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Home » Recreation And Sports Articles » Bass Fishing Tournament Etiquette

Bass Fishing Tournament Etiquette

Bass fishing in tournaments doesn't seem like a sport in which "proper etiquette" really means much. I've fished many bass tournaments in Florida and found out through experience that it is very important.

Let's look at this bass tournament scenario. You get up early in the morning preparing for your fishing trip. You then drink a couple cups of coffee, light up a cigarette and take care the 3 s's before you hitch up your boat. Once on the road you have a nice conversation with your "draw" partner on where you're going to start and what you're gonna throw so you guys can catch loads of fish in your favorite honey hole.

By the end of the tournament, you weigh in your fish and manage to get 5th place! Lucky for you, the tournament had enough entries to pay all the way to 7th place. You are real happy until a few of the guys give you the "bird" and say some unpleasant things to you. Then you think, "What's their problem?"

It isn't until you partner says he's getting a ride home with someone else and starts taking his tackle out of your boat that you start thinking it maybe something you did.

Let's replay the tournament day.

Early that morning you get up a little late 'cause you forgot to set your alarm clock. Once on the road, you swing by to pick up your partner. He asks why you didn't call him telling him you would be a little late and you respond: "I didn't have time!" You also tell him that your swinging by the gas station and he needs to fill up the boat and truck since you make the boat and insurance payments. You emphasis that it's normal for the "draw" partner to do this.

You finally get to the boat launch area and wait patiently in the line of trucks to launch your boat. You leave your lights on so anyone coming behind you will see you. When you get to the front of the line you and your partner exit the truck, and start boat launch preparation. You put in the drain plug, take off your transom saver, pull of your safety straps, put in your boat lights, etc, etc. About 10 minutes later, your partner finally start backing you and the boat down the ramp. The sky is starting to light up from the early morning sun. The two trucks behind you start to honk their horns! You shout back, "You shoulda got here earlier!"

The boat is finally launched, you beach the boat and pick up your partner. The tournament director had already started to call the boats numbers out as many of them were already going down the lake. Your boat number had already been called, and there were about 20 other boats still waiting, so you quickly take off leaving a huge wake right in the middle of the waiting boats.

As you approach your fishing hole, you see another boat sitting right on your spot! The spot is a bulrush line which is loaded with bedding fish, but it's only about 30 yards long. You are real anxious so you don't get off plane until your right on the weedline. You quickly lower your trolling motor, pick up your bedding fish rig and start pitching the pockets and points along the bulrush patch. Your partner is doing the same thing, in fact he get's the 1st fish around 2 pounds and you tell him to swing it in like a "real" man.

The other boat doesn't have an anchor down nor has his trolling motor up so you edge to within 20 feet of his boat and as you do you get your 1st fish on. You yell at your partner to get the net and he quickly scoops up your nice 2 pound fish. You give him a high five for a nice netjob!

On the 1st pass, you noticed that the fish were getting spooked from their beds as you approached, so you decide to try to keep the boat outside of the weedline, with the nose of the boat pointing towards the weeds, and the back of the boat out in the main lake. You figure this tactic will keep 'em from spooking.

By about 10 AM, you have your limit and the tactic of keeping the back of the boat out of the weeds paid off. Your partner still only has one fish, but you think that he just doesn't know how to fish. He then asks you if he can share the front deck of the boat with you and you tell him no, there's no room and he'll mess up your hookset.

About noon, you've culled a few fish but can't seem to get a nice kicker fish. You see the other boat land a nice one, so you put your trolling motor on high and take the inside track in the bulrush patch right in front of the other boat. Your about 30 feet from the other boat, but buried up in the bulrush patch, scouting for bigger fish. You see a nice one about 4 pounds on a bed. The fish doen't seem to want anything as you toss just about everything in your tacklebox at it. Finally, you tie on a tube bait and "Wam" the 4 pounder hits, your partner quickly nets it and into the live well it goes.

You only have 30 minutes to go and to play it safe you decide to go. You fire up the big motor right in the middle of the weeds and take off, sending a nice wake into the other boat.

You get to the weighin with about 25 minutes left and beach it. You kick back waiting for the director while your partner takes off for the nearest restroom.

OK, so my story is a little extreme but lets look at the missing etiquette:

1- Always leave on time. Your partner won't worry and you'll get to the ramp and not hold up anyone.

2- Turn off your headlights while waiting in the launch line. Keep your parking lights on. This will prevent you from blinding the person that is backing the boat down the ramp!

3- Prepare for boat lauch long before you get to the front of the line. This will speed up the entire launch process for everyone.

4- Never plane right in the middle of a bunch of boats. You need to get beyond the last standing boat before you take off on plane.

5- Always give some room to another boat even if they don't have their trolling motor up/anchor down especially if they are there 1st. In the scenario above, you should only respectfully fish the furthest bulrush from the boat that is there or maybe not even fish there at all until he leaves. At least ask if he minds if you do decide to share the spot with him. If he says yes, you are way better off in the long run to leave. Your day will come!

6- Always net fish (if allowed by the tournament) and don't wait for the partner to ask you to get the net. If your partner prefers you not to net the fish, he'll tell you.

7- Always be considerate of your partners fishing position. In this scenarion, he didn't stand a chance because he was too far away to site fish! Offer him a chance at the front of the boat. In fact most tournaments (not the proams) state they have 50% share in running the trolling motor. At least ask, and if he refuses because he's not comfortable running it then fine.

8- Fish until the last possible minute with a slight safety factor unless you have a large limit of fish , especially if your draw partner isn't doing well. In this scenario, give you partner the full front of the boat and let him choose his spots.

9- Draw partners should only pay 50% of the fuel bill for both the tow vehicle and boat. If they drove to the ramp themselves, then they need only pay 50% of the boat fuel.

If you follow these bass fishing tips, you'll have a better relationship with all the fishing community!

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

How to Make This Year Your Best Year Ever

Every year I've been in business for myself online has been better than the previous one. Recently, I decided to create an "Apprentice" program (Yes, even before Trump) and I was extremely pleased that we had nearly 100% of my Apprentices get an online venture up and running.

I've gone back and thought about their projects and how they developed and I came to a striking conclusion that will be worth a lot of money to you this year if you heed it. There was one key aspect that got them off their butts and making money and it came down to one thing...

...A Deadline!

As simple as that sounds, once a firm deadline was established that's when the rubber met the road and all obstacles melted away like snow flakes in a frying pan. I'll give you a perfect example for one Apprentice we were going back and forth a bit tidying up some finishing touches on the project and trying to get it out the door. Many times people can try to make everything too perfect and it never gets out making money so we said we are launching this project at the LIVE Apprentice Summit. That was it and that was final.

The date of the Summit was getting closer and closer and I could see this Apprentice start to sweat a bit. But I made him make the commitment to this deadline publicly during our group call and he couldn't back out now.

Fast forward to the day of his launch he had multiple obstacles that would normally have put the project on hold get swept away but not now. With the firm deadline in place and the opportunity for him to be embarrassed our fine Apprentice finished his project. We hit the 'send' button and he made a tidy sum from a tiny list over the weekend. And this was just the start because his project has made well into the five figures already. And why did it get finished?

The deadline once again.

What's your deadline for your first project or your next project?

Is it something that's in your head? Not a good idea. It's pretty easy to keep moving that forward or letting other things take precedence.

Who knows about your deadline and who's going to hold you to it? In some cases it's not a good idea to share your deadline or goal with another person, especially if they're the kind of negative energy vampire a lot of well-meaning friends and family are. But if you've got a group of colleagues all with the same thinking use them. This works especially well if you don't want to look like an "idiot" in front of them and they are people you really respect.

I'll tell you what works for me and maybe it'll work for you too.

For me, I work best when I absolutely "have to" perform.

For instance my first product on Internet marketing might never have been made (or at least it would have taken much longer) if I didn't sell it before it was done. In 2000 when I first started marketing online a lot of people wanted to know exactly what I did and how I started making money so fast.

Well, I got my first opportunity to share my story in Atlanta at an Internet seminar. I was extremely nervous and my heart was beating out of my chest to go talk in front of 100 strangers. I gave my presentation and then I sold this product (yet to be created).

I told people it would be delivered in a few weeks so they knew it was a prepublication offer. I walked away with 10 orders at $200 bucks. All well and good except I couldn't charge anyone until the manual was done. Even though it was only $2,000 (less what I had to pay the promoter)

I knew that at least people wanted this information and I could keep selling it once I finished it. I probably had a week or two of 3 o'clock in the morning work sessions but I completed it and charged the cards. I was under pressure to get the manual done because these people paid me (though I didn't charge them) and I owed them the material.

Since then I've updated my course material and it's been worth well into the six figures just because "I had to do it".

How can you set something like this up for yourself? If you can stand the pressure - you can decide to put on a tele- seminar. This is one of my favorite ways of creating product by a deadline. You can do either a one-time tele- seminar or series of tele-seminars and you get paid to produce the product. How great is that? It doesn't matter if you have 1 person or 1000 people on the call because this is forcing you to create product and perform.

Once you've set your deadline for anything you'll "magically" see certain resources fall into place. Trust me, it's a bit eerie but when it occurs every time you set a firm deadline you know there's something to it. Just the act of making the decision sets these events into motion for you. It's also because what you focus on becomes your reality. Your perception has changed. Your internal "radar" is now attuned to resources, allies, etc that can help you get your project completed.

Now I leave you with one more secret...Set "mini deadlines".

When you're looking at the whole task of setting up an Internet business (or anything really) it's easy to get overwhelmed. But if you break everything up into small tasks with their own deadlines you'll be at your destination before you know it. I promise it'll work for you. In fact, that's one of the reasons I really like Franklin planner systems (now Franklin Covey). I've been using them since 1998 and that's when I first started making some significant changes in my life.

Actually the founder of Franklin, Hyrum Smith has a great book called "The 10 Essential Laws of Time and Life Management" - this should be required reading for you!

Even though I hate ad slogans (since they don't work) this one should become your mantra for the year - "Just Do It".

As cliché and overused as it is - that's all it comes down to. Whether you're willing to roll the dice and put yourself out there a little. I promise whatever the worst case scenario you're thinking, it is far from the reality.

And if you need someone to send your deadline list to - go ahead and email it to me. I'll keep it confidential and we'll celebrate together when you reach your destination.

Copyright 2006 SurefireMarketing.com