Welcome to 2025 and the information highway known as the internet. Here a person can explore, search, and check vast amounts of useful and useless content. There’s literally nothing a person can’t find on the worldwide web. But for bass fishermen, it’s also an unlimited source of information that can help an angler understand any body of water with just a few clicks.
But the word “information” can be a tricky term for tournament anglers. In some cases, you might say it’s a dirty word and can get a tournament angler in a lot of trouble. Bass tournaments have a plethora of rules that can boggle the mind of the intelligent.
How, where, and from whom the angler gets his tournament info is critical to being able to pass a polygraph test. This is a test given at the end of a tournament in which an angler is asked a series of questions pertaining to the rules of a particular tournament circuit.
Not all tournament trails are the same and each one may have a few rules that might not apply to another trail. For example, the rules for team trails will be a little different than those of an individual pro circuit in which the angler fishes by himself.
But of all the rules in the tournament world, the “no information” rule might be the most abused, as there tends to be too much grey area depending on how the rule is written. It’s similar to the Bible in that it can be open to interpretation.
It’s also the rule that anglers tend to bend or break as they search for anything that can help them win a bass tournament. Some circuits do not allow anglers to talk to anyone or receive information about tournament waters from someone who is not in the event.
For example, hiring or calling a lake guide during the dead water period can be a major no no; and yet they do it anyway and feel they can pass the polygraph no matter what. Everyone is ok until the day comes when the tournament director calls their name to take a polygraph test.
One thing I’ve been seeing on the high school level for years is how parents or boat captains are hiring full time fishing guides, not to teach them how to find fish, but showing them where fish are! This is not helping these youngsters to learn anything. In fact, it’s handicapping them for future success!
Look, we all want our kids to succeed and have success, but wouldn’t it be better if they did it on their own and not because the parents had the money to hire the best guide on the lake? What lessons are we teaching these young anglers by hiring the best guides on the lake?
The best advice I can give all the up-and-coming high school and college anglers is to learn to find fish on your own. Don’t rely on a guide or another buddy for information. It’s much more gratifying when you win with fish YOU found rather than just catching another angler’s fish.
Always remember, it’s not easy catching another angler’s fish. Never rely on other’s fishing information because it’s usually old and unreliable. The reports you read, even on the internet, are more often than not two to three days old. With bass fishing, a lot can change in two or three days.
Learn to trust yourself and your ability to locate schools of fish on your own. Because in the end, tournament fishing is all about you versus the fish, not you versus the other anglers.
Contact Steve at sgraf26@yahoo.com
