Alabama's Russ Lane had never visited five of the lakes on the Bassmaster Elite Series this year. His average finish in those events was 27th, and that would seem to make him extremely qualified to dole out advice on how to approach a body of water you'll be competing on for the first time.
Preparation should begin long before you arrive at the lake.
"The first thing I do is order a good map," he said. "The best ones I've found are from fishinghotspots.com. If I can't get a map, what I use is my Lowrance 26 HD. I can pull up maps of just about any lake, anywhere on that hard drive."
Process of Elimination
Once Lane has his map in hand, he starts eliminating sections of the lake from consideration due to the time of year.
"I try to determine what the seasonal patterns are going to be for the tournament, and that allows me to mark off about 75% of the lake," he said. "That is, unless it's June or September. Those are transition months, and fish can be caught just about anywhere.
"Say it's springtime, I'll mark off all of the main lake and just eliminate it. Then I'll go through the map and circle all of the flat backwater areas, especially places that are close to channel swings. Those are the first places fish are going to show up for the spawn."
If it's early in the pre-spawn, his study gets very specific.
"I'll look for the areas that I've circled that are facing south or protected from the north wind, and eliminate the places that aren't. This usually holds true for everywhere except for Florida – there it just doesn't seem to matter."
Off to the Net
Once he's got his map well-marked, Lane turns to the Internet for up-to-date information about the bite.
"The Internet is a great source of info," he said. "Usually all you have to do is punch the name of the lake you're going to into a search engine, then put 'fishing tips' next to it, and about a hundred sites will come up and you can scan through those. The guys who go on there and talk about the fishing will usually get you pointed in the right direction.
"It won't get you dialed it, but it's a good tool to get started."
Seek Perfection
Each Elite Series event has 3 official practice days, and Lane uses the first of those to search for specific features.
"I look at water clarity, the types of cover on the banks and the types of offshore structure," he said. "For most of that day I'm just riding and looking.
"On that first practice day, I try to only make casts only in places that look perfect. If those are productive, then I use the rest of the practice to try to expand that water. If not, then I might have to go back and reevaluate what the seasonal patterns are.
"Usually, nobody's going to be more than one seasonal pattern off," he added. "Like if you go to a lake looking for pre-spawn fish, you're probably not going to find people whacking them by cranking the ledges. Nobody's that bad."
Even the pros aren't dead-on every time with their preliminary evaluations, though, and that first day of practice sometimes points out that adjustments in the overall gameplan are needed.
"I could go in believing it's a pre-spawn deal, but then I might find water that's 62 degrees. If that happens, I'm going to turn the corner and start looking for fish on beds."
Keep the Hooks out of 'Em
Lane catches as few fish as possible during practice in order to have them available for the tournament.
"Guys have come up with lots of ways to shake fish off," he said. "On my crankbaits, I'll bend all the treble hooks in. You can let the fish grab it, and it'll tell you about how heavy it is.
"Plus, that adds a little bit more excitement to the first day. Since you haven't actually caught those fish, you can't wait to get out there and see how big they really are."
His final piece of advice is to ignore all of the dock talk.
"If you feel like you just have to talk to somebody, then find one practice buddy you can trust with your life. Then you can share a very small amount of info, and that should be enough."
