Story by Hunter Baughman | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
Do you fish many multi day tournaments? The odds are that you don’t. The fact is most tournament fishermen mainly fish single day events. The amount of people fishing regional and national level multi-day events is less than a couple thousand people. I’d say conservatively there are at least a couple thousand small single day clubs across the country. However, this time of year would be the exception.
As most tournament seasons are winding down, they are ending in multiple day regional events and championships. What I’ve found in my own tournament career is when someone has limited experience with the multi day events, they struggle with how to approach these events. Managing fish and locations isn’t an easy process. I didn’t really grasp that concept until I was several events into my first year with the NPFL. Hopefully in this article I can help straighten the learning curve.
Single day events are often won in one area. After all, the winner only needs to get five bites to win. This is not often the case when fishing consecutive days. That grass mat, stretch of docks, school of fish, etc., may generate five big bites on Day 1 but can they last through Day 2 or 3? Probably not … especially if multiple people find the same fish.
Practice is where to begin making sure you don’t run out of fish. When I was fishing single day events, I would spend quite a bit of practice time in an area seeing how many quality bites I could generate. A lot of times during the tournament I would know where my next bite was coming from. I had spent the time to identify all the high percentage locations and had even shaken bites off in some of them. In multi day events you just want an idea. Instead of having a great area, I like having several good areas. Get a bite or two in practice then roll out. No need to know how many bites you can get. You’ve literally got days in the tournament to figure out which areas are better. While we are on the topic of getting bites, remember to shake most of your bites off. No need to hook a bunch of fish ahead of time.
Other factors to look at during practice are weather and fishing pressure. If it’s going to blow 20 mph out of the west during the event and everything you found is western facing, you’ve probably got a problem. Also, if you watch five boats fish “the juice” you found, half the field may fish it before the tournament ever starts. And guess what? They probably aren’t shaking off their bites!
The time to start learning about your areas is when the tournament starts. Not only does this leave you fresh fish, but it also gives you a real-time look at what’s going on. For example, if you picked an area apart in practice and the bites were on grass points, that’s what you will concentrate on when you start the tournament. But if the fish change and get on laydowns you might miss that bite window. However, if you still have an open mind about your areas and they are on laydowns on tournament day, you won’t waste time trying to catch them on grass points.
I’ll leave you with some parting thoughts.
Great spots can become good because they are obvious, and good spots can become great because they are less obvious.
Keep your options open. Have enough areas found that it’s impossible to fish them all on Day 1.
If you don’t have a time-dependent area (e.g., early morning shad spawn), start each tournament day somewhere new. This will help you learn the patterns for the day and calm your nerves.
Trust your gut and don’t be afraid to bail on everything you’ve got and start from scratch.
I hope these tips will help you know when to hold them and when to fold them.
Catch you next week!
Hunter Baughman – Angler Profile
