Posts: 3926
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No #*#*, last two years, I was out casting my first musky bait at 12:01am, right smack first minute of the opener. Fish for a for a few hours, sleep in the boat or truck, and get back out for first light and then I fish until I drop, delerious, to the bottom of the boat.
No other prefishing strategy for this boy. |
Posts: 2691
Location: Pewaukee, Wisconsin | esox50,
The approach we use in prefishing is to work the spots you would be working in the tournament days ahead of the tournament. As the tournament gets closer we switch to spots we are thinking about fishing if we bail on the primary spots.
Prefishing can be fun the day before because we use our pattern in similar spots and try to stick some fish as a confidence builder. We will pull a bait away from a fish if its in a spot we might fish. If its in a spot that lots of people are going to hit we will burn that fish, kind of like defence, if the fish is caught we don't have to worry about that fish being caught during tournament hours.
Multiple patterns are tested during different times of the day to find what works when.
Also talk to as many fishermen as you can to determine if the bite is off or your pattern is off. You might work the correct areas and patterns and get skunked, if the fish are off its not your spots or your pattern.
Cave Run is tough, fish can move up shallow and be caught very easy or they can move off the flats/structure and hang low for a few days and just shut down.
We caught a 43-incher the day before the tournament working a spot like the one we were going to start on tournament morning. This gave us the confidence in our pattern.
The problem with tournaments is patterns change and you need to addapt to the change very quickly. We stuck two fish in the first hour of day one and stuck with our pattern too long, we should have stuck with our game plan and went to plan B, working deeper timber in the afternoon.
Day two we couldn't run out pattern because of all the boats that were in the area, we should have went to our 2nd spot but burned a 43-incher there the day before. We stuck it out on our number one pattern and got a shorty, thinking maybe we could get one legal to go. We died on that spot.
All in all I would say to have multiple patterns and spots ready to go, make a game plan and stick to it. Sometimes the wind, weather and other boats will make you change your plans before you even get started. Thats when you go to the next step on you game plan.
Do you homework, make a game plan for the day and stick to it. Sometimes during tournament hours you might start questioning your pattern, that is when your prefishing will pay off, stick to what you know works and grind out a fish.
I like to fish at least three days before a tournament, prefish tournament hours, make notes of water temps, wind direction, water clairity and other important info.
If its a lake you know, just fish spots you will not fish during tournament hours, maybe do some confidence building in areas you know will kick out fish against you.
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