By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor
As a former baseball pitcher, Russ Lane has always tried to stay a step ahead of his opposition. Whether he was up 0-2 on a power-hitting left-hander or trying to figure out a pattern that his Elite Series competitors may have missed, Lane has always taken his mental approach to sports seriously.
Following two missed cuts to start the 2016 season, he decided it was time to make a significant change to how he was preparing for tournaments. He made a concerted effort to operate in his own bubble and find ways to function in his comfort zone on the water, even if it was a tangent from what the majority of the field was doing. It reinvigorated him and he wound up logging four top-30 finishes over the final seven events.
“When I started, I didn’t talk to anybody and didn’t talk to locals,” Lane said, recalling his first years as a pro angler. “I almost never missed a check. I had a few top-12s, but I also had a lot of solid tournaments.”
He wanted to recapture that mindset that was free of dock talk and bag-line chatter, and he’s confident he’s accomplished his goal. He just wishes he’d have re-committed to it sooner.
“I know I’m still going to have a bomb and I had two last year and one this year,” he said, “but If I’d have started this last year, I’d have fished two Classics in a row.”
He carried over his refreshed outlook to the 2017 season and the results were stellar – six checks, plus a berth in the Angler of the Year Championship and a 22nd-place finish in points, which earned him a seventh Classic berth.
“It’s just a freer mindset and I was just a lot more comfortable this year,” he said. “This is supposed to be fun. Nobody does this to get rich and famous. I want it to be more fun. My motto this year was ‘forget the points, forget the win and just do what you do.’”
Had to Commit
Lane says there is no “in between” when it comes to his mental approach. He had to buy in completely or it wouldn’t be worth it.
“It takes a commitment to this mindset,” he said. “I was tired of not being happy with my results. I want to be happy with my fishing and the results, and whatever the results are, that’s what they are.”
Basically, he fished on his terms and he gladly lived with the outcomes.
“What that means is if I know guys are going to run out in front of the ramp and dropshot in 35 feet of water and I know that’s how it’ll be won, but I can run up a creek and get paid flipping, I’m going flipping,” he said.
In 2016, Lane bombed at Toledo Bend with a 94th-place showing. This year, he was 32nd thanks to a sight-fishing program. While John Murray won it cranking offshore (one of Lane’s specialties), Lane settled into a pattern he felt few others wouldn’t commit to.
“Nobody was talking about sight-fishing so a couple guys went down there and were looking at them,” he said. “I think my chances are better to win if I do something like that. Nine out of 10 times, the guy who wins might’ve started on the biggest school ever, but he still grinds on the final day. If I’m going to be grinding at the end, I want to be grinding doing something I do. If I make it to day 4 and he’s grinding with a dropshot offshore and I’m up a creek flipping, I’ll take my chances flipping.”
When the Elite Series visits his stomping grounds at Lake Martin to open the 2018 season, he’ll approach it the same exact way.
“I grew up fishing there that time of year and I used to win there fishing in a crowd,” he said. “That may happen in the Elite, but I’ll be comfortable because I’ve done it there. If at the end of practice, I’m pretty sure how it’ll get won or if I don’t feel like if I have an area or technique dialed in, I might just go to my comfort zone and get my points and try to win $10,000.”
Classic Move
One example this year of Lane’s fresh outlook steering him away from a bomb of a finish was at Ross Barnett. In fact, he thinks his 61st-place finish there was just as responsible for his making the 2018 Classic as his 22nd at Sam Rayburn three weeks later.
He had a hunch there were good finishes to be had fishing the bank up the Pearl River, but some areas were going to be crowded.
“It was insane that 110 boats were in a 5-mile stretch of river with a little backwater,” he said. “We beat it up on day 1 of practice.”
The next day, he found a chute that wasn’t on the map, but wasn’t getting bites flipping down the bank.
“I go around the corner and there’s (Jason) Christie,” he said. “I knew there was no way I was going to fish around this group and behind Christie. I even told Jason, ‘I’m not doing this.’”
His fallback plan was to look for offshore fish and he found some near the mouth of the river. He had the bites to have a good first day of the tournament, but he was slow to adjust to where the fish had repositioned.
“I lost the first four fish that bit,” he said. “It was my fault and I didn’t make the right adjustment. They were shallower. In practice, the fish were in 10 to 11 feet, but the next morning they were on top in 4 feet. I didn’t change baits to a shallower runner so it would jam in the mud and they’d hit it, but miss it. I went to a 3/4-ounce spinnerbait and they were able to get it.”
The next day the wind blew, but he managed a couple cranking fish and caught a couple other keepers on the bank away from anyone else.
“I missed a check, but avoided a bomb by doing what I do,” he added. “I wasn’t thinking about the money. It was more about doing it my way. I made the Classic there, no doubt.”
