If bass are on beds, I would spend my time with the trolling motor on looking for the better quality fish, mark them for the next day.

Once the spawn is over, I would look for the shad spawn areas and hit those the next day. No need to stick the fish, if the bait are there (shad spawn), there will be fish nearby. Other than that, I would just look for backup patterns or locations, graphing and looking for more brushpiles, rockpiles, humps, tank dams, etc specifically looking for schools of fish. The whole sore lipping fish off community holes is silly. If it's really a community hole and you are concerned it holds the quality of fish that can win the tourney, maybe you should join the ranks and hit those spots during the tourney. Otherwise, if it's an area more known for numbers than quality, I'm not too concerned with those spots beating me. Spend more time honing your skill and locating your fish and less time worrying about what the competition is doing. That's my .02 wrth after doing this for the past 30 years.

What is this prefishing thing you speak of?

I think it's fishing before u actually fish

I would rather fish the day before than a week before.

u need another job if it cuts into fishing time..

Always. I stick a fish or two to have confidence in the spot the next day. I never go "soremouth" other fish. One reason is I may need those fish the next day and two I think it is chi%#en$h1t to do so.

if your not cheating, your not trying. drop a bag of dogfood in the hole so the carp and catfish will chase them away or drop a car battery in your buddys spot. jk

Sometimes I do if I haven't had time to get on the water. If I think there are multiple patterns working (like immediate post spawn) and I want to fish shallow during the tournament, I may go the day before and fish nothing but deep points and humps. You can eliminate a lot of water that way. When I do this I am actually hoping I don't get a quality bite the day before. Then, come tourney time I don't have that little devil sitting on my shoulder telling me I should be doing something different.

I fish every chance I get irregardless of if it's the day before a tourney or not. And I stick every one that'll bite. As terrible of a fishermen as I am I have to take advantage of every bite.

This is outrite pathetic. If you have to win this way your about as worthless as a guy tying up fish. "Hmmm hey i know where joe who usually does well fishes let me go soremouth his fish to better my chances.". I bet these guys that approve of this are the same ones who carry binocs to watch other fisherman. When you win lime that how in the world could you even look at yourself in the mirror.

As for the original question. If i know the area and know it holds good fish i would stick 1 max. Most likely just shake em. If i am uncertain the most would be stick two keepers.

The Defense methods stated here seems like they're not sporting at all. Probably happens alot though.......

This is how I think. Just last night we had a little jackpot and everyone was fishing 2' or less including me. I struck out on a spot or two and decided to throw the football on a rocky deeper secondary point close to a couple spawning pockets and bam ! I got a small chunk 3.19 but good enough for big bass.

The day before, just look around and don't fish your areas... confirm what you think you already know.

This is why you only fish one lake and jackpot tournaments. That way you dont really have to prefish becuase you are on the lake all the time.

I don't think I would pre-fish the day before.

My wife and I are fishing the TBC metro trail this year, out of the 6 lakes we are fishing I had only fished one two of them prior to this year! I usually try to go out a few times in the month leading up to tourney day to establish some kind of pattern!