ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As a freelance writer and photographer , Rob Newell has been reporting on fishing tournaments for 20 years , finding the stories between fish and angler to be a stretched line of heroes , heartache , triumph , torture , inspiration and exasperation .

here ’ s an old adage in professional fishing that says , “ There ’ s no such thing as winning practice .” It ’ s a saying that stems from pros who brag about catching a lot of fish during practice , but come tournament time , they ’ re a little light when weigh-in rolls around .

It ’ s a fair statement . In my time covering tournaments , I ’ ve never seen a pro hold up a check on stage that read :

To : WINNER OF PRACTICE AMOUNT : $ 100,000

Or did they ?

The whole process of tournament “ practice ” has evolved drastically over the last 30 years . One thing that amazes me about top professional bass anglers in the modern era is the speed at which they break down such huge bodies of water in such a short amount of time .

practice of the past

Back in the day , some tournament trails were pretty generous with their allotted official practice period . At one time

there were even unlimited practice periods at the national level . Pros could fish a lake for a couple weeks before a tournament if they desired . In general , though , three to four days of official practice has been the standard .

Given the length of the practice period , the pace of practice was more casual . Practice fishing consisted of actually , well , fishing – for hours and hours . Sometimes an entire day would be committed to fishing in just one creek .