Nov '25 • General discussion
🎣 Trust Your Gut (A Lesson I Had to Relearn the Hard Way)
This post is for those of you who tournament fish or just pride yourselves on having good instincts on the water.
Recently, my son and I fished a bass tournament together. Beforehand, we spent a ton of time studying topo maps, planning our routes and stops, and picking out the baits we wanted to start with. I felt confident going in — I had a solid read on what the bass should be doing that time of year, and our plan looked good on paper.
The goal was to scout the lake a few times before tournament day, but life had other plans. My lifelong fishing coach — my dad — was diagnosed with cancer, and the time we’d set aside for practice quickly disappeared into a blur of doctor appointments leading up to his surgery. We only managed to get one practice day in, the day before the tournament, which thankfully wasn’t against the rules for this series.
That day, we rushed through practice but still found a few fish. Toward the end, we swung into a section I’d kept tucked in the back of my mind as a backup — a small, dirt-shallow pocket near the ramp. The water there was the dirtiest we’d found, absolutely loaded with shad. Now, there were plenty of shad in our main areas too, but this spot had a different energy — bait everywhere, movement, life. Still, we only spent about twenty minutes there before wrapping up.
Our main game plan focused on textbook fall patterns: mouths of creeks, creek channels feeding into pockets, and the wood and rock along channel swing banks where bass typically stage to chase shad into the coves. I had our route meticulously crafted, every stop carefully thought out. I’d invested hours into this plan, and we caught fish in practice — nothing huge, but enough to build confidence. Yet, even as we finalized our plan, something deep down kept whispering to start in that dirty water. I ignored it.
Tournament morning came, and we launched right on schedule, sticking to the plan. We caught plenty of fish — just none over the 15-inch mark. Halfway through the day, with frustration setting in, we decided to head back to that muddy section near the ramp. To get there, we had to duck under a narrow bridge, only wide enough for one boat at a time. As we pulled up, another boat was coming out. We exchanged the usual small talk — the kind of “Catching them all?” banter that everyone knows doesn’t mean a thing — and waited for them to clear out.
Once inside, it didn’t take long. Within minutes, we had our first keeper in the box. Then another. Then another. The bite was steady, and the average size was noticeably better than what we’d been catching earlier. Many still fell just shy of the 15-inch mark, but the quality was there. We ended the day with three keepers weighing just under nine pounds — not enough to win, but enough to salvage what started as a rough day.
I told my son afterward that I’d almost said something the night before about scrapping our plan and starting in that dirty water, but I felt too invested in the pattern I’d built. He told me he’d thought the same thing — and didn’t say it for the same reason.
Oh, and that boat we waited on to clear the bridge? They finished third.
Sometimes preparation and planning can blind you to instinct. I went against my gut because I was caught up in all the work I’d done building what I thought was the superior pattern. It’s a lesson I’ve learned before — but apparently needed to learn again.
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🎣 Trust Your Gut (A Lesson I Had to Relearn the Hard Way)
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