Entry 331-1
Break the Rules to Win Tournaments and Enter the $1-Million Club with Mark Rose
Editor’s Note: Mark Rose of Marion, Arkansas, has had a great year on the FLW and the Stren tournament circuits. In the Stren Series Championship held the first week of November, 2009, on Pickwick Lake in Alabama, he fished against 199 of the best bass fishermen in the nation. When Pickwick Lake was once again calm after the tournament, Rose walked off with the championship crown and $115,500. Rose has had three, second-place finishes in the last 3 years in the Stren Series tournaments and several top-10 finishes, but until this year, he’d never won a tournament. In this year’s championship, Rose took a lot of chances and really changed the way most people think about bass fishing and what’s required to win a bass tournament. This week, Rose will tell us how he fished this championship, and if you read every day’s upload, you’ll learn how you can break from the accepted tactics to win a bass-fishing tournament.
Part 1: Largemouth, Smallmouth or Spots – I Bet on the Spotted Bass
Question: Mark, what tournament did you just win?
Rose: I just won the Stren Series Championship held on Pickwick Lake that borders Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi. This win was my only one in 2009, so it not only grew my bank account, it really helped my confidence level.
Question: How much do you think you’ve made in tournament winnings on the Stren Series and the FLW before this tournament?
Rose: I earned $120,000 this year, but this win was important to me because I broke into the $1 million club. With this win, I’ve won more than $1 million in my tournament career.
Question: What did you know about Pickwick before this tournament?
Rose: I’ve fished Pickwick Lake since high school. I’ve fished in Red Man tournaments and a number of other tournaments at Pickwick because it’s only 2 hours and 40 minutes from my home in Arkansas. I’ve fished there for recreation, even when I haven’t been competing in a tournament. I prefer to fish offshore ledges, mussel beds and deep water at Pickwick. But in this tournament, I learned that the bass had moved shallow in November.
Question: What did you learn in practice before the tournament?
Rose: I learned that the grass was really coming in at Pickwick, and the water temperature had cooled-off. The cool nights we had prior to the tournament pulled the bass up out of the deep water and scattered them out into the shallow water. So, in practice, I targeted the shallow grass and caught a number of bass. I also fished a lot in Bay Springs, which is a part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway that comes off Pickwick Lake. I found that I could catch bigger bass in Bay Springs than in Pickwick.
Question: Now, Bay Springs is a deep, clear lake known more for spotted bass instead of largemouth or smallmouth like you’ll catch at Pickwick. Did you consider fishing for largemouth or spotted bass at Bay Springs?
Rose: I targeted largemouth at Bay Springs, but caught more spotted bass – big spotted bass – there. I felt I could win the tournament by targeting the spotted bass at Bay Springs. I won the tournament at Bay Springs in 2007, in the fall of the year, with between 45 to 47 total pounds, which resulted in a five fish, 15-pound average for a 3-day tournament. I thought that 45 pounds for a 3-day tournament was a good goal and that during this tournament, I could catch a 3-pound-average spotted bass at Bay Springs.
Question: What did you catch the bass on during practice?
Rose: Top-water baits and jerkbaits.
