By Todd Ceisner
Special to BassFan
Cliff Pace is a simple man of simple means. He’s also one to keep things simple on the water.
The Elite Series Pro from Petal, Miss., is coming off a respectable 2011 season in which he made six 50-cuts in eight events. However, the campaign lacked the sterling finishes he’s come to be known for. After collecting six 12-cuts over 2009 and 2010, he failed to finished higher than 26th in any event in 2011 and wound up 50th in the Toyota Tundra B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year (AOY) standings.
Simply, last year wasn’t up to his standards.
“I am looking forward to the season we have ahead of us,” he said. “More than anything else, to get it right. I made some mistakes last year, no question, and I made some mistakes I couldn't recover from.
“I can't blame anything for the season I just had other than me.”
His average finish of 48.6 was just that: average. Hence, when his compatriots roll into Shreveport/Bossier City, La., in a few weeks for the Bassmaster Classic, he won’t be among the competitors for the first time since 2009. It’ll serve as a reminder of what he needs to do this year so he’s not a spectator again in 2013.
“There are a lot of guys out there who are real consistent and make a lot of 50-cuts,” he said. “I wish that for all of them, but I look back at the year I had 2 seasons ago where I made a lot of 50-cuts and had a couple Top 10s in addition to making the Classic. You just have to have a few good things go your way throughout the season.
“I didn't have a real, real bad year as far as staying fairly consistent and giving myself some opportunities. I had one of those seasons where I never had anything go completely right or completely as planned. I struggled through a lot of practices last year and didn't find what I was anticipating finding. I really, truly outsmarted myself at a few of the tournaments.”
‘May’ I Have Another?
At the halfway point of the 2011 season, Pace found himself in a familiar position – right in the mix for a Classic berth. He was 34th in the AOY race coming off a 37th-place showing at Toledo Bend.
When the calendar turned to May, back-to-back missed cuts in the next two events – West Point and Murray – saw him fall to 59th in the standings, more than 130 points off the pace for 36th, which represented the cut line for a guaranteed Classic berth.
At West Point, which was new water to him, he struggled out of the gate and dumped his gameplan for day 2, hoping to find big bites. He weighed only three fish and finished 92nd, his worst finish since the Grand Lake Elite Series in June 2007, a span of 42 events.
“It was one of those events where I just outsmarted myself,” he said. “It was really one of those tournaments where there were a lot of things going on. It was early post-spawn, there were still a few fish on beds. I just didn't read the lake well and made some bad decisions.
“On the second day of the tournament, I pretty much threw my whole practice away and went in an entirely new direction. That proved to be a real bad decision. I could have gone out on the second day and fished for points and finished somewhere in the mid-60s just catching again what I caught on the first day. I just tried too hard there to make something good happen and it didn't. It was based on nothing more than the decisions I made. Nothing else went wrong. I just absolutely did not catch them, period.”
A week later at Murray, it was thought that the nightly herring and shad spawn would make for a furious early-morning bite. It did, but Casey Ashley won the event on the strength of his afternoon work in skinny water. Pace put together a solid practice, but again his program couldn’t get him over the 50-cut hump as he settled for 65th.
Pace said that his failure to qualify for the 2012 Bassmaster Classic made his 2011 season unsatisfactory.
"When we go to certain lakes at certain times of the year, you can look at the schedule and really feel like you know before you leave home what to expect out of that event,” he said. “It doesn't always have to be that way. I think the trick to it is to not try to make it be that way.
“Last year, some of the tournaments I did poorly in were not tournaments that went that way. One of the events I didn't do that well in was Lake Murray and everybody in the field knew it would be a herring spawn and knew we would be chasing fish. I just didn't get the bites in the tournament to have a good event. I had great days every day of practice and it just didn't come together the first 2 days of the tournament.”
Fresh Start
Pace plans to be in Shreveport for the Classic next month to fulfill sponsor obligations and mingle with fans. If nothing else, it’ll get his competitive juices flowing for the 2012 season, which again opens with back-to-back events in Florida in March.
“I hate that I'm not getting to get started in February at the Classic because that's always a common goal,” he said. "That's always on top of my list of accomplishments for each season. I look at some of these guys' careers and I have always had a tremendous amount of respect for the certain anglers out there who are so consistent and make the Classic year in and year out. If you really look at it, there's not that many of them.
“I don't think a lot of the fans realize just how hard it is and yet there are those guys who do it year in and year out. At the same time it doesn't make me any less satisfied with not making it. I can't convince myself that I did okay and not get to compete in the Classic. To me that deal is not satisfactory.”
More new water awaits this year – he’s only fished Okeechobee once and he’s never fished Bull Shoals or Douglas. His strategy for the year is simple: Make better decisions, which will presumably lead to better results.
“I pride myself on being competitive,” he said. “If I didn't feel like I wanted to be competitive, I wouldn't be out there. I hope I never go through the type of season where you have two or three West Points that I had last year. I've been very fortunate and blessed to have never gone through that. I know it would be a very hard thing to swallow mentally.
“The only thing I want to work on this year is not anything equipment-wise or a specific technique. The main thing I want to work on is learning how to make better decisions. I'm working on me. Everything else that needs to be worked on, I've been working on for 10 years. I just need to not make the mental mistakes that I made last year.”
