Entry 288-1
Making Critical Decisions with Chad Brauer
Editor’s Note: Chad Brauer of Osage Beach, Missouri, longtime member of the Strike King professional bass fishermen’s team, has competed in numerous bass-fishing tournaments and been in the outdoors for most of his life. Most anglers want to catch the most bass and the biggest bass in the least amount of time, whether in a tournament, filming a TV show or just hanging out with their buddies. This week, Brauer will tell us how he makes critical decisions while bass fishing and hosting the “Academy Outdoors Show” on TV.
Part 1: You May be Running Away from Bass Rather than Towards Them
Question: Chad, how do you make the decision to fish close or make a long run?
Brauer: In tournament fishing, I never make that decision until after the last practice phase. Learning where the bass aren’t holding is just as important as finding where the bass are holding, so you can eliminate non-producing water. The more water you can eliminate, the quicker you’ll be able to find the bass.
If you go to a lake where the water’s dirty and cold, you need to know that cold and dirty water is one of the most-difficult places to locate bass. I’ll start looking for the most-clean and the most-warm parts of the lake. If you’re fishing a clear lake, and the lake’s shallow on one end and deep on the other, your best chances for catching bass are in the deep water. 
So, you’ll be able to eliminate fishing the shallow end.
Question: Do you start close to the boat ramp and then make a long run if necessary, or do you start fishing away from the boat ramp and work back toward the boat ramp?
Brauer: I start with a long run because I have a better chance of catching more and bigger bass quicker if I’m not fishing in a crowd. When you’re the only one in an area looking for bass, your odds for finding and catching bass dramatically increase. If you find the bass away from the crowd, you have an excellent chance of catching most of the bass out of that school. 
In a tournament, most anglers will have the same thought process. However, so the least amount of boat pressure may be closest to the ramp. If you’re fishing for fun, watch the people at the boat ramp.
Very-few people fish near a boat ramp, and most anglers in a tournament, other than national tournaments, release their bass at the boat ramp after the weigh-in. After they release them, a large amount of the fish may hold near the ramp where they’re released. Too, this may be determined by where I find the most-aggressive bass. If there are tons of bass around the boat ramp, but they won’t bite, I’m better off finding a school of more-aggressive bass. There are a number of factors that determine where in the lake I’ll fish.
