Bass Club Digest

The regular season tournaments were one-day events but the championship will be a two-day fish-off. In the single-day tournament you just concentrated on catching a big bag for that day, but now you face the challenges of making adjustments, finding enough fish and managing your spots so you can put together consistent catches both days to win the fish-off.

Bass club anglers regularly fish single-day events, but whether they are in a federated or independent club, they usually qualify for some type of multiple-day championship. The extra day of fishing separates the best from the rest of the club.

“I think multiple-day tournaments take more of the luck factor out of the fishing because in one day a guy can literally stumble on to one or two big bites that make a difference,” says Mike Baskett, a member of the Central Valley Bass Club in Salem, Ore., who won the three-day 2008 BASS Federation Nation Western Divisional. “A multiple-day tournament becomes more of a thinking man’s game of finding and working your fish. You have to be smart enough to come out on top.”

The Oregon angler has competed in enough championships that he prefers fishing multiple-day tournaments and now sometimes struggles in one-day events. “In a one-day tournament you can run and gun and hit a bunch of different spots or you can really try to milk an area. But you don’t have time to do both,” says Baskett. “In a multi-day tournament if you try one thing the first day and it doesn’t work you can adapt and do something else the next day. Hopefully, it works out, you can get back in the thick of things.”

Eight years of competing in multiple-day state qualifiers in Louisiana gave Ascension Area Anglers club member Jamie Laiche the experience he needed to win consecutive BASS Federation Nation Central Divisionals in 2007 and 2008. “You have to adjust to the elements and all of the variables that come along with multiple-day tournaments, such as weather or fishing pressure,” says Laiche. “If you do well the first day there might be more pressure in the area you are fishing the next day or two.”

Preparations
“No matter whether it is a single- or multiple-day tournament, you have to do your homework,” says Mexico (Missouri) Bassmasters club member Brian Maloney. He qualified for both The Bass Federation National Championship and the BASS Federation Nation Championship in 2008. “You have to know the water level and flow, the seasonal patterns and baits.”

Mental preparations have been a key to Laiche’s success in marathon tournaments. “I study my maps real hard,” he discloses. “When I go into a single- or multiple-day event I try to have a game plan.” The Louisiana angler tries to set up his next day of fishing on the map and figures out where to move and when and what changes he might have to make depending on water and weather conditions.

Searching for several productive spots in practice enhances your chances for success in multi-day events. “It is naïve of anyone to think that they have a super secret spot nobody else is going to fish and that they can work it over for several days,” Baskett warns.

In his first multi-day tournament, Maloney made the mistake of relying on one area. “What I did wrong in practice was I found an area holding big fish and I was scared to venture out the rest of the practice to find other areas,” he recalls. “I got so excited that I had found some fish. I thought I was on top of it, so I stayed in that area playing around trying to find out every little thing I could, but I didn’t give myself a chance to learn the entire lake.”

The number of spots you need to win multi-day tournaments depends on the fishery. When he won the Central Divisional on Lewis & Clark Reservoir in South Dakota, Laiche encountered low-water conditions on the pool of the Missouri River and had only three productive spots to fish. However, his divisional victory at Ross Barnett in 2007 was on a reservoir with numerous ledges, so Laiche was able to run to 25 to 30 spots throughout the event. He noticed bass were feeding at specific times at each spot so he established a timetable each day of trying to be at a certain ledge at a certain time.

Developing multiple patterns in practice will also increase your chances for a high finish when you have to fish extra days. “Any time you can establish multiple patterns it is going to help you,” says Maloney. “You are not afraid of running out of fish when you have multiple patterns working.”

Abandoning a pattern too early is the downside of having multiple patterns. “If the action is not fast and furious on a pattern that doesn’t always mean that it is done,” says Baskett. “Just about every tournament is going to have multiple patterns. I would say that if you have developed multiple patterns you should stay with the one you have the most confidence in.”
Fish management

One of the biggest challenges you face in multi-day events is figuring out how many fish to take out of your best spot without burning out the hole. When fishing a single-day tournament, you can catch every fish that bites in one spot. But when competing for multiple days it is best to catch a five-fish limit from one spot and expand on your pattern elsewhere. Or you could pursue a kicker fish in another area.

“It is up to that angler to decide what weight he is comfortable in having in the livewell before leaving that area,” says Baskett. “Hopefully he can pull into a spot, get that weight quickly and spend the rest of the day trying to expand on what he has found if he did come across a pattern.”

Deciding how long to stay on their most productive spot is a judgment call all anglers must make during multiple-day competition. “Use your best judgment, sometimes it pays and sometimes it doesn’t,” says Laiche, who thought he managed fish too well at his best spot during the 2007 BASS Federation Nation Championship. “I believe I could have won the event if I would have just culled two or three more times or stayed there a little longer to wait for the bigger fish to start biting. But it was a three-day event and I knew I needed to catch a limit every day to make the (Bassmaster) Classic.” Laiche took second overall in the event but did qualify for the Classic by finishing as the top angler of the Central Division.
Maloney recommends pacing yourself on spots and avoid listening to the dock talk about how much weight it will take each day to win the tournament. “I have gone out on the first day and burned the biggest stringer that I can but I struggled the rest of the tournament because I burned some big fish,” says Maloney. “The approach I take now for multiple-day tournaments is that I have to put five fish in the livewell every day of the tournament. When you look at multiple-day tournaments and see those top 10 to 20 guys, a good percentage of those guys didn’t have big daily weights but they usually put five fish in the boat every day. I really believe a guy who can establish consistent weights every day will always rise to the top.”

Your chances of winning your club’s multi-day championship will increase dramatically if you establish multiple patterns and discover a good selection of areas that allow you to make adjustments to all the variables you will encounter each competition day.

Go for broke or stay the course?

You just blanked on the first day of your club’s multi-day championship, so now what do you do?

“Since it is a multiple-day tournament you can make up for bad decisions,” says Brian Maloney. “If you know your spot has fish you go back to it. If you had confidence in that place and you are leaving it, then you have zero confidence.” He suggests going back to your confidence spot the next day and try it for a while to see if it will produce before trying something different.

If he has a poor first day, Mike Baskett sticks to his game plan. “I have a hard time going for broke with any confidence,” he admits. “I feel I have a better chance bringing in good fish doing something I have confidence in. Sometimes guys have been able to go for broke and make a comeback but much more often you read about the guys that try and don’t.”

Jamie Laiche is one of those guys who will gamble if he suffers a day-one disaster. “I will go for broke,” he says. “If I just bomb and my primary pattern didn’t hold up I might go to a totally different area where I might have gotten one big fish to bite in practice. I’ll go stick it out there and try to catch five big fish.” — John Neporadny Jr.

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