Boyd Duckett – Analyzing my Fishing

It’s no secret that for the past few months I’ve been diagnosing my fishing game, top to bottom. I’ve been writing about it and talking about it during interviews.

I’m trying to get to the bottom of why I had such a lousy year in 2011. The way I see it, it’s time to re-evaluate your game when you go from five straight Classic appearances, including one victory and a second Super Six finish, to standing on the outside looking in. It’s a bad feeling.

The good news is that when you start looking at yourself with a sharp, critical eye, you’re bound to find some things out about yourself.

Well, I’ve learned a couple of things so far. The first thing is that I’m spending way too much time on business and not enough time taking care of what should be my primary business: competitive bass fishing. But, to be honest, that one was obvious. Between making sure Southern Tank Leasing (my tank-trailer leasing operation) and Duckett Fishing are running smoothly, time gets eaten up. But I knew before I started this self-evaluation process. I’ve been fighting that battle for years. It had to be something else.

Well, I recently found a second problem. When I’m on the water, I’ve been rushing everything. I actually didn’t even realize that I had been speeding up just about every technical thing I do while fishing. My bait has been winding up too high, and I’m just generally not on target. That’s the short version.

Well, I had a great opportunity to test the “rushing myself” theory a few weeks ago. I was involved in two events. The first was the Fish and Chips tournament in Oklahoma. The second was an event I’ve been looking forward to for a long, long time: Major League Fishing’s first tournament.

The good news is that at both events I slowed down my motion, forced myself to focus on the task hand and started catching fish again.

One reason I tell you this is that I’d like to encourage you to watch what I did at the Major League Fishing Challenge Cup. Even more important, you’ll get to see what 23 other great anglers did, too. You can see this during the first Major League Fishing web-based pay-per-view broadcast.

I haven’t been this excited about a broadcast event in a long, long time – maybe ever. I’m going to watch this as a fan. I was there competing, but I didn’t see what we’re going to see on the pay-per-view. I want to watch how the great anglers that competed in the event went about their business. And that’s what you and I will be able to see.

You’ll be able to get inside Kevin VanDam’s head, and that’s no easy task. You’ll get to see Aaron Martens and his sometimes unorthodox methods of finding fish. You’ll get to see how Shaw Grigsby, a self-proclaimed underdog on Lake Amistad, handles a body of water that’s been out of his element in the past. You’ll get to see the competitive juices get going when Ike and Skeet have just one day to figure out one section of a lake.

The pay-per-view is going to cost $2.99 an episode. What you’ll be buying for $2.99 is something that’s never been offered on any video or how-to program. You’ll watch the pros FIND fish. Most people can catch them. The game is all about finding them. And that’s what the pros do that almost no one else can: find them in a hurry. If you’ve ever fished a tournament, you know that’s probably worth more like $299 instead of $2.99.

I promise you, absolutely promise you, it will be worth both the time and a couple of bucks.

As I said, I was actually there. And I still can’t wait to see it.

http://www.boydduckett.com/