How many of yall decide to fish a particular tournament or tournament trail and will fish it regardless of how good or bad your prefishing goes? In other words, will you change your mind on a tournament if pre fishing doesn't go as well as you think it should. Let's say you go out the week before the tourney and can't catch a limit, do you still fish the tourney on a chance?

In it for the duration.

If thats what I prepping to fish go for it.
Even bad prefishing is telling you something.

Yes, I fish it.
Take what you've learned from the prior week and make adjustments/locations/presentation/depths.. etc...

+1

Winning at prefishing doesn't have a very good payout last time I checked. A very productive prefish trip does not guarantee a good tournament day. I will venture to say that the opposite is true more often because a productive prefish trip will cause some anglers to "lock in" on what worked last time out, rather than fish the moment and current conditions.. I can't count the times I've talked to anglers at weigh in and listened to their whining about how many fish they caught in practice only to fail miserably on tournament day. Personally, unless it's a new lake to me, I would almost rather go in without prefishing or minimal prefishing. I tend to make decisions better on the fly rather than locking in on last weeks success.

I fish no matter what.

Ive had good practices, and good tournaments.
Ive had bad practices, and bad tounaments.
Ive had good practices with bad tournament results.
And bad practices with good results.

You just gotta go do your thing.

If I'm fishing a trail I fish regardless. If I'm going to jackpot and can't get anything good going then I'll pass.

I like your outlook, your glass is half full. Thanks for the correction, and the comment!

Fish the entire year. Good, bad or indifferent. You never know when it will be your time to go on a streak.

That is an issue I faced last season (2010). Bailed on a few tournaments because of poor practice and got stuck in ruts during some tournament days trying to follow a pattern that had been working even if it clearly wasn�t working tournament day.

Going to try and fish looser during tournaments this year and not completely depend on what worked during practice. Trouble is a graduate student's budget makes bailing on tournaments where you're not dominating in practice very appealing. Going to try to complete a full trail this year anyway.

I'm in it no matter how my prefish is I have a second ? For y'all how many people stick fish during practice

I knew it... LMAOOO..

We prefish for the Fork team events. I stick em if they bite to see what size they are but we won't stay there and keep sticking them. We catch a couple and move on.

Fork is different from other lakes in that you have to have just the right size fish to do well. You can have an unbelievably good day for 4-5 pounders and go to weigh in empty handed.

No, No, No, well i will the weekend before but never the day before.

If the fish are on a soft plastics bite, I use a "Hitchhiker" (the little coil spring looking thing)instead of a hook. I load the plastic up with my favorite stinky-stuff and when I get a bite, I try to gently lead the fish close enough to the surface to see what it looks like. Doesn't work in all cases, but works enough to keep doing it. Lots of times you can get an idea of the size of the fish by how hard it puls the bait around.

Yep...sometimes they wrap you up...but the way I see it....if I stick him today, he won't bite tomorrow and I would rather have another chance at him and have to throw it back if need be.....

GL&GF,
Bill@SOBLures