There has been a lot of talk over the last few years regarding practice periods and whether or not they actually hurt the angler and/or the tournament. Do these extended or even non-existent off-limit periods make the bite tougher and do they keep anglers locked into recent history rather than allowing them to fish the moment?
For example, the FLW Tour and Series have become known as the Shaky-head circuits due to the low weights it takes to win or place in an event. Until recently, the FLW tournaments had no off-limits period and competitors could practice prior to an event as long as their pocketbook would allow. Before the off limits, this meant there were anglers, many anglers, who would spend up to a month practicing and by the time the first day of the tournament started, it was argued that all the fish in the lake had been caught and the only way to catch them was with finesse techniques.
Not only did these extended practices possibly hurt the final weights, many anglers complained that they weren’t able to develop secondary patterns during the tournament because they were now spot hopping instead of fishing.
But, it was what it was and anglers felt that in order to be competitive, they needed to spend as much time on the water as their colleagues.
On the other hand, the Bassmaster Tour and Elite Series have always had an off-limits period and limited practice. Has this helped keep their weights up and/or allowed anglers to ‘fish the moment’ better than the FLW events? If you go by the weights, the answer is yes.
RJ Bennett, a Roseville California pro who’s fished both the Bassmaster Tour and the FLW Tour is a firm believer in a limited practice. But he didn’t come to this realization until he was forced to learn it back east, far from his western roots. In this installment of A Western Perspective, I had the chance to talk with RJ about his practice ritual, how he came by it and how it can help you.
Steep Learning Curve
RJ is no slouch when it comes to being in the pro end of a bass boat. He started his career at the age of 17 by finishing 4th in the 2000 Bassmaster California Invitational on Lake Shasta. By 2003 he had qualified to fish the Bassmaster Tour where he competed for the next two years. In 2001 he was the California BASS Federation champion and also participated in the FLW All American. On the FLW side, he’s also amassed better than $135,000 in prize money having won one event and placing in the top 10 seven times. He is also the current Angler’s Choice pro-am Angler of the Year.
Although it may seem like RJ got off to a great start at a young age, he confided that, “The biggest thing I learned during my time back east was not to overfish and over-think things too much.”
He went back east and was initially overtaken by the magnitude of the water and the many options available to him.
“The difference between east and west is when I fish the west, I know every lake we fish,” he said. “When you’re back east, you don’t have that luxury. At first I found myself spending a lot of time on the water trying to figure things out and eventually it dawned on me that I wasn’t doing well with that. My first day of practice was always my best day out of the week and from there it would all go downhill.
“That wasn’t just something I found out either,” he added. “Michael (his brother is Michael Bennett the 2008 FLW Cup winner) figured it out too.
“What I learned is that I fish better when I’m doing it by the seat of my pants,” he said. “I like to have an open mind and if I spend too much time practicing, my mind can’t operate freely. Because we’re from the west and don’t have the experience on the waters the other guys have, we are at a disadvantage. So I found it’s best I fish my instinct and be able to adjust as I need to.”
Changing Conditions
“The other thing that’s different in the east from the west is the weather,” RJ said. “I’ve seen lakes come up 17 feet in one day back there. They get way more rain than we do and their storms are more dramatic too.
“We have nothing like that to deal with out west and you have to be able to adjust on the fly when a storm like that rolls in. There’s no way to practice for that and, in fact, too much practice prior to an event like that can really hurt you.
“I’m not one of these guys who is the first one on the water and the last off,” he said. “In fact if I feel like eating breakfast before heading to the ramp I will. I also get off the water at a decent hour that more represents the tournament day.”
Another thing about RJ is he always leaves a mess of rods on his deck.
“I’m not one of these guys that gets locked into a pattern and puts all my other rods away,” he said. “I go fishing each day and my deck is full of rods. Even if I have a solid pattern or bait going, there are always those times when I see an application for something else and I’m able to quickly change and make that next cast with something completely different than what I was using. Even when I have something good going, I leave myself options to find another pattern or that one special fish. If my rods were buried in my locker, I probably wouldn’t take the time to dig one out to make that one cast.
“Fishing by the seat of my pants is the best thing I learned by going back east,” he concluded. “You have to be in a mindset that will allow you to adjust as conditions and weather change. By spending too much time practicing I’ve found that I get locked into certain patterns and this doesn’t allow me to think on the fly.”