Entry 118-1
How to Keep a Streak Going with Mark Davis
Confidence, The Key To A Streak
Editor's Note: For four months in the spring of 2004, Mark Davis, of Mt. Ida, Arkansas, was possibly the hottest bass fisherman on the professional circuit. During that four-month period, Davis went on a winning streak and won three BASS tournaments against the best bass fishermen in the nation. For four months, Davis consistently performed at the very peak of his ability and consistently outperformed all of his competition. This week, Davis will tell us how he maintained that high level of bass-fishing performance for four months and won three major tournaments while he was in the zone. From listening to Davis explaining the streak, we’ll learn more about how to bass fish better and catch more bass every time we go fishing.
Davis: I believe the major reason I dominated during those four months was because of my ability to find more fish than the other contestants were able to locate. That sounds like a very simplistic explanation, but it’s true. Rick Clunn caught 75 pounds of bass at a Bassmaster Classic on the Arkansas River, because of his ability to find a big school of bass. Rick found those fish during practice before the tournament. When you locate a big school of fish like that and none of the other competitors in the field find that school of fish, you have a lot of confidence. Winning seems almost easy.
Like Clunn, I was successful because I located more good schools of bass than the other contestants did. But, just locating the bass is not the total secret. You have to be in tune with the fish. You have to know what the fish want to do, when and if they move, where they move, and when they feed. Even though you’ve located a big school of bass, there may be only an hour or two during the day that those fish want to feed. There may be a certain lure they want to eat. You may have to have your boat in just the right spot to cast at the right angle to make those fish bite. And, even after you are in-tune with the fish, you have to be able to change your fishing as their mood changes. During the tournament at Table Rock, I won because I had a good understanding of how to fish a clear-water highland reservoir. But because the region had a major rain right after practice, I had to disregard all the information I had gathered on how and where to catch bass before the tournament began.
On the first day of the tournament, I found that the bass preferred to hold in stained water. However, I had to adjust my fishing every day to stay in tune with the bass. I fished different water every day with various lures. On the first day, I caught my bass on a Strike King spinner bait. On the last day of the tournament, Strike King jigs and crankbaits were the lures that produced the winning catch. Too, I fished a different area of the lake each day. On the tournament trail, when we have a good day and catch a bunch of fish in one spot or with one lure, everyone tends to want to return to that same spot, use the same lure and try to duplicate the catch they have had the day before, even though the fishing conditions have changed. I’ll go back to the same spot and use the same lure on the second day of a tournament. But if I don’t catch fish quickly, I’ll abandon that pattern and realize the bass are in a different mood and I need to look in a different place with a different lure.
Often, you are not necessarily leaving a pattern, you are just leaving a section of the lake. In that tournament, every day I would go into a new area that I had never seen in person before just seen on the map. You have to have a lot of confidence in your ability to go into a new place, size up that area’s fish-producing potential and then choose the right lure to make those fish bite. One of the main ingredients that enabled me to keep my streak going for so long was my ability to quickly determine when the fish had stopped one pattern. Then I’d run to a new area, and spots I had never seen before and have confidence that I could determine what the bass in the new area were doing and what lures and presentations I needed to use to make those fish bite. When you are on a winning streak, one of the most-critical factors to keep that streak going is to have confidence in yourself and your ability to figure out the bass and know that you know what you need to do to catch them. Success builds on success. Success also builds confidence, and confidence gives you courage to push the limits and try new things and new techniques on new water.
