Bass fishing can be frustrating and winning tournaments is even more frustrating. But when it comes to anglers helping one another, that’s a whole different story. Today, I’ll give you an angler’s perspective on why tournament bass fishermen don’t like to give away or share information on how they are catching bass.
The main reason for angler secrecy is because in today’s bass tournament world that is so competitive, it’s hard to make a top 10 and tougher to get a win. There are times when an angler might be catching fish and doing good enough to get a check but not good enough to win. The difference between getting a check or winning can be something as subtle as what size line you might be using.
Example, if you’re doing good and catching fish in 10 to 12 feet of water on a crankbait and using 17-pound test line, but you find out after the tournament that the guy who won the event, also caught his fish on the same crankbait using 12-pound test line. Why did line size make a difference? It’s because 12-pound test allowed his bait to dive down deeper into the 15-foot range where the bigger bass were set up. But I was catching smaller bass higher in the water column at 12 feet The bigger fish were deeper in 15 feet of water.
When it comes to sharing, tournament anglers are worse than a kid sharing his new toy on Christmas morning. They laugh at the idea of sharing their new toy! It’s like asking Vice President Kamala Harris a difficult political question. All you’re going to get is a kackling laugh. Anglers are no different; they are the worst at giving out any type of information that they feel might give their opponent an advantage or a leg up on their competition. When I say it’s every man for himself in tournament bass fishing, that’s exactly what I mean!
Now there are few exceptions on information sharing and this is where the buddy system kicks in. I’ve got a small clique of three or four anglers that I trust when it comes to information. These are usually guys that I room with on the road or have been friends with for a long time.
These are guys that I eat dinner with and if I have a mechanical break down on the lake, I can make one phone call to any one of these guys and they will come to my rescue. But these are guys that I trust and would like to think won’t lie to me. Now they might leave out a couple of key details on what they are doing, but that’s just the way ALL anglers are when it comes to information. They’ll share, but only in small amounts.
I have other friends who I fish against, and most are great guys. While they won’t necessarily lie to you, they will send you down a rabbit hole with bad information. Oh, they’ll give you information, it just won’t be anything that will really help. We as anglers call this information “dock talk.” This is what tournament anglers want to stay away from because the information they are giving out is designed to throw you off.
I’ve also learned over my 34 years of tournament fishing, that the only person you can really trust is yourself. Don’t rely on other anglers to feed you information that might or might not help you land more fish. Do your homework (scouting) and trust yourself to go out and find your own fish. Because at the end of the day, once all the fish are weighed in and you’re in line to get a check, the only name on the check…. is yours!
Till next time, good luck, good fishing and take advantage of some great fall fishing while all the deer hunters are in the woods and not on the lake.
Steve Graf
Angler’s Perspective
