MORE ON MARK DAVIS AND HIS $100,000 WEEKEND
Stay in Focus
EDITOR'S
NOTE: Mark Davis of Mt. Ida, Arkansas, has won three
of the five Bassmasters Elite 50 tournaments with the
participants chosen from the top Angler-of-The-Year
finishers on the Bassmasters circuit for the past three
years, along with the top-10 all-time money Bassmasters
winners. Bassmasters has designated these 50 anglers
as the best bass professional fishermen in the world.
The events of this type of tournament include competition
among all 50 contestants the first two days. Then the
tournament eliminates all but the top 12 fishermen,
who have all their fish weights erased to allow all
12 to compete equally. The course, which originally
has included almost anywhere on a lake, also changes.
Bassmasters declares six areas off-limits, and the fishermen
have to fish the final two days in each of these six
areas. This Elite 50 competition tests all aspects of
bass-fishing skills. For any one angler to win three
out of five of these events, he has to know bass inside
and out and be doing something different from the other
fishermen. This week, I’ll pick Davis's brain
to learn how he's beat the best of the best in three
out of five competitions and how you can become the
best bass fisherman you can.
The real secret to staying focused when you're bass
fishing and not worrying about how many fish the other
competitors have or haven't caught is your ability to
learn to fish for fish and not fish the competition.
If you're totally concentrating on trying to learn what
the bass on the lake you're fishing are doing on the
day you're fishing, there's no way you can be concerned
about what the other tournament fishermen are doing
in the competition. Remember, when you're competing,
there's only you and the fish. Nothing else and no one
else really exists during that competition, and you're
wasting time and energy and losing the tournament when
you spend your time being concerned with what another
fisherman or group of fishermen are doing. You can know
for certain that you'll drastically cut your chances
for winning anytime the thought of another fisherman
enters your mind. If and when that happens, just say
to yourself, "I'm giving that other fisherman the
tournament because he's not thinking about me. He's
thinking of the fish he's trying to catch."
Killers in a tournament are these types of thoughts:
* "I'm behind 5 pounds. I have to put it in gear
and catch up."
* "I wonder how many pounds Kevin VanDam has caught?"
* "I wonder what color crankbait George Cochran
is fishing?"
* "I've got to catch three bass in 10 minutes,
and I don't know how I'm going to do it."
* "I've got to catch a big bass on these next 10
casts, or I'll lose this tournament."
* "I've got a 2-pound lead, but there's still 1-1/2
hours until the end of the tournament. I don't have
a bass in the livewell."
All these things are distractions that will keep you
from thinking about what the bass are doing and what
you need to be doing to catch them. So, as hard as it
is, one of the real secrets of winning the tournament,
especially a big tournament, is to believe that on that
day, on that lake, only you, God and the fish exist.
There's nothing more important than your paying attention
to and listening to what the fish are telling you, whether
they're biting or not biting, because if you don't maintain
that level of concentration, I promise you the biggest
fight of the day is
always going to happen just when you're worrying about
how many bass Kevin VanDam has caught, how far you are
behind in the tournament, or how many bass you need
to catch to win.
Really and truly, winning a bass tournament is simple.
You just have to think about one more bite, one more
bass or one more thing you need to know that you don't
know. Once again, nothing else and no one else really
matter. Most of the time when a fisherman loses the
tournament, if he's honest with himself, he'll see that
generally the bass haven't beaten him nor the other
competitors. He's really beat himself, because he's
been thinking about something other than that next cast
or fishing the bait from the time it hits the water
until it's on the way back to the boat and then inside
the boat. I try to tell myself, "Put your best
foot forward regardless of whether:
* "the bass are biting or not biting”
* "the weather is good or bad”
* "you're leading or losing the tournament”
* "you feel good, or you feel lousy."
I know that if I don't give up on my area, if I don't
run to the other end of the lake in a panic, and if
I don't try to fish every lure in my tacklebox in the
last hour of the tournament, I still have a chance to
win. If I get frustrated on the water and catch myself
about to panic,
I calm down and start fishing the lures and tactics
that I feel I can catch bass on always. When crunch
time or do-or-die time arrives in a tournament, you
have to have a lure tied on that you know, regardless
of what's going on in the world, that you can use to
catch a bass. If you're fishing with one of your confidence
baits, you'll fish slower and more deliberately, hit
your targets better and fish with more confidence. I
have about 24 baits that I call my confidence baits.
However, if I had to narrow the field down to four,
my four picks would be:
* the Strike King jig, either black-and-blue or some
variation of brown and green;
* the Strike King Series 3 crankbait in a chartreuse,
a crawfish color or a shad color;
* the 3/4-ounce Quad Shad spinner bait;
* a Carolina-rigged 3X Strike King plastic lizard in
the green-pumpkin color.
When I win, I rarely win on any kind of fancy lure that
you can't go to the tackle store and buy.
TOMORROW: THE STREAK
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