Big time tournament coming up here. This lake is somewhat of an enigma for us...we are capable of winning it, but always place at the bottom of the top ten.
Long Lake means smallmouth bass if you want to win. BIG smallmouth, and a limit of them, is what will be required for a check. Two or three years ago the winning bag in this tournament was 8 fish for 29# or so. THAT IS HUGE! Over a three pound average will win you just about any tourney in the Country. You need a 2.5# average here just to place.
It also means fishing deep, like 25' down on breaks and rock piles...not our forte' as "power fishermen" who like to cover ground fast and shallow. We try to adapt as best we can, and like I said, usually finish 9th our so; but we can win this thing and it drives us nuts. In preparation, I have been doing some things different during practice sessions:
-I have spent two weeks of evenings fishing in my "little" boat on my home lake using only one rod and one technique...drop shotting in 25' of water. You can't fall back on "favorites" when they are not in the boat. It forces me to become proficient with a technique that will win this thing.
-Hours and hours of idling the boat studying the locator and using the Aqua-Vu to check out promising structure on the lake. We've almost given up on the camera thing as being too frustrating, but in this situation, it is just the tool for the job of locating used structure.
-Worked on adjusting my mental state from one of "getting a limit" to one of "winning the tournament". There is a huge difference in the approaches to fishing under these mindsets, and I am almost always using the former. Taking chances under the latter is what is required to win this thing, but it requires an overhaul in the brain.
Pre-fishing so far has been dissapointing. Either we are locating fish that will win, but can't catch them...or catching the crap out of fish that won't help a bit.
Somewhere in the balance lies the key. We have 34 days and 4 pre-fishing trips to figure it out.
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