Denny Brauer – Preparing the Tournament
Managing Your Bass and Dealing with the Weather
 Editor’s
Note: If Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri, was a
chess master, he’d be one of the best in the world.
Tournament bass fishing is much like a game of chess
in that you have to lay out a battle strategy first
with plenty of options, so that you can react and move
properly, depending on your opponent’s plan. Over
the years, Brauer has proved he knows how to play the
game. In mid-July 2006, Denny Brauer passed the $2 million
mark in earnings for tournament fishing on the Bassmaster’s
tournament circuit. The only other angler to achieve
this goal is Kevin VanDam, who’s also a Strike
King pro. No one ever can doubt that these two anglers
know how to find and catch bass anywhere in the country,
under any water and weather conditions and against the
toughest competition in the nation. As most athletic
coaches know, preparation is the key to winning. This
week, we’ll talk with Brauer about how he prepares
to fish the Lake Champlain tournament, and what he does
to win.
Question: What kind of tournament is this that you’ll
be fishing at New York’s Champlain in mid-July,
2006?
Brauer: All the contestants will be fishing the first
two days. Then the field is cut to 50 contestants to
fish day three. At the end of day three, the field will
be cut to 12 to fish the final day.
Question: How do you lay a strategy to fish in this
type of tournament?
Brauer: The good news is that the weight of your fish
for all four days counts. In other words, if you make
all the cuts, the winner is based on the total weight
for all four days fished rather than all the weights
at the end eliminated after each cut. The first two
days, I’ll be trying to catch two big bags of
fish to make the cut to fish the third day. I’ll
be trying to fish day three to build that stringer to
get into the finals. To make all the cuts and win the
tournament, I know I can’t burn out an area (catch
all the bass there). If I have a key spot where I’m
catching most of my bass, I have to manage it so that
I continue to catch another bass each day to stay in
the tournament and possibly catch bass in that spot
on the last day. There’s a lot of d ecision-making
that takes place once you locate a bass hot spot.
Question: Denny, how do you know when it’s time
to leave a spot and not overfish it? Aren’t you
afraid that another tournament angler will find that
spot and fish it if you leave it?
Brauer: Finding someone in your fishing spot can happen.
You have to decide how many pounds of bass you have
to catch each day to stay in the tournament. For instance,
does it require you to catch 15 pounds of bass each
day to stay in the tournament? Or, do you need to take
17 pounds per day to remain in the tournament? On a
lake like Champlain, I know that bringing in 15 pounds
each day will cause me to become disappointed. I also
know that if I catch 17 to 18 pounds per day, I can
make any cuts and stay in the tournament. Only a few
pounds difference each day can be huge in a tournament
like this. I know that when I hit that 17- to 18-pound
mark (pounds of bass in the boat) I need to back off
those bass and save them for the next day. But, until
I get to that 17- to 18-pound mark, I have to continue
to fish hard until I reach that weight.
Question: In other words, you set a goal for how many
pounds you want to catch that day, and once you catch
that poundage, you back off your fish, right?
Brauer: That’s right. But you never know. If the
other anglers are all catching 20 pounds, and you’re
stopping at 18 pounds, you’re still going to get
blown out of the water. You still have to have some
goals for when you stop, so you can manage the bass
you find and still have more to catch for all four days.
Question: Okay, Denny, how do you deal with weather
in a tournament like this? Let’s say you start
off with bluebird days, and the weather forecast is
nothing but bluebird days throughout the tournament.
However, for some unknown reason, you have one of those
freak storms blow in that produces a torrential downpour,
muddies-up the lake and makes the water terribly rough.
How do you adjust to a situation like this in a tournament?
Brauer: I prepare for that to happen during practice.
If I’m making a long run into the north or the
south end of the lake during practice, I’ll attempt
to find some spots close to the takeoff area where I
can fish and catch bass, in case I get one of those
bad weather conditions. If we get a wind blowing 25-miles
per hour on a tournament day, and I have to make a long
run to get to my fish, that long run isn’t going
to happen. It will take too much time, I’ll have
to go slow, and even when I arrive at my spot, the weather
may be too rough to fish. At practice, you have to consider
all weather variations that may happen and create backup
spots that you can get to and fish if you have bad weather.
Lake Champlain is a huge body of water. Therefore, weather’s
a major factor to consider if you fish a lake like this
one. The weather can mess up so many different places
that I have to have backup plans where I may be able
to use two or three different tactics to catch bass
close to the takeout point where I have protected water.
Question: You’re pre-fishing right now. During
pre-fishing, besides finding the spots that you want
to run into to win the tournament, are you also finding
backup spots that you can fish if you have bad weather?
Brauer: Absolutely. I’ve had a reasonably good
practice day, today, which is the first day. Tomorrow,
I’ll be going to a totally-different area, which
will offer me protection if the weather goes bad. You
have to do different things and fish various ways to
be prepared for that bad weather. You want to make sure
that you don’t lose the tournament by betting
on a few good spots that it takes good weather to reach.
Question: Denny, that’s pretty much the difference
between professional and amateur anglers, isn’t
it? The pro has backup plans regardless of the weather
and water conditions.
Brauer: That’s exactly right. I always have plans
A, B and C, no matter what the weather does, what area
of the lake I can fish, and how I need to fish it. Even
if everything goes as planned, according to the weather,
you may get to your spot where you plan to win the tournament
and four or five other anglers, either locals or other
competitors, already may be there. You have to have
all these other plans in place for the “what ifs.”
You can’t go to a place, find out you can’t
fish it and then have to ask yourself, “Now what
do I do?” Once in awhile, during a tournament,
I’ll go to regions I’ve never fished before
because they’re part of my plan. I feel that those
areas are right for that situation.
Tomorrow: Pattern Fishing vs.
Small Fishing
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