Dakota Ebare understands what kind of homework NOT to do in preparation for a tournament .
PHOTO BY TYLER BRINKS attention to the forecast in the days leading up to and during competition , he ’ s equally concerned with long-range weather trends . He ’ ll start monitoring conditions on a fishery six months or more before a tournament , paying attention to whether it ’ s experienced an unseasonably warm or cold stretch ( which could impact the timing of the spawn ) and whether it ’ s been especially rainy or dry .
“ If it ’ s been a really flooded year , that tells me there ’ s going to be a lot of flow going through that lake ,” said Jones . “ Even if the flood subsides and the waters go down to normal , there ’ s still just going to be a lot of natural runoff producing current , and it ’ s going to predictably position those fish . Low-water years , you ’ re going to have a lot of fish get out and suspend in the middle of nowhere . Automatically , it ’ s going to be a ‘ Scoping tournament if it ’ s a low-water year . But I want to know that before I get there .”
Multiple pros also noted that they examine past tournaments . That could be as simple as looking up past winning weights , but DeFoe likes to dig deeper . He ’ ll read tournament coverage and watch video from events — whether it ’ s archived television coverage or simply an angler ’ s GoPro
44 footage — to get a sense of things like whether a specific area of the lake dominated and how easy it was to get bites .
“ It ’ s still good to read that stuff and to read if a guy is like , ‘ I had a limit at 8 o ’ clock and caught 20 or 25 keepers ,’ or if it ’ s a deal where most of the high finishers say , ‘ I caught six or seven fish all day ,’” DeFoe explained . “ So the weights aren ’ t quite as important sometimes as what that information is that you can get of them saying they were catching a lot of fish or not .”
how not to study
It wasn ’ t too long ago that Ebare would spend days scrutinizing maps and whatever else he could get his hands on prior to each event . But after racking up hundreds of competition days during his 10 years fishing tournaments , he ’ s done a 180 . Now , he admitted , he prefers to “ wing the heck out of it .”
He learned from experience that , while thorough homework can pay dividends ( especially for an angler who doesn ’ t have quite so much experience ), it far from guarantees success on the water . In fact , if you don ’ t go about it the right way , pre-tournament prep can prove detrimental .
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