Entry 294-3
Tournament Bass Fishing with Greg Hackney – Get Your Head Together and Keep it Together
Editor’s Note: From February 20-22, 2009 in Shreveport-Bossier City, Louisiana, 51 of the best bass fishermen in the nation competed for $500,000 in the 2009 Bassmaster Classic, where the winner was determined by skill, luck, talent and emotional stability. If you lose your cool in a big tournament, you’ll lose the tournament, and if you’re not mentally prepared, you won’t fish well. How professional tournament bass fishermen deal with the emotions and the pressures of bass fishing determines their success or failure. This week, Strike King has asked Greg Hackney of Gonzales, Louisiana, the pre-Classic favorite, how he deals with his emotions during a big tournament. If we can understand how the best bass fishermen in the world deal with the emotions of bass fishing, we’ll greatly improve our chances for success every time we fish for bass.
Part 3: When the Wheels Come Off
Question: Greg, how do you handle the disappointment that comes with equipment failure when you’re bass fishing?
Hackney: There are some things in bass fishing and in life that we just can’t control. Remember, anytime you depend on something mechanical like a boat, a motor, electronics and live wells, there’s a possibility that something will breakdown and stop working properly. It’s not your fault or the manufacturers. 
When you have a mechanical problem while fishing, decide whether you caused the problem by not maintaining your equipment properly, or if you had no control over the damage.
To avoid a mechanical problem, maintain all of your equipment, from sharpening hooks to consistently checking your motor and electronics. One of the advantages of tournament fishing on the BASS Elite circuit is that during a mechanical breakdown, the tournament staff is on call with another boat. However, you may be too far away for service people to bring you another boat. Thankfully, I’ve never had a breakdown in a tournament or had to deal with that problem.
Contents:
- Part 1: Riding the Emotional Roller-Coaster of Bass Fishing
- Part 2: How to Handle the Slump
- Part 3: When the Wheels Come Off
- Part 4: Disqualification or A Dead Fish - Now That's Bad
- Part 5: I Love a Streak
