Whenever my kids bring home a progress report, I sit them down, I look at the report, I look at them and I ask myself, “Do I think they’re doing their best?”
Well, I’m going to do that with myself — kind of a midseason progress report.
Coming off a 20th-place finish at Toledo Bend, I’m definitely headed in the right direction as far as momentum, but overall, I’m not satisfied.
If I’m grading myself on the first half of the season, I’d have to give myself a C.
Am I glad where I’m at? No. Am I fortunate to be where I’m at? Yes. I had some events where I was not around a lot of fish, but I managed that really well.
Taking all this into consideration, I’m probably where I deserve to be right now.
I don’t want to be too hard on myself, but at the same time, I’m not going to give myself any free passes. Honest evaluation is not only a good idea, it’s a necessary part of improvement.
I think it’s really important for you to assess your performance level because that’s the only way you’re going to get better. And that’s true for professional anglers, weekend fishermen and anyone who wants to get better than they were yesterday.
You have to look at every tournament — every tournament day — and ask yourself what went right and what went wrong. Other people can offer opinions, but ultimately, you’re the one who sees every detail firsthand.
I’ve definitely had some good moments this season. I’d have to say my favorite was finishing seventh at the Elite event on the St. Johns, because that was an event where I caught them in an area where I wasn’t expecting to catch them.
That was not only my best tournament finish, but my best tournament. I wasn’t on a lot of fish, but I managed everything well and my weights were good.
I made good decisions and caught most everything that bit. I kind of overachieved in that tournament because in practice, I wasn’t on a seventh-place finish amount of fish.
On the other extreme, it won’t surprise anyone that my least favorite memory this season was finishing 93rd at the Winyah Bay tournament — but that had nothing to do with fishing. That event really threw me for a loop.
What was most frustrating for me was that it wasn’t a finesse tournament or a tournament where they caught them doing something that I feel isn’t my strength. They caught them doing something I’m very comfortable with — power fishing in shallow water.
I just never figured it out, and I think one of the reasons was that I went there with a negative outlook.
I had heard that the fishing at Winyah Bay wasn’t that good and you’d be lucky to even catch a bass. As we saw, that definitely was not the case. It took a lot of weight to win there, and the fishing turned out to be a lot better than what I had heard from the other competitors before the event.
All of that negativity combined to get me off my game. But I’ll tell you this: I’d like to go back for a little revenge because I just missed the boat on that one.
What made this hard to swallow was that it wasn’t only my worst finish of the season, but the worst finish of my Elite Series career. It’s kind of like that one hard class that drags down a student’s GPA. That event on Winyah Bay hurt my Angler of the Year standing.
Being the second tournament of the year, that one followed a strong finish at the St. John’s. I started the season with good momentum because I was the runner-up at the Bassmaster Classic, but then right after placing seventh at St. Johns, boom I get a 93rd-place finish.
That takes the seventh-place finish out, and it really leaves you with two average finishes. I mean, a 93rd and a seventh average out to about 50 and, statistically, that looks like you didn’t do well at either one of them.
That really put me in a hole for the season, and I feel like I’ve constantly been digging out. That goes against my normal mentality of fishing to win. I haven’t done that since Winyah Bay because I can’t risk gambling and possibly losing a lot of points.
I’ve had that one bad finish for the year, and I can’t have another one.
I’ve been fishing pretty conservatively and, to be honest, I have not yet found an instance where I can gamble either. I just haven’t found the fish that I’ve thought would allow me to fish for the win.
So, this has put me in a doubly frustrating position. First, I’ve dug myself into a hole and second, I haven’t found a group of fish that would allow me to gamble and fish aggressively.
As we move into the second half of the season, I’ll be looking for those opportunities to loosen up my fishing style and be more aggressive on the water.
If I can find the right fish, I’ll do all I can to bring up that C to a high B, or who knows, maybe even an A.
In part 2, I’ll grade myself on specific areas of my performance.