I think there are quite a few guys that are fishing the Lewisville Open for the first time as a boater.What advice would you vets have to offer for guys that may not have had the experience.

great question Jerry.

I'd bet some advice can be read right in your sig.

Bring Flowers?

stay outta the pro's holes... LOL!!

Relax

That is one thing noticed last year as a co angler.With about 30 minutes left in the day the pro needed his fifth fish.He sets the hook and about a 5 lber comes up and spits the hook.I was sick for the guy.I probably would have puked about then.I didn't say a word for fear of upsetting him.The guy gets set up again and goes on fishing and shows absolutly no emotion.About 5 minutes pass.I finally say "Well you handled that better than I would have". He says "what?". I say "losing that fish." He replies "that fish is gone, I am focused on the next one". I thought to myself that is why he is a pro!

I lost a 6+ on TB last year as a co-angler and it affected me for the next two hours in a negative way. I boated a 5+ later in the morning and that seemed to help but I did not boat my 5th keeper fish until the last 20 minutes of the tournament thus putting a lot of pressure on myself due to the loss of that goodun.
I will try to adopt your pros thought process if faced with the same again this season.

the only fish that, still to this day, has ever bothered me was the DD lost last year at lake stamford. just keep fishing.

Jerry, don't get in your co's way

make sure you wrap your boat and wear a jersey that way no one will know...and use the trim on your motor.

i fished with a "pro" at the weekend series national championship and he never trimmed the motor the entire day. we plowed around lake guntersville doing 30mph.

That's one thing they, the pros, have to learn or it will eat them alive during a tournament day. They think about it later, though.

Once that sucker's undone and gone, no amount of mental thrashing or woe-is-me will matter or help. That KVD fellow says the silver lining on losing a big one is the realization you were doing the right things to get it to bite, and you have to keep doing them to get another one to bite.

Gotta put the bait back in the water. Head down, go fish.

Good luck in the tournament.