Big Indiana Bass

OK, back to the Classic discussion. If you've followed the instructions, you now have a set of notes that contains the following: Average place of finish needed per tourney, average weights weighed in (per month/per lake) for that given position. So what next?

Now you can go forward and prepare yourself for every tournament you'll enter in that circuit knowing the weight you'll need to target and practice for in any given month, for every lake on the circuit. Chances are these are smaller weights than you might have thought. This is what gets most people in trouble. They think they have to compete against all these big sticks and find a tourney winning sack of fish, but that isn't the case. They swing for the fences, when in reality, they probably only need 1 or 2 fish in most cases in each tournament. So this completely allows you to keep everything in perspective all year long and assess exactly where you stand, and what needs to be done in every tourney. Lets look at a few more things in depth to wrap this up.

Rule #1: Don't blank - OK, that isn't a complete reality in Indiana no matter who you are. Don't believe me, go looking through the tourney results for any stick you want. On average, out of 200 guys fishing a circuit, most all will blank in at least 1 tourney at some point in the year. That's just the nature of Indiana fishing. The ones that don't blank will be the same ones competing for Angler-of-the-Year titles at the last tournament. Many will blank twice and still make the Classic. That's about it though. If you blank 3 times in any given circuit, odds are strong you won't make their year end cut.

So that leads back to Rule #1; Practice first to catch 1 keeper. I don't care how big it is, every fish is points, and points rule the ultimate outcome as to who goes to the Classic and who doesn't. Forget winning the tourney. Forget impressing your friends. Just try and figure out how to catch a keeper on any given lake. You want a spot or a pattern or an area that you can run to first thing and have a good chance at putting one keeper in the boat. Down-size baits, fish a release area, do whatever you can to get that first keeper in the well. From there you can move to Step #2.

Step #2 - Practice for your target weight for that tourney. You already have the numbers calculated. On some waters, this will be the same as Rule #1, because your calculations show that any keeper caught will get you the points you need. In others, you might need 3 or 5 pounds or more. Regardless, it is probably a fraction of what the winning weight will be, so don't waste time trying to find that mother load. Try and figure something out that will allow you to catch whatever your target weight is for that tourney. Take advantage of a morning bite if you can. Slow down and beat a good area to death where you know there are fish. Or just cover a lot of water trying to find some type pattern or high percentage tactic you can rely on. Realize you're probably only fishing for 1-3 keepers in most all scenarios. That's just 1 bite every 3-4 hours. It's easy to keep your head in the game when you have realistic expectations.

Step #3 - Swing for the fences, 1 fish at a time. This is the great part about this methodology. If you've done your work, both on paper and in practice, now you just have to execute. Get that first keeper in the boat as soon as you can on tourney day - remember Rule #1. If he happens to be enough to match your target weight, you can now swing for the fences and do whatever you need to do to try and win the tourney. If not, keep fishing smart based on your practice until you get another fish in the boat. Keep fishing hard until you meet your target weight. Once that is done, you have accomplished your goal for that day. You will now most likely get the minimum points you need and can fish without pressure the rest of the day. You can keep fishing smart or swing for the fences and it doesn't matter.

Don't make Indiana fishing any harder than it already is. The system works well if you'll use it. The last year (2003) that I fished the IBF circuit I ran this system the entire year and it was incredible how accurate everything was. I predicted the points cut for the Classic back in March based on my calculations and it turned out to be within 2 points of the actual cut come October. Practices were easy knowing I was only looking for enough bites to meet a small target weight instead of a big winning sack. That also translated to a very relaxed tourney atmosphere for me. In the tourneys where the fish came early and my targets were met quickly, all the pressure was off and I could just "go fishing" the rest of the day...and it payed off with 2nd and 6th place finishes in two of the events.

So be realistic, have some targets and goals set for each tourney, and practice accordingly. Don't let all the dock talk go to your head. When you hear someone say they whacked them in practice and they're on a winning sack of fish if they'll hold up, just smile and nod in agreement and stick to your plan. This is Indiana...His fish won't hold up ;)

The bass fishing tourney circuits are just starting to fire up here in Indiana, even if spring hasn't. Cabin fever tends to take hold and guys are just chomping at the bit to get out on the water and start fishing. Most circuits have a year end classic or regional to try and qualify for, yet that is a long ways off and out of many peoples mind at the moment. However, if you want to qualify for a year-end Classic, you need to be doing your homework right now. With a simple game plan applied to your tourneys all year long,  you can increase your odds tremendously of being one of those anglers fishing for "all the marbles" come October.

What is the secret? It starts with reviewing the historical qualification data from the previous 3 years for a given circuit. The large majority of the anglers fishing these circuits are the same from year to year. Additionally, the scheduled waters tend to be the same also. As such, the points cut-off to qualify for the Classic tends to be very consistent from year to year. So find the standings online for whatever circuit you're fishing and figure out the average number of accumulated points needed to qualify for their Classic for a given year. For example, if the past 3 years had points cuts of 205, 211 and 214, then the average points cut would be 210.

Now divide this average qualifying number by the number of individual tourneys that make up the circuit. In this example, if the circuit held 5 qualifying tournaments then the average points needed per tournament would be 42. If this circuit awarded 100 points for the winner, 99 for second, and so forth in each qualifying tourney, this means you would need to finish each tournament in 59th place or higher in order to receive those 42 points and qualify for their Classic.

Now, go back through the archived results and try and see what type weight it took for each tourney in a given month to place 59th (still from our example. Use whatever actual place your numbers determined for the circuit you're fishing). If possible, use only results from the same lake that matches where a particular tourney is going to be. Sometimes this is easy and sometimes not. Again, if a May tourney was going to be held on Patoka Res., try first to find all May tourney results from Patoka in previous years for this particular circuit. If you can't garner that specific information, then use any Patoka tourney data from that circuit regardless of month. What you want to find is the average weight it took to finish in 59th place in all these tourneys.

Do this for all the tourneys on the circuit. Some places this might be a decent weight, while on other tougher bodies of water you might find that 59 people didn't even come to the scales in the first place. In those instances, you just use the weight of the last place person and take note of that fact. This in a nutshell is the system.

Now you have the system in a nut shell. But you ask, "So What?" In Part II, I'll go into detail on why this process is so important to the overall plan and what you do with this information.