i probably fish harder in practice than a tourney. Finding them is the hardest part of the game, that comes before the tournament (hopefully)

Rob, your my boy, and you know that so don't take this too hard. If your not practicing at 100%....you don't want to win as bad as I do!!!

Back 20 years ago I would fish around 30 - 40 tournaments a year, that was week nights and weekends, so most of my time was on the water, as Mark said , you cant beat time on the water. I rarely practiced cause I was fishing the same lakes over and over and knew way to many places that had fish, if not I would move on to the next one. But TIME on the Water is what really makes the difference,

I'm with you! My limited experience and time on the water will always hurt me in tournaments against many others like you. I'm a self admitted donator who tries to make a respectful showing and have fun. I have zero ego when it comes to tournament bass fishing! I am trying to use my few strengths to my advantage and improving quickly. I'm finally starting to feel like I'm getting there on the Coangler side, but this is my last year Coangling. I have much to learn boating finding fish, adjusting, and then catching them.

Related to this topic I find it interesting the Pros that sometimes get lazy with practice. It came out towards end of last year with the BASS Elites and I know on the FLW side several pros may not practice all days.

Lol for sure. I meds around to much and shoot the chit when I fish with a buddy

I have looked back over the last 8-10 years and each year I started with all these big expectations on learning a new technique, getting better at this or that but this year I just said the heck with it all. My focus each and every trip is to simply catch the next fish. Don't care how or on what bait. I just want to be on the water and fish more in that exact moment and trust my instincts and gut feelings better. I figure the rest will take care of itself if I just focus on catching the next one.

Rob, it's really hard to fish as much as those Elite guys do and stay fully focused, I think that's true in any professional sports. If your not at the top of a sport then you get tired late in any season. I don't evny those guys at all...that's a tough living.

I love the pre fishing part getting ready for events, with that said I have not been on Falcon in about 3 years but I will be down there Saturday slinging with the best of them, was not going but changed my mind Wednesday to fish it, I don't expect to do anything but have a good time and fish hard. It's truly a blessing to be able to fish with some of the very best anglers who compete, be safe on your travels this weekend and respect one another when you are out there on the water.

Practice on familiar water or on unfamilar water and won? Isn't practice for eliminating parts of a lake? Using water clarity, time of year, recent weather, structure and depth. Last don't you try to figure out what makes the place your fishing tick? Try to find the things not shown on a map and maybe not even on sonar. Figure where the fish will be when they are active and when they will be active?