Entry 122-4
Mark Rose Goes Head-to-Head With Classic Champ Omori
Why Go for the Limit
Editor's Note: Strike King Pro Team member, Mark Rose, won $16,000 at the FLW Championship in Birmingham, Alabama, in August, 2004. However, in one of the most-significant events at the championship, Rose was pitted against Takahiro Omori, who had won the 2004 Bassmaster Classic only a few weeks earlier. Omori was riding high, since he was the first Japanese angler to win the Classic and had won one of the biggest purses in competitive fishing. At the FLW tournament, Omori was fishing for $1/2 million. We wondered what Rose's game plan was to defeat the latest Bass Classic Master's champion and asked him to tell us his winning strategy.
SK: Mark, why do you always go for the limit instead of trying to catch the big fish that win the tournament?
Rose: I'm a young fisherman, and I realize I'm early in my career. I fish for a living. Since fishing is what feeds my family, I have to try and get a paycheck at every tournament I fish. I'm not at the place financially that I can afford to take chances on giving up a limit to try and catch really big bass. The Good Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to make a living at bass fishing, which is all I've ever wanted to do. I want to be able to continue to make a living as a bass fisherman, which means I have to be able to consistently go to the scales with a bag of bass. If I were to win a couple of tournaments, get on a hot streak and have my family financially secure, then I might change my strategy a little bit. But I like to try and stay as consistent as I can and attempt to catch a limit of bass every day in every tournament in which I fish.
SK: Mark, how old are you?
Rose: I'm 32.
SK: Mark, do you think that by your trying to catch a limit in every tournament until you learn your craft better, that one day you will be able to go for broke and go for the win?
Rose: So far my plan has worked. Every year I learn a little bit more about bass fishing and what's required to win than I have the year before. I have been able to have 6 years of a continuing-education program while still making enough money to feed my family. I don't know that I'll ever be the very-best bass fisherman the world has ever seen because to be the very best that you can be at this sport requires a lot of sacrifices that I'm just not willing to make. I'm not willing to give up as much time as is required to be the very best because I still want to have a family life.
The very-best fishermen on the professional bass-fishing circuit are some of the hardest-working people I've ever met in my life. Many of them will spend 200, 250 or even 300 days a year on the road away from their families fishing. That's the price that has to be paid to be the very best. I want to be as good bass fishermen that I can possibly be, but still I want to have time to be with my family and be at home when they need me. I have what I call the three F's of fishing, and I try and keep them in order. The first F is my faith, which comes first. The second F is my family. The third F is my fishing. As long as I keep the priorities of my life in that order, I don't think I can ever be as good as I possibly can be if I make fishing first.
