The US Open - A Proper Mindset
October 5, 2009
As many of you know, the last couple of years my competitive fishing career has been placed on the back burner in lieu of my rod company. Although I’ve continued to fish select tournaments here and there, my full attention has not been dedicated to fishing. Instead, nearly all of my waking hours have been devoted to building the best rod company. It’s a sacrifice I’ve chosen to take, but one I feel everyone will benefit from in the end.
Because of my dedication to the rod company, I don’t have the edge that I’ve had in the past. With tournament fishing, you have to dedicate the time and work hard to stay on top. I have not put in the time lately and I haven’t fished as well because of it.
Many people know that winning the U.S. Open has been a thorn in my butt for a number of years. The US Open is one of the most difficult tournaments there is. You’re dealing with unbearable heat, a very tough fishery and things seem like they change daily. On top of that, there is always stiff competition. Over the years, I’ve been in contention a number of times but I just haven’t ever got it done. I’ve had numerous top three finishes but I’ve never been able to win. This year I made it a point to put in the time to increase my chances at winning the event and put a U.S. Open win on my resume.
That’s what this column is about – what I did in order to prepare for the world’s toughest tournament. After winning the event, I reflected on how I did it and came away with some information that I truly feel will help any aspiring tournament angler, or even the seasoned pro, improve their competitive fishing. These are my thoughts.
Getting in Shape
This year instead of juggling the rod business and trying to compete at the Open, I told myself that I was going to take off the needed time in order to get myself back into the mindset of fishing. About a month prior to the event, I sat my son Richard down and told him I would be fishing the entire three weeks prior to the event after I returned from South Korea. He would have to run the rod company by himself and I wouldn’t have anything to do with it unless it was a dire emergency.
The reason I did this was I knew that in order to be competitive at Mead, I would have to be in great shape, and I’m not just talking physically. Mead in August is an oven and requires conditioning and stamina. I don’t care who you are, if you haven’t been fishing much and all of the sudden you decide to go fish hard for six or seven days, it’s going to take a lot out of you. Couple the energy required to fish hard for those days with triple-digit temperatures and it’s a recipe for disaster.
So, once I returned from South Korea, three weeks prior to the event, I started fishing everyday. The first trip I took I flew down to Mead to practice for three days. It’d been a while since I’d fished and it was like getting back into the saddle of a horse – it felt good but I was a little shaky. I had one day I’d consider good, one day I only had two fish and then another where I caught maybe seven or eight fish. It wasn’t anything to write home about but it was a good practice period to start off with.
Next I began spending time on Clear Lake and the Delta. I just wanted to get my mind in order and being on the water, any water, helps you get your timing, instinct and casting back in shape. As I fished those waters, I had Lake Mead on my mind and thought about what areas I wanted to look at, what depths I wanted to fish and what baits I would probably be using. Although I was on another body of water, I was pre-fishing Mead in my mind. I was fishing fast with basically the same baits that I would be fishing with at Mead so I kept my style the same.
My second Mead practice came about a week later. I flew back down and this time I fished a couple days with my long-time friend Pat Donoho and a day with another friend, Bobby Ellis. That trip I had a good day, a bad day and the other two days were just so-so. But by the end of that practice I had a good idea of the areas I was going to fish.
Between that practice and the official U.S. Open practice, I continued fishing my local waters just to keep sharp and in the mindset of fishing every day.
My last trip to Mead was for the official practice session three days prior to the event and that time I fished by myself. I didn’t have a very good practice – I only caught one limit during that time – but my gut instinct was returning. I won’t lie, I had some misses with my areas in practice but I had a number of good places – one where I stopped in the Narrows and caught three keepers really fast. I knew I had a solid game plan and I was confident I could catch a limit of fish each of the days. The problem was I really didn’t know if I was going to get enough good bites but catching a limit wasn’t going to be a problem.
It Has to be Automatic
The mental side to fishing is so important and you can’t develop that unless you’re fishing all the time. For example, there was a stretch of time a few years back where I fished 31 straight days. During that time, I won one tournament and placed second and third in two other events. For the tournament I placed second in, I actually didn’t practice for that 
event because I went up to practice for another event a couple weeks later at Lake Don Pedro. But that didn’t matter because my fishing was so automatic I felt I could get away with it and I did.
When an angler gets in that groove, he doesn’t question his decisions on the water and everything just flows. You think in real time, you stop thinking about your mechanics and your technique becomes second nature. I hate to call it “being in the zone” but that’s really the only way to describe it. You get to the point you never doubt what you are doing, why you are doing it and if you have a gut feeling to try something you haven’t tried yet in that event, you do it without even questioning yourself.
I think that’s the hardest thing anglers face – more times than not they question their gut. You get to the point you’re not wondering if you’re going to catch them. You know you’re going to catch them sooner or later.
A good example of that was a tournament I fished earlier this year at Oroville. My partner and I were fishing dart heads in an area and there was a sunken tree off the bank. I knew in my mind if I had a Texas-rigged worm that I could catch a fish out of it. I told my partner but he didn’t believe me. So I pulled the boat off the spot, pulled a rod out of my rod locker and took the time to tie on a Texas-rigged worm. On my first cast with it I caught my biggest fish of the day.
Another example was a tournament at the Delta this year. I wasn’t having a good day and felt I needed to go into Ironhouse. I hadn’t been in Ironhouse for five years but I followed my instinct and went there. The tide was very high and I felt like the fish were moving far back into the tules where I couldn’t get to them. I went to Ironhouse because I wanted a solid bank to fish. Once I got in there I picked up a Spook, a bait I hadn’t thrown for days, and on my second cast I caught a 9 3/4-pound fish. I caught this fish and the Oroville fish because I was listening to my instincts.
Fishing Chicken
Let me take some time to talk about something I’ve talked about a lot in years past – fishing chicken. Most people, when they hear me say the phrase, think it’s bad. The phrase was coined about 10 years ago when I was talking to Cal Tatum during a tournament. He asked what I was going to do on day three and I told him I was going to go catch a limit of fish just to protect my lead. I called it fishing chicken and it stuck. For me it’s okay to fish chicken to protect something, but I will not do it right off the bat without a reason. You just don’t get to win by fishing safely or chicken. A good example of using it to your benefit is my day three at this year’s Open.
On the third day of the event, I had a pretty good lead. Cliff (Pirch) had had a bad second day and only weighed in four fish, which gave me a 6-pound lead. I knew I could lock up the tournament if I could put a couple of decent fish in the well so the first couple spots I went to were some areas that had been producing big fish for me. Those first couple stops didn’t produce anything and I went into chicken mode – I went to my limit spot and we put seven fish in the boat quickly, keeping our best five.
By fishing chicken in that way, I protected my lead and it freed me up to go back and look for big fish. If Cliff had weighed in a good limit the day before, I would not have gone into chicken mode. I would have stayed on the big fish areas and grinded it out. Believe me, though, I had a much better day three the way it turned out.
What It Takes to Win
My day-three partner at the Open, Bill Brown, made the comment after the tournament that I’d fished very well and not missed a fish all day. The topwater fish might blow on it three or four times and I would just keep working the bait until the fish ate it. I caught all of them. I never missed. I hadn’t really thought about that but Bill was right. I’d been fishing so much that everything was pretty much automatic for me. You shouldn’t be thinking about anything and that’s how the Open went for me.
In practice I was looking for different things and didn’t allow a bad day to affect me mentally. This was possible because I had areas I had faith I could go to and catch a limit so a bad practice day didn’t derail me. By the time the tournament rolled around, I knew what to do and just let it flow.
In fact, each day of the tournament I spent a considerable amount of time in what I call practice mode. I knew what to look for and what types of areas the fish would be in and if I came onto an area that looked good, I stopped and fished it. Most anglers get so locked into what they did in practice and never deviate from it even if they think they should. If you do that on Mead, you’ll die. Those fish change daily and sometimes even hourly and you constantly have to look for new fish and new water in order to do good there.
That’s what it takes to win. You have to fish a lot to develop your instinct and then, more importantly, you have to trust your instinct once you develop it. Prior to the Open, I hadn’t been on the water much but I devoted the time to get my instincts back and it paid off in a big way. Hopefully these thoughts will allow you to develop your own instincts and you’ll be the next winner of the U.S. Open.