The Complete Co-Angler
FLW Season In Review: Part 2

Monday, September 12, 2005
by Chris Koester

Event 5: Wheeler Lake, Ala. (125th)

This was a painful tournament. I caught decent fish at Guntersville in practice, and I felt frustrated the entire first day to be confined to Wheeler. I knew all the best co-angler sacks would be coming from up on the Big G. I tried to make the best of it, but we spent 90% of our day pounding one small community hole, waiting for the current to get right and the big fish to show up. Never happened.

The second day I did get to go to Guntersville, but I didn't do anything with it. We even fished my very best area from practice (nothing special, lots of guys were fishing there). My pro struggled as well, but with all those fish that live up there, and all that awesome grass, I have no excuse for not boating a keeper. I did break off a huge fish, but those weigh exactly the same as the fish that don't bite - they're just more frustrating.

I have a hard time mentally shaking off lost fish during a tournament. I guess everyone does, but I need to get better at it. Once the fish is gone, every second spent thinking about it is focus and concentration wasted.

I did manage a nice fish on my very last cast of the day, killing time down on Wheeler before checking in. While my finish still stunk, this fish gained me a lot of points, and I would likely have not have made the championship without it. The famous Iaconelli-ism "Never Give Up!" applies here.

Photo: FLWOutdoors.com Columnist Chris Koester was in position to win the Forrest L. Wood Championship, but it just didn't happen.

You hear it again and again - success in tournament fishing is all about making the right decisions at the right times. I really need to work on freeing myself up to make those decisions.

Event 6: Chevy Open, Potomac River, Md. (8th)

After handicapping myself badly back at Wheeler, I figured I needed a Top 50 finish here to make the championship. I dug in and practiced and fished hard at this tournament and it paid off for me.

I practiced with the man who I've anointed the "World's Greatest Co-Angler": Patrick Wilson (who happened to be the eventual winner of the tournament). We had a decent practice, and I went into the event pretty confident.

Then I went out and jacked the snot out of them on Day 1.

I was lucky to have a great pro partner, Jason Kilpatrick, who was around quality fish. Then I did the rest, and just couldn't keep the big fish off my line. You won't get a good draw like this in every tournament, but the moral of the story here is to make the most of this kind of opportunity - and I did just that.

I led the tournament after the first day, but the weights were so tightly stacked I thought I'd need 10 pounds the next day to make the cut.

We struggled mightily on day 2, and I junk-fished my way to four keepers. I didn't think I'd made it, but it turned out that nearly everyone struggled and I still made the Top 10.

Once again, practice paid off for me. We had found a few decent places while pre-fishing, and I took two keepers off one of these spots on Day 1. I later culled both of them, but the next day I caught another keeper there. Without that fish, no Top 10 for me.

If you really want to have success as a co-angler at this level, you just can't neglect the practice period. Showing up the night before the tourney starts is easy and convenient, but it's a recipe for disaster. Missing the cut here would have been a real disaster in my book.

Day 3 was a day of major contrasts for me.

My pro's pattern was a huge downer - some of the cover he was fishing was ridiculously isolated, and he wasn't giving me an inch all day. He was a nice guy, but he was just in a position where he had to fish that way, period.

But I quickly figured out how to catch fish despite this disadvantage, and realizing this was a huge boost. Once I got my first bite, I knew I'd have a chance. Once I caught my second fish, I honestly believed that I could win the tournament. It's a very different feeling when you fish in that frame of mind.

Sustainable success in tournament fishing really and truly comes from the right mental approach, rather than the correct physical actions. You can be on the biggest pile of fish of all-time and still blow it if your mind isn't right. On the flip side, you can be faced with some apparently major disadvantage, but if you keep your head in the right place and execute well, you can still win the tournament.

I know we've all heard stuff like this before, and we all continually repeat it, blurting it out like a brainwashed herd of Rick Clunn wannabes. But the more time I spend fishing, the more deeply and sincerely I believe it.

As it turns out, I could have won. I lost two big fish during the day that would have put the winner's trophy in my hand. I haven't stopped whining about it since then, either. That's just fishing, and I'm sure I wasn't the only guy to have lost the winning fish that day.

Execution is so critical when you're in that position, and it's the guy who makes no mistakes that usually wins. It was right there for the taking, and I didn't pull it off.

But I'm glad my friend Patrick did.

Event 7: Forrest L. Wood Championship, Lake Hamilton, Ark. (22nd)

This tournament was a total grind. It just wasn't fun. It was extremely hard to catch keeper fish down there. The time of year, the heat, the boat traffic - whatever it was, it was lousy.

I took my own boat again and practiced for 5 days, but didn't learn a whole lot. I developed a little confidence in just a few lures - dropshotting a 4" Kinami Worm, a Spotsticker hand-poured jigworm and a Rico topwater popper.

The best news about this tournament is that it would take very little for co-anglers to advance to the critical third day. I managed one fish on Day 1 on a Paca Craw, and two fish on Day 2 - one each on a Kinami Flash and the Rico. As it turns out, I didn't even need that much, and I qualified for the finals.

My day 3 partner, Chad Grigsby, was throwing a buzzbait in shallow water, with the trolling motor at NASCAR speed almost all day long. I knew from the start that a win would be pretty close to impossible. I focused on just catching one keeper, which would be worth a lot of money by itself, but it didn't happen. I caught a bunch of shorts on the dropshot, but I didn't have a keeper bite all day.

Once again, I put myself in a position to do well, but it just didn't happen. The most important thing is to not get discouraged and to concentrate on continuing to put myself into the position to compete in the finals. Sooner or later it will come together.

I plan on making it happen next year. When it finally does, I hope you guys are all still here to follow along with The Complete Co-Angler and BassFan Big Stick reports.

Until then, keep coming back to visit us. Now that the tour season is over, I'll have some room to breathe and crank out some more good column content. Look for interesting feature articles on a few outstanding co-anglers, as well as more of the popular "how-to" tips and techniques stuff in the upcoming months. Stay tuned.

– End of part 2 (of 2) –