It seems like every year lately — three to be exact — I find myself writing a column about how I’m up against it, fighting for a spot in next year’s GEICO Bassmaster Classic. I don’t know what the deal is, but I can say that it’s starting to get old.
The Classic matters to me. It’s one of the three goals I set for myself at the beginning of every season. Reaching that goal is far from a given when you’re sitting in 44th place in the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year race. But that’s the bad news.
The good news is that I’m only a few points away from qualifying. That makes it doable if I can up my game in the last three tournaments. They’re my kind of events so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to make the climb.
There’s a risk in that kind of thinking, however. It’s best described as the perils of fishing water you know. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and, even worse, you can think you know things you don’t.
All three remaining events are being held on moving water venues. That means they change over time. Sometimes that change can occur in a matter of hours. At other times it can take years. Nevertheless, change is the one constant on these bodies of water and being a touring professional angler makes it impossible to keep up with those changes.
These places might be close to me and I might have fished them a lot in the past but the reality is that I don’t fish them much anymore. The reasons for that are practical. I’m on the road a lot so there isn’t always time. And, to be brutally honest with you, when I do finally get home I don’t always want to launch my boat and go bass fishing. Sometimes it’s nice to just kick back, relax and spend downtime with the family.
When I do practice on them, however, I follow pretty much a set plan. I spend about half of my time looking at places I already know about. I check for changes and for things that will affect the bite come tournament time.
The other half of my time is spent differently. I look at the water as if I’ve never fished it before. That’s not easy but you can train yourself to do it if you are willing to put in the time and effort. Sometimes I go so far as to buy new maps that I haven’t written on or marked up. That way I’m not distracted by my past.
If you fish the same body of water all the time I strongly recommend you give this approach a try. It’s no accident that many of our tournaments are won by guys who have limited experience on the water, and in many cases the hometown guys struggle.
I realize that recently we’ve had some exceptions to what I’ve just said. It’s still true, though. A fresh look is always worth the effort. I call it doing it all over again.
Mike Iaconelli’s column appears weekly on Bassmaster.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter or visit his website, mikeiaconelli.com.
