Story by Hunter Sales | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
Every year that I have fished as a touring angler, I have learned more than I thought possible. We are part of an ever-changing sport and constant learning is required to be successful. Today, we’re going to dive into the lessons that I learned throughout the 2024 season with the NPFL. Throughout this season, I altered the way I prepared, the way I practiced, and the way I spent my tournament hours. I would argue that in many ways I completely rebranded myself as a tournament angler.
At the conclusion of the 2023 season, I was frustrated with my performance and knew that I had to make some changes if I wanted to see success. Growing up, I had learned to fish without FFS and I was slow to adapt to the efficiency of the product. Regardless of your opinion of the technology, it’s clear that you cannot consistently outperform those who have taken the time to master it.
I spent all winter gaining confidence with both accuracy and deciphering between the appearance of each species. In addition, in 2023 I fished a ton of tournaments. It seemed like every weekend I was on a new lake fishing a tournament. While I believe that fishing tournaments is an important part of developing decision-making skills, I often found myself less prepared than those who had opted to pre-fish tournament waters.
In 2024, I made a conscious effort to spend my free time researching and pre-fishing tournament waters instead of spreading myself thin between different lakes. In turn, I found myself frequently having a leg up on those around me. For example, if I had marked a ton of natural rock stretches on Lake Murray, I didn’t have to spend the time in practice to look for these areas – I already had them. This method of saving time was one of the many things that I feel made a difference in my 2024 performance.
Another significant change occurred in how I practiced for each event. Knowing that I was guaranteed to have three days of tournament fishing allowed me to focus less on fine-tuning my approach during practice and more on finding productive areas and isolated structure. Essentially, I told myself that I didn’t want to “have it all figured out” in practice. I wanted to learn enough that I could build upon my practice throughout the three days. Often, this would mean marking areas with signs of life in practice, locating as many nearby isolated targets (rock, stumps, brush) as possible, and then learning what baits to present during the tournament conditions. I was proud of the fact that until Day 2 at Lake Murray, I moved up in the standings each day of competition in 2024. I believe that not having it “dialed-in” kept my mind more open and prompted me to fish the conditions better than in my past.
In a similar regard, I tried to be aware of my pattern’s potential. For instance, at Saginaw Bay, I knew that my largemouth pattern from practice was a one-day pattern at best. There were too many people fishing in my area and there was a general lack of big bites. Knowing that I had to fish for two more tournament days, I opted to spend the second half of my first day practicing for the remainder of the tournament. The same thing happened on Logan Martin, when I realized I was running out of fish on Day 2. I spent the last few hours scanning some areas that I had found in pre-practice and ended up catching my best bag of the week on Day 3. This awareness played a major role in my ability to stay consistent and get checks in five of six events.
Overall, I learned that I had probably put too much stock into practice before this year. With the right preparation, practice should be an opportunity to gauge lake conditions, what stage the fish are in, and find a few areas with activity. We are all good enough anglers to figure out the baits and presentations as the tournament develops. As the great Allen Iverson once said, “We talkin’ ‘bout practice man? Not the game. Practice?”
Thanks for keeping up with me this season and keep these tips in mind the next time you’re preparing for a tournament.
Hunter Sales – Angler Profile
Follow, Like & Subscribe
Instagram – Facebook – YouTube
