Entry 144-4

Kevin VanDam and his Confidence Baits

From the Dumps to the Mountaintop

Editor's Note: Thirty-three-year-old Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Michigan, likes to fish with Strike King lures. He has had many tournament wins, including the 2001 Bassmasters Classic in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Angler of the Year in 1991, 1996 and 1999. VanDam also enjoys being with his family and hunting deer.

Question: Kevin, you mentioned yesterday that you’ve been in a position to win six out of 10 tournaments. When you’re in a position to win and you don’t, how do you get your head right to fish the next tournament?

VanDam: You can’t keep the past with you. It’s just like losing a fish. When the fish is off the hook and in the water, the best way to do that is to forget the fish. There’s nothing you could’ve done to keep from losing him, and you can’t keep that fish from your catching another. It’s just like a tournament. When it’s over you take what you’ve learned in that tournament to another. The negatives of that tournament you leave behind in the parking lot. Now all of this is easy to say, but it’s really hard to do when you’ve come close in four or five tournaments. Bass fishing is a mental challenge, and if you don’t learn to master the mental side of the game, you can’t master the physical side of the game. If you let the mistakes of the past affect your fishing at the next tournament, then you’ll get in a slump and never do well.

Question: Do you have any rituals or mental games you play to get yourself mentally up for a tournament?

VanDam: No, I’m just naturally positive about fishing.

Question: How did you get that way?

VanDam: I guess I was just born that way.

Question: How much does your mental attitude affect your ability to catch fish?

VanDam: My mental attitude is 100% of the reason why I do or don’t catch fish. If I don’t think I’ll catch a bass on the next cast, more than likely I won’t.

Question: On your first cast of the last day of the tournament you won, you lost a 3-pound fish which would kill an average fisherman mentally. How did you get over it?

VanDam: I tried to use what I’d learned to get that fish to bite, to try and get another fish to bite and that’s exactly what I did.

Question: What did you learn from the fish you lost?

VanDam: The bass I lost was way back in a little pocket in super-shallow water. That fish was holding right up against a lay-down log. When I hooked the fish, I said to myself, “I can’t believe how shallow that bass was.” Once I lost that bass I decided to keep fishing that really-shallow water, and five minutes later I caught a bass. He was holding on the same kind of cover and water depth - less than a foot-deep that the bass, I’d lost had been in. I used the negative of losing the bass to create a positive by knowing where the bass was and, the type of cover where he would be holding, and applied what I’d learned from the fish I’d lost to catch the next fish.

Question: How shallow was the bass?

VanDam: He was holding in less than a foot of water, but he was also a long way from water any deeper than a foot. When the water’s really dirty and that shallow water has plenty of shad in it, those bass will often move up and hold in water less than a foot deep.

Question: Why were you fishing water that shallow with spinner bait?

VanDam: The spinner bait does a great job of imitating the shad. Since there were so many shad in the water, I needed a shad-looking spinner bait. Because I waked the spinner bait just under the surface, I gave the bass a trail it could follow, while I shook the spinner bait. Even though the tournament was held in the first of June when the weather was really hot, and the bass should have been deep, you always have to remember that the bass will go where the shad are. Therefore, if the shad are going into shallow water, the bass have to be in there too. Most fishermen won’t fish that shallow water that’s a long way away from deep water in the summertime.

Kevin VanDam and his Confidence Baits

From the Dumps to the Mountaintop

Next: The Next Tournament

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