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This is the
April 1010 installment of the The Duckett Exchange, a regularly scheduled column about competitive fishing. Written by Boyd Duckett, a former Bassmaster Classic champion and the all-time B.A.S.S. single-season earnings leader, the column addresses issues and trends that affect anglers at every level of competition. In addition to competing on the ESPN Elite Series Tour, Duckett is also a popular a public speaker and successful businessman. He is the owner of Southern Tank Leasing, an Alabama-based company with terminals all over the Southeast and Midwest, and Duckett Fishing, a rod manufacturing company that produces MICROMagic rods. His pro fishing Web/Blog site can be found at
www.boydduckett.com. This week in the Elite Series we’re going to be fishing one of the most beautiful lakes in the country, Smith Mountain Lake, which is about 45 minutes southeast of Roanoke, Virginia.
Like a lot of other bodies of water in the country, Smith Mountain hasn’t fully adjusted yet to the warm weather of spring. It could make what was going to be a tough tournament event tougher.
I feel comfortable on lakes like Smith Mountain, and I’ve done well there in the past. But when weather and water are unpredictable and colder than normal - and even the fish don’t seem to know what time of year it is – you have to be really careful not to get out of rhythm.
A lot of anglers are going to be grinding at this event, and I can assure you right now that I’ll be one of them. In fact, even if we were in late June and bigger fish were going to be biting, I’d still be grinding because I’ve got a lot ground to make up.
But at Smith Mountain, I’ll be happy to go out there and get 10-12 pounds a day. Anglers that do that will likely be in the hunt.
Feeling good, but still cautious
I have to say that I feel relaxed and confident, probably more confident than I should be right now since I’m still not in the top half of the field in angler-of-the-year points.
My message to tournament anglers anywhere would be this: Don’t let a lousy tournament or two ruin a full season of fishing. That’s what I’m dealing with now, because I fished two horrible tournaments to start the season, and I know that fishing badly in a tournament can mess with your head.
The Bassmaster Classic was terrible, in part because my boat engine blew on the first day, but also because I never got positioned in the one area of Lay Lake where the fish were actually biting. Then I had a bad tournament in the California Delta. I never got on the fish there and wound up with an 88th place finish in the first Elite Series event. That’s not good, to say the least. 
So I found myself in a bind. And I have to form a strategy that will help me catch up. My answer is that I’ve got to fish defensively. My goal is a Top 12 finish at the end of our Elite Series season, but, as they say, I’ve got a “long way to go and a short time to get there.”
You might think that a terrible finish in one tournament – like the performance I had in the Delta - would encourage an angler to throw caution to the wind and go on a tournament-long search for five- and six-pounders. But I’m suggesting that, as much as I’d like to do that, it’s usually not smart.
For the rest of the Elite Series, I choose to do things just the opposite. I’ll get on the water and try to find fish, no matter what size they are. Find some beds or a ledge or a pocket. Catch a limit and keep fishing hard. When you find a fish that’s slightly larger than something you’ve got in the well, cull and upgrade. Stay with it.
In our last tournament, at Clear Lake in California, I did that and wound up ninth in the event. It wasn’t first, but it wasn’t 88th, either.
Smart fishing is patient fishing
Even though I took a cautious approach at Clear Lake, in practice I was urgent in making sure I got comfortable as fast as possible. It was almost a “hurry up and wait” situation. As critical as my situation was, I had to force myself fish hard, but to also be patient and grind. And, as I said, it worked at Clear Lake. I started in 33rd after Day 1, then moved up to 13th second day before ending up in the Top 12.
So back to Smith Mountain. I’ve been looking at the weather for Smith Mountain. The water has moved into the mid fifties, but we’re in an odd moon phase and it will be one of the worst phases for spawning.
I think what will happen is that some of the fish will move early into beds, but we’ll pick them clean in three days. We’re not going to be able to sight fish for five days at Smith Mountain.
This time, we’re all going to have to be patient. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll try to develop a pre-spawn pattern and go get what I can get early. I want to pluck what I can get on the first day, but that’s not going to be enough.
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