In the world of Professional
Bass Fishing there are what I consider the six major necessities, which
I call the six pack. And I am going to attempt to break each one of
them down for you in this article.
The first one being Desire. An angler must have the desire
to be successful. Meaning you really have to want it bad enough.
I believe that good things come
to those who want it most, not those who wait. Waiting is like putting
a night crawler on the hook, and waiting for Mr. Bass to find it
using his senses. Nahh,
I would rather find Mr. Bass, then present (or trick him into) eating a
scrumptious plastic morsel.
Competitiveness, one must be competitive
in the sport of tournament fishing, I don't know about you, but
I am not into donating my
money to tournaments for someone else to win. I want to win, and or just
do the best I can to
make me feel like I am giving my all.
Determination, An angler
must have the determination to pay his dues, no matter what. It doesn't
matter
if it is
4:00am sleeting, and you have 30 mile an hour wind gust, you must be
determined to get out there, learn how to find your own fish, and learn
how to get
them in the boat during this, and
all types of weather.
Versatility, It is a must to be versatile,
when tournament fishing, or just fishing period. One day, a Manns
1 minus is slaying
the fish, and in a matter of a few minutes, nothing. You have to
be versatile enough to switch baits, maybe to a six-inch Pumpkinseed
Gambler
Bacon
Rind, and figure out
what will turn them on next.
Honesty, this is a must. You
must be honest with those you fish with as well as yourself. A
lot of anglers
don't
think this
makes a difference, but this one does. I believe in the law of
cause and effect. For every good, or bad action, there is a good,
or bad
reaction. For instance,
remember that line that got caught on you trolling motor and caused
you to waste 30 minutes out of your fishing time on your last tournament,
well
have you ever
thought about the fact that it could have been because of the bad
line that you threw in the water a month ago, back at home on the
river,
where
it didn't matter?
Now you know what I am talking about.
Professionalism, this
last factor to me is probably the most important one. It is remaining
professional
during
all tournaments, and heck in life in general. It gives a bad
name to the fishing industry to see or hear of an angler who has
been
Unprofessional
during prefish,
or a tournament. For instance, I was prefishing the Columbia
River, in Kennewick, WA, preparing for an Invitational, and was fishing
about 2
boat
lengths away
from another angler. We were both fishing a set of docks at the
marina. One of the anglers in the other (and I mean other) boat
couldn't
control his jig, and
kept pitching it up on the docks, and having to get out of his
boat and go retrieve it from these docks. After about 5 times
of
this,
the marina
attendant, asked
the guy to fish elsewhere, so that he would not do any damage
to any of the boats. ( whereas a 1/2oz jig, can do any boat paint
damage). ! ! The
angler got very,
very loud, and boisterous with the attendant, before he left.
Now
I
was so embarrassed that I went up to the attendant to apologize
on the behalf
of all anglers, for
if I didn't that guy would have thought that all tournament anglers,
will act like the OTHER guy did. So on a good note, these six
factors, will
and can make
one a better tournament angler, or person for that matter.
Donuel E. Bruno
