fish bite or
not, but you can control the factors that allow you to make and extra 160 or even
320 casts during a tournament day.  

You must study your own fishing style and look for areas that you can improve.  
Iâ€m sure that you wonâ€t find one large item in your fishing that will suddenly
make everything work out.  But I bet if you look closely, you will find out that
in your own bass fishing, it is the little things that matter.