Entry 97-1

Denny Brauer - Back On Top Again - The Heart Of A Champion

Practice Days

Editor's Note: Denny Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri, never fishes for second place. He always competes to win. Brauer has developed a strategy that has made him one of America's top professional-bass fisherman. In one year, Brauer earned $1 million in competitive bass fishing and endorsement money, made appearances on television and became the first professional angler featured on the Wheaties - Breakfast of Champions - cereal box. But in 1999, Brauer sustained a back injury that many believed would destroy his career.

From then until 2002, Brauer had several operations and many months of rehab that most thought would signal the end of his bass-fishing career. But Denny Brauer and his family never gave up. Brauer always has been determined not only to win bass tournaments but also to win at life. He stands today as an example of just how far a man can go when he won't quit. In March 2004, Denny Brauer won the Bassmaster Tour Tournament on Lake Eufaula in Eufaula, Alabama, and took home $100,000 in prize money.

Brauer: The first day of practice, I fished really poorly. I just couldn't seem to find the bass at Lake Eufaula and couldn't get the bites I needed. On the second day of practice, we had cloud cover come in on the lake. I caught a good bag of bass on top-water baits. But the third day of practice is where I really determined the pattern, the bait and the technique that would be required to win the Lake Eufaula tournament.

I decided that if I wanted to win the tournament that I would have to fish overlooked spots on the lake that most other anglers wouldn't fish. I was fishing structure so ugly that you wouldn't put anyone else on it to fish it. I'd never fished this area of Lake Eufaula before, but I knew after the third day of practice that the bigger bass were holding on isolated cover in regions that you might have to spend 30 minutes trying to get your boat into the place where you wanted to fish. Too, that little spot might only be worth one or two casts. But if there was a bass on that place, more than likely it would be a big bass.

Because in tournament fishing we fish against the clock, most anglers won't waste 30 or 40 minutes to go to a site where they only can make one or two casts each. However, I've found that it's those kinds of spots that often hold the most and the biggest bass. This pattern is what I learned on the last practice day at Lake Eufaula before the tournament started. I was fishing in some water only 2-feet deep. Although the lake homed both spawning and pre-spawning bass, I fished for the pre-spawners, because I thought they were the biggest. I was fishing a Strike King 3/8-ounce Pro Model jig in the black-and-blue color with the new Denny Brauer 3X trailer. I had about 12 bites the last day of practice, and I felt that if I'd weighed those bass in, I would have made up a 20-pound stringer on that day. So, this area was where I planned to fish the first day of the tournament.




 

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