I found my mojo

"A winner is one who accepts his failures and mistakes, picks up the pieces, and continues striving to reach his goals."

~ Dexter Yager

      I had been willing to do things I didn't like to create something I did.  I had to practice to gain confidence, find what I was good at, and get great at it.  I wanted to have one technique and learn it inside out, something versitile that could be used year round.  For me that was soft plastics.  I wanted to know the best knots, best lines, colors ,conditions, hooks, weights, the list is really never ending.   It was really the only thing I knew I could do successfully, and the whole year I was shying away from it by trying to be like the person I was fishing with.

     Every tournament  I had been in up to this point would be considered a failure by most tournament anglers.  Approaching each outing with enthusiasm regaurdless of how I performed the week before was one of the keys that would start to lead to solid performances.  Just showing up and fishing was not going to put me in the money and more changes needed to be made.  I had made the decision that I would be a first rate version of my self instead of a second rate version of someone else.  My goal of cashing a check was about to be realized and it would give me the confidence I needed to become more proficient in my chosen technique.  I was chasing to many rabbits and couldn't catch any of them.  By having a laser focus on soft plastics, I could produce under almost any conditions, plus I was good at it.

   I had never been bass fishing in a tournament at night but that didn't stop me from entering a night tournament on Lay Lake.  It wasn't a big tournament, maybe 15 people or so, and a few of those people left because the weather was so bad for the first couple of hours.  The tournament started at 5:00 P.M. and ended at midnight.  It was a big fish tournament, paying out the biggest Largemouth and the biggest Spotted Bass.  I was excited since I had been paired with John again, and he cracked me up.  John had told me before hand to spool my reels with clear blue fluorescent line.  He had black lights all over his boat and the line looked like bright white rope with those things, even though they made his boat look like a spaceship.  We had went back to the dock after the first hour because it was raining like crazy.  After waiting out the lightning, John and I decided to go out and fish in the rain.  I was throwing a 10 inch Power Worm in Red Shad and John was throwing his trademarked spinnerbait.  Throwing a big bait was a decision I had to go with since it was a big fish tournament. It would only take one good bite. I caught a 3 pounder pretty quick and culled a couple more fish that were in between 3 and 4 pounds.  John had caught a couple of good Spots but we had no idea what it would take to win.  We were targeting points with willow grass on them and the fishing was pretty tough since a front just passed.

  John felt like we both had a good chance to get a check but it wouldn't be until the first few people started weighing in that I thought I had a real chance.  It seemed like every person that was coming in had no fish to weight in.  I knew it was tough, but no one had a largemouth over 2 pounds and I won the largemouth part of the tournament, John won big Spot.  I called Kelly, I posted it on Facebook, I called my parents, I was very proud.  All that time on the water was starting to pay off and how I would do in the coming weeks would let me know if it was a fluke or if I was actually getting better.

Lessons Learned:

1)  Do what you know!
2)  If you go night fishing bring a light.  John had to stop fishing to let me borrow his headlight about 50 times.

My largemouth was all head.