i was just looking at the final weights for the ttbc and the top ten guys weighed in over 780 pounds of greenery for the three days. that can't be right! i see posts all the time here of guys fishing for ten hours and only getting two bites, or "fork kicked my butt again, or iconelli only gets five fish in three days of prefishing etc. etc. what's wrong with us?? granted these ten guys are pros, but they show up and fish in god awful conditions and boat almost 800 pounds of bass!! say what?
i hate to tell you guys but it's not lady fork that's the problem...it's us. may as well admit it, we suck at fishing!
i'll never blame the lake again for a bad day. i wonder if the crappie are biting?
hello everybody. i'm bcd and i'm a terrible fisherman. i hope that gets my recovery off to a good start.
way to put on a show guys!

Of course there better than us. It's how they live. If they don't catch fish, they don't get money. They are way more expierenced and know where the fish are. It's not like they go in blind and just catch fish. They pre fish for awhile before the tournament and mark the spots they are going to hit when it comes to tournament weekend.

I think it's more about people going to "their spots" every time they fish rather than finding the fish and meeting them where they are. I've caught fish every time I've been to Fork...even on really tough days we can catch a few. It's all about fishing patterns, not spots.

BUT, yes they are pros and they make a living off of finding fish. There's a reason we have so many guides these days on so many lakes. Lot of them are/were tourney fisherman who couldn't afford to live on Tour so they take the steady paycheck and guide. Can't blame them. Yes they can find fish, just can't always find the bigguns.

They also spend about 1000$ in gas and ore fishing and one tournament and also they hit up about 30 different spots.

Just reinforces the fact that I suck at fishing.

It would probably help most people's fishing if they had a network of contacts, not just on Fork but on every lake they fish, that helped them figure out where the fish are and what they are doing before they put their boats in the water.

They all fished so many community spots that I have a hard time thinking local help was the key. When you mine those spots for a 3 say event and routinely catch more and bigger fish on them than most locals I would say you gotta tip your hat to them. Some of them are just that good.

Most of us don't work that hard at fishing...I already have a job...which brings me to the next point I gotta get back to it

Of course they are better fishermen than weekend warriors. It's their profession and they put in more TOW than any of us. It still helps if you don't have to spend as much of that time searching.

I fished a club tournament last weekend. 8-1/2 hours into the first day we had one fish and I would have sworn most of the fish went over the spillway. Then, we went to an area where I remembered catching fish in similar conditions years ago and I caught a solid fish right off the bat. We proceeded to hammer that one area and in the next hour we not only caught our limit but culled. The next day we went back, hammered that one 250 yard stretch all day with the bait we now knew would catch fish, and put together a bag.

If we had gone there first on the first day it sure would have saved a lot of looking and frustration. On the other hand, if we had never gone there we may have ended up with one fish and sworn they just weren't biting.

To me it also seems like the younger fishermen, or the more technical savvy guys are starting to dominate this sport. They have the best electronics and they know how to use them so well.

They still are great fishermen because they have to get the fish to bite, and then get them in the boat. But the electronics helps them know when and where to fish, so they move so much from place to place looking for the fish and the bait, etc..

Even if I had all the equipment they have, I would still not be very good, but I do think having the level of electronics they have and knowing the units like the back of your hand would make any of us more capable of catching some nice fish more frequently.

This is why I fish for FUN & not for money.
STILL,,,,it is nice to be able to go to a lake and catch fish.

Yes fork does fish tough just ask 4-time bassmaster classic winner KVD how he was able to catch just 1fish for 2lbs 12oz Sunday.

Yeah, we (amateurs) could make all the excuses we'd like...inferior electronics, less TOW,
they have scouts (which I think is silly, or at least blown out of proportion), etc., but here's what it really boils down to: Those guys are flat-out gifted and have honed their craft to a level most can only dream. Their decision making is really what sets them apart.

I was fortunate to spend an hour in the boat with Dean Rojas in practice. I never said anything to him, but he went to an area I had fished for several hours the day before. I got one two pounder. On the other hand he caught a six in the first five minutes.

I'm in that same boat Mark