Entry 113-2

George Cochran On How To Overcome A Bummer Tournament

Riding the Roller Coaster

Editor's Note: Often, a rainbow follows a severe storm. Some people will see the rainbow and appreciate it, but then immediately think about how bad the storm has been. Others never may see the rainbow; they only see the storm and think about how bad it is. The old saying is true: "It's an ill wind that blows no good." The secret to a happy life is seeing and understanding the promise of the rainbow regardless of how bad the storm is, whether you have a bad event in a fishing tournament or in your life. George Cochran, two-time Bassmaster Classic Champion, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, has the ability to look beyond a bad tournament.

Cochran: Two things are certain if you are a bass fisherman. These two things are even more certain if you are a tournament-bass fisherman. The two things I'm referring to are:

  1. You are going to have good and even great days of bass fishing if you fish long enough.
  2. You are going to have bad and even terrible days of bass fishing if you fish long enough. Bass fishing is a sport like any other sport, and to continue to compete, you have to understand that losing and having poor performances are as much a part of the sport as winning and performing great. If you don't understand and don't know how to deal with these two aspects of fishing, you are going to be a lousy fisherman, a lousy athlete, and in my case, a lousy tournament fisherman.

Being a professional bass fisherman is as much about how you emotionally ride the roller coaster of ups and downs in fishing, as it is about when you win and when you lose. Like any other sport, bass fishing is as much a game of emotions as it is a game of skill, luck, knowledge and conditioning. I believe your mental attitude has more to do with whether you catch or don't catch fish than often your skill as an angler does.

For instance, yesterday, I talked about my worst bass tournament. But, what's important to learn was the reason I did so poorly in that tournament. It was because I was thinking so much about what all was going wrong in the tournament, that I couldn't think about what I needed to do to win the tournament.

I believe that one of the real secrets of bass fishing is learning to forget quickly. The quicker you forget a bad event, a missed fish, a blown engine or a low point in your fishing career, the quicker you can ride that roller coaster back up to the top. When you have a bad day of fishing or a bad event when you're fishing, you become distracted. You're remembering the disaster rather than thinking of what you should be doing.

Yesterday, you saw that I lost a five-pound bass that I should have caught. The reason I didn't catch that bass was not because I had not selected the right lure, nor because I didn't make the proper cast, nor because I didn't make a proper hook set. I lost the bass because I was thinking about the blown engine, how far behind in the race I was, and how I needed to hurry up to catch up. What I should have been thinking about was the bass on the end of my line and what I needed to do to put that fish in my boat.

So the way you ride the roller coaster of bass fishing is to forget a bad event or a bad tournament as quickly as you can. Then concentrate on what you need to do to catch the bass on the next cast. I'm not saying you can't learn from bad events and bad tournaments, but you do that evaluation after you come off the water-not while you're on the water. When you're on the water fishing, you need to be concentrating on the next cast, how to set the hook if the bass takes the bait, and how to safely get the bass into the boat. If you don't catch a bass on that cast, then when the lure is in the boat with you is the time to think about changing tactics and locations or switching lures.

If you think about anything else besides the bass you're trying to catch when the lure is in the water, you'll be so distracted that you can't fish each cast as efficiently as you need to in order to be a successful bass fisherman or to win the tournament. Your goal is to make the roller coaster of bass fishing a series of small hills and small valleys, instead of mountaintop experiences and being stuck down in the bottom of the deepest, darkest valley you can imagine.




 

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