I hope you saw it, Bassfan.com’s recap of the major pro tours and what methods worked in what months. Editor Jon Storm, a former westerner, does a heck of a job over there keeping track of the pros and this latest two-part feature is sports bar perfect. That is to say, the stuff is interesting, but also open to lots of debate over what the heck it means.
If you look at the big numbers, and I do, then you have to realize that the methods most used by the winners (or the balance of the guys in the top 5 places) were the same methods used by nearly 40 percent of all the competitors in both FLW Tour and Bassmaster Elites.
And when I see something jump out at me like that, I hasten back to the 1970’s on the San Diego City Lakes. Of all the bass reportedly taken on plastic worms at Lower Otay, it was safe to say that more than 75 percent of them were caught on an Otay Special*. And why? Because likely, 90 percent of the bass fishermen were using that worm at that lake.
Was it the best method? We could never find out, because everyone was doing the same thing.
But when you look more closely at the pro stats, you see the dichotomy of that 40 percent: a split between crankbaits and target fishing, flipping or pitching. One group would appear to be covering water (in loose terms: to win they had a plan, of course) while the other seems to know exactly where they wanted to fish (or were duly committed).
In looking at things in that manner, it might be safe to say that a large portion of the pros are generally like-minded group and tend to do the same things and that’s why those methods produce the winners. However, when you look at the individual tournament reports (in part 1), several winners (Fritz, Van Dam, Reese and Scott Martin) all deviated from the mainstream.
That’s a sign of virtuosity.
What we don’t know, but what we might presume is that of all those higher finishers were likely in the best areas, or, giving them maximum credit, were better at their methods than their peers.
Yet while we might agree that if whatever works works better than the rest, then maybe that’s enough, I still couldn’t get over the fact that only a little over 2 percent of all the pros fished swimbaits. And most of them did that in March. Clearly, the national pros have made up their minds of where and when to use them, and then, if you watch them on TV, that means basically as crankbaits.
From a western perspective, it seems evident the national tours are desperately short of swimbait expertise. Or, remarkably full of “same old” waterways.
*A 6-inch, brown DeLong worm with a black stripe.