Fishing tournaments are not for everyone, but one thing is true: enter a bass fishing tournament and your skills are sure to improve.
Fishing tournaments are not for everyone, but one thing is true: enter a bass fishing tournament and your skills are sure to improve. It’s inevitable because the competition pushes us to strive beyond our normal limits.
Tournaments have various categories. Some of them require fishing in a crowd which raises boating and angling expertise to a new level. In these situations, organization and forward thinking is key. Decision making is also critical, and if you don’t run through your options quickly and accurately then you’ll find someone else in your spot. Free-for-all challenges lower the stakes a bit by allowing anglers to fish on their own. Only results getting measured, and fishing knowledge, decision making, reading the water, knowledge of a species, and techniques appropriate to the situation are the game. Some tournaments include competitions within a competition, with techniques like the most accurate cast or the longest distance cast being common choices.
Getting paid to fish is another good reason to fish tournaments. Some professional fishermen earn a living catching fish while amateurs can make enough pocket change to help offset some-if not all-of their expenses. The ultimate is to win enough major tournaments to be sponsored, and those patches on your shirt or vest are the result of a lot of hard work and determination.
Some tournaments are just plain fun. Charity tournaments or catch-and-release tournaments are a fantastic way to get a group of like-minded folks together. If there is money at stake it always goes towards the sponsoring group or cause, and it’s usually raised in the way of donations.
If you win you are on the right track, and if you lose you are still on the right track. You’ll talk with other anglers, and learn what worked and what didn’t. You can try it out the next time you are on the water, either at a tournament or just knocking around with friends. Are you a regular on Fishing Tournaments? Share your experience with us by commenting on this post.
