Entry 107-4

How To Win Bass Tournaments With Denny Brauer

Stuff Happens

Editor's Note: To win bass tournaments, you have to prevent yourself from losing. You can have the best equipment, be fishing at the best places and have everything you can possibly need to win a tournament, but if your attitude isn't right, there's a good chance you'll lose. There have been some anglers who've won the Bassmaster Classic and never again have returned to that winning form. Bass fishing consists of more losing than winning. How do you recover from a bad day of fishing or from a bad tournament? How do you mentally prepare yourself, not only to fish the next tournament well, but to win the next tournament.

One of the most-consistent winners on the BASS circuit is Strike King Pro Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri. Brauer not only has won all the major bass-fishing events, he came back from what could have been a career-ending back injury, and returned to his winning form and the top level of competition. Brauer's attitude is responsible for his wins just as much as his fishing skills. This week, we've asked Brauer to tell us how to overcome difficulties and get your fishing back on the winning track.

Brauer: One problem that causes fishermen to get depressed, have a bad day of fishing, lose their concentration and not catch bass on the day they are fishing or in a tournament they are competing in, is because they often forget that as a bass fisherman, you have to realize that stuff happens. Stuff will happen to your equipment...

when you need it the most,

when you least expect it,

when you haven't seen the problem coming and

when there was nothing you could have done to prevent the problem.

 

Too, many different problems can occur. For instance...

your power heads on your engines and lower units on your engines may go out and/or get torn up,

your depth finder may stop working,

you may destroy a prop,

you may break a rod,

you may get your boat stuck in shallow water,

you may get wet,

you may get cold,

your bilge pump may stop working,

your trolling motor may die,

you may break the foot off your trolling motor,

you may skin up your boat,

your trailer may have a problem,

your vehicle may break down and

101 other mechanical and environmental problems may happen to ruin your day.

 

Sometimes you can be fishing flawlessly and for no reason at all, stuff happens. You have to remember we fish in a hostile environment with high-tech and sophisticated equipment, so when you put those two elements together, stuff will happen for which you can't plan. When these technical problems happen, don't let it ruin your day, tournament or fishing season. Learn to focus on the problem, and solve it as quickly as possible. Once you've solved the problem, concentrate the rest of your fishing time on fishing and not thinking about how much time you've lost dealing with the problem.

Bass fishing is all about problem solving and decision making. If you don't like to have and solve problems, or if you don't like to make decisions knowing that you'll often make the wrong decisions, you'll be an unhappy-bass fisherman. But, if you know ahead of time that you'll have problems, and you're mentally prepared to deal with them as quickly and as best you can in the time you have allotted, and then forget those problems, you'll have more time to concentrate on your bass fishing. You can eliminate many equipment problems by checking all your equipment each day when you come in and each morning when you leave, and making sure that every time you go on the water, your equipment is in the best-possible condition it could be in when you fish.
 

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