The best bass fisherman I have ever seen was a fellow from Southeastern Missouri. I will just call him Terry. Not his real name but close.
I have seen Terry fish a milfoil edge with a crank bait, catching dozens of nice bass when the guy in the back (me) fishing an identical bait could only catch grass.
I have sat in my boat and watched Terry catch multiple limits of 6lb plus bass out of the back seat when I never had a bite.
Why isn't this guy on TV winning the B/M Classic? Simple, he is just unable to mentally deal with those rare occasions when he catches little or nothing and others step to the scales with good catches. I have seen people like Rick Clunn, Roland Martin, or Paul Elias go zero at the scales and grin about it. But not Terry, he would be devastated.
One year we did talk Terry into entering a big tournament in Florida. It was a 4 day deal with all the big names entered and had a $1,000 entry fee. After day 3, Terry was in 4th place and he drew one of the` premiere names in the field, a past 2X winner of THE classic and a real prima donna. This guy insisted on running way on the other side of the lake away from Terry's fish. To make a longer story shorter, Terry still finished in 2nd place only ounces from first. To my knowledge, Terry has never entered another big time tournament.
The point of this story... You can't be the best without taking the same risk of loosing.
I have seen Terry fish a milfoil edge with a crank bait, catching dozens of nice bass when the guy in the back (me) fishing an identical bait could only catch grass.
I have sat in my boat and watched Terry catch multiple limits of 6lb plus bass out of the back seat when I never had a bite.
Why isn't this guy on TV winning the B/M Classic? Simple, he is just unable to mentally deal with those rare occasions when he catches little or nothing and others step to the scales with good catches. I have seen people like Rick Clunn, Roland Martin, or Paul Elias go zero at the scales and grin about it. But not Terry, he would be devastated.
One year we did talk Terry into entering a big tournament in Florida. It was a 4 day deal with all the big names entered and had a $1,000 entry fee. After day 3, Terry was in 4th place and he drew one of the` premiere names in the field, a past 2X winner of THE classic and a real prima donna. This guy insisted on running way on the other side of the lake away from Terry's fish. To make a longer story shorter, Terry still finished in 2nd place only ounces from first. To my knowledge, Terry has never entered another big time tournament.
The point of this story... You can't be the best without taking the same risk of loosing.