In sports there’s nothing better than playing at home. Doesn’t matter if it’s a regular season game or a playoff game, playing at home in front of your home crowd can make a huge difference in the outcome of the game.
But there is one sport where the “home field advantage” doesn’t always pan out. In fact, it can actually be a disadvantage! The sport would be tournament bass fishing.
When you’re the “local” angler, you are usually considered the favorite due to the amount of success and knowledge you have about the lake/river.
Anglers always look forward to fishing an event on their home water. It’s an opportunity to sleep in your own bed, eat a good home cooked meal and everything is very routine. You tend to be more relaxed, but you also feel the pressure of being the favorite.
Then as you prepare for the tournament, you put a game plan together that usually involves looking at past history. This is where things can go wrong!
Just like people, anglers are creatures of habit and tend to lean towards fishing the same way we have in the past, especially when we’ve been successful on our home lake/river.
When you are fortunate enough to have an event on your home water, you want to make a good showing and hopefully bring home a win.
But why is there so much pressure on the angler who is fishing his home lake? Here’s the problem. Because you know the lake/river so well and you know so many good areas that hold fish, you can’t decide which area you should hit first.
Do you go where you caught them last year at this same time, or go where you caught them two years ago where you won the tournament? Too much history on a body of water can really clutter the brain and destroy a game plan.
Then you decide to go with your gut and start in area A where you’ve done well in the past. But after you start fishing this area on tournament day with little to no success, you start to question your decision.
Now confusion or panic sets in and you really start thinking too much! So, then you decide to fall back to Plan B to try and salvage the day and just make a good showing.
Too much knowledge on any body of water can be detrimental to putting a good game plan together and is the fear of every angler who fishes their home water, especially in a big event.
Sometimes you’re better off throwing history out the window and approach the lake like you would any body of water you’ve never fished before. This is why scouting before an event is so important. Pay attention to what the fish are doing at that particular time and make your game plan around that.
All anglers at some point make fishing complicated. We tend to try and outsmart the fish and end up outsmarting ourselves. While I’m not sure who said it, but the words “keep it simple stupid” are very fitting for bass anglers!
Contact Steve at sgraf26@yahoo.com