In his fifth season on the Walmart FLW Tour, John Cox nearly won the 2015 Angler of the Year award while fishing from a 19-foot aluminum bass boat with no depth finder transducer. He fished only shallow – more or less – made four top 20s and came up 14 points shy of Scott Martin’s winning AOY point total.
The fact that Cox took such an unconventional approach by modern tournament-fishing standards is noteworthy in itself, but how and why he did it goes a little deeper than simply dedicating himself to “fishing his strengths,” as pros so often quip. For Cox, success was the result of a new approach to practice, an innate ability to adapt on the fly and some important lessons learned during competition.
We boiled down the most important factors into 10 key lessons that can help any angler who wants to become a better competitive angler.
Oh, and spoiler alert: He will be using a transducer next season.
1. No Pattern Necessary
Cox’ practice strategy this season was to not get locked in on a pattern. Rather, he sought to scout as much of the lake as possible so that he was prepared for any conditions he might face in the tournament.
“I ended up fishing a lot of places [in the tournaments] where I didn’t catch a fish or didn’t fish at all in practice,” he says. “I’d just look at it in practice and know I could catch fish there.
“Everything changes so much in a week, especially when we get there and the pressure gets on,” he adds. “Sometimes I’d see a couple docks, but I’d look at them while it was raining in practice and think that maybe when the sun comes out I could fish them in the tournament. Or I’d see some grass in practice when there were bright blue skies, but when there was rain or clouds in the tournament I’d go fish it because fishing bank grass is usually a morning thing or for low-light conditions.”
He says that getting locked in on a pattern in practice has hurt him in the past because it’s so hard to abandon that pattern in the tournament when it dries up.
“The whole year I pretty much said I was going to do whatever it takes just to catch them and get paid,” Cox adds.
Continue reading – http://flwfishing.com/tips/2015-07-13-no-patterns-no-transducers