Pre Fishing

Unless you have a ton of time to prefish, the act should be about *quickly*
eliminating as much unproductive patterns & water as possible. I got the
crash course in prefishing this past year, and I'll kick butt in the future
because of it.

The worst thing you can do is look at a practice day as a day fishing. You
don't want to "pound" anything hard. You're not looking for a place to
catch a couple of fish in a few hours fishing. You're looking for a place
to win a tournament.

To do this you've gotta cover tons of water & work baits that will catch
aggressive fish. Believe me, if you find a place like this the fish will
let you know they're there in a hurry.

As for not prefishing at all, lol.

Warren
--
http://www.fishingworld.com/MesaTackleSupply/
http://www.outdoorfrontiers.com http://www.secretweaponlures.com
http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com/

"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
...
I have heard a number of guys say they never pre-fish a tournament because
they will go back to a spot and not catch any fish. Some say its bad
luck,
others say they don't want to "sore mouth" a bunch of fish.

Personally I think it is a lack of understanding of the changing
conditions.
I have a couple spots I have done well at because I knew there were fish
there.

For example:

I had fished a weedbed with no success using finesse baits. I knew there
were fish there, and a lot of them because when I moved up over the bed I
could see them. I went back on a very windy day and fished over the top
of
that weedbed with spinner baits and caught several nice fish.

In another location where I had a nice topwater bite earlier in the year I
noticed schools of shad moving through the area, but little or no topwater
action. Well, no feeding frenzy anyway. I fished it with deeper lures
instead of topwater and caught a couple nice fish, and had one killer
break
off on me.

I don't see how having been out on the water and knowing what was going on
in those locations could possible have hurt my fishing. I admit I did not
fish them the day before a tournament, but I didn't really think
prefishing
was about catching fish, but more about trying to understand what was
going
on.

On the Lower Colorado River where I do a lot of fishing of late we have
another circumstance that enters in. The river rises and falls constantly
which affects the water level in all the back lakes along the river. I
can
see if you find a good slack water bite in a back lake and then go back in
when the water is rising the fish will have moved, or gotten more
aggressive, or gotten less aggressive. I can see where that or other
changing conditions may make an angler perceive that they ruined a spot
for
a tournament by prefishing it.

I disagree with them. No not completely. I certainly would not go out on
a
Friday and hammer a spot I planned to fish for money on Saturday. I night
go look at the area and see if I could spot fish in clear conditions or
chart them in deeper water. I might hang out near a point or dock for an
hour or two to see if I could spot cruising schools of bait fish. Then
move
on to another area to see what I could see. I might also use a prefishing
day to cut brush into some of those nearly blocked off back waters like
this
channel

http://www.yumabassman.com/pictures/...ckChannel2.jpg

that leads into one nice size side canyon, and then through an even more
densely brushed over channel that lead into three more back lakes. I
literally ran my 20' Baker up out of the water in the front going over
weeds
to cut through some of these channels one day while exploring. I could
not
see the water. My partner was in the front of the boat telling me which
way
to turn the motor.

If I know there are fish back there I can take the time to get back there
on
a tournament day. Especially on a day when there are a high number of
anglers and all the prominent and well known spots are getting flailed by
amateurs and pros alike.

--
Bob La Londe
Yuma, Az
http://www.YumaBassMan.com
Promote Your Fishing, Boating, or Guide Site for Free
Simply add it to our index page.
No reciprocal link required. (Requested, but not required)

As for Warren's second post, I think he touched on something there. The
main part of pre-fishing or developing your pattern as you fish a body of
water over a multi day tournament is learning what not to do. I find that
by process of elimination you can learn how to avoid wasting time using
unproductive techniques. This past year my club had 3 2 day tournaments
(actually 2 separate tournaments on an away lake over a weekend) and all 3
weekends I managed to go from a 1 or 2 fish bag to either limiting or
winning on the second day. I would have had 2 wins except that I carelessly
fished out of bounds in my best tournament of the season. I would have won
that one by 4 pounds, but I went from a 2 pound day to a 10 pound day by not
doing what I did the day before.
And never listen to what your club members say is working, they will
generally try to throw you off even if you're friends. But then, you should
keep your secrets to yourself also.

Rich P