"Confidence is too vague a word." That was Rick Clunn's response to a question asking about his confidence level going into a tournament. Here's the rest of what he said, and as always, it's eye-opening.
"The one thing that most anglers forget about, in a long career especially, is the feeling of winning," Clunn says. "They know how they won, but most forget the feeling of winning. Without the feeling of winning, you can put everything else together but you can't win."
Is there a way to describe that feeling? "It's the determination behind that tournament, the commitment to a way of fishing, the discipline you had, the excitement you had -- all of those things."
Not only that, you have to decide to win. That day.
"Most of your career you spend preparing to win," he says. "That's what any top athlete has to do, and that period can be lengthy. It can be 10-15 years that you're preparing to win. But the problem is that you do that for so long, you don't know how to get out of it.
"At some point in time you have to grasp the moment. There's no more preparing to win. You're going to win today. That's the transition you have to be able to make.
"When I won the Red Man All-American in 1985 was probably when I first became aware of it," Clunn says. "It dawned on me that 'I may not be back here again (because of his schedule). There's no more preparing for this. The time is now.'
"It's like a team that goes to the Super Bowl for the first time. They're so happy to be there, they don't play to win. They're just there celebrating, and it dawns on them afterward what it took to get there.
"At some point in time you have to translate 'someday I'll win' to 'today I'll win.' That's a major step. It sounds simple, but it isn't.
"It still is difficult (for him) to do. But (that realization) made a big difference from then on."
Clunn as Teacher
That kind of thinking and insight, and the resulting achievements, are why Clunn is one of the best and most-respected tour pros. If you want to know more about what he knows, he's conducting an "Outdoor Awareness and Advanced Angling School" Oct. 7-12. Here's what he says about that.
"I'm probably more excited about doing this school than anything else in my career," he says. "There's very little in this school that anyone has ever heard anywhere else. You'd think that as much as is written about our sport, it's all covered. But not even close. Basically, the way the sport has been covered has been very redundant.
"Anyone can sign up for the school, but I stress that this is advanced angling. I don't discourage anybody from coming, but be aware of what you're getting into. You're going to hear terminologies and other things you haven't heard before.
"It's not spiritual mumbo-jumbo," Clunn says. "It's things like pressure zones, blinds spots, rings of awareness -- the most important things the top anglers use to win tournaments."
To learn more about the Outdoor Awareness and Advanced Angling School, click here to go to Clunn's web site.
New Lateral-Line Crankbait
One other interesting item: Bass Pro Shops, one of Clunn's sponsors, is coming out with a new crankbait based on Clunn's 10 years of research into a fish's lateral line sense.
"I feel like we've totally underestimated the sophistication of the lateral line," he says. According to his research, "the lateral line probably is one of the most sophisticated senses any creature has. It's like echolocation. It draws a mental image of everything in the fish's environment.
"At the fisherman's level that translates to a bass having the ability to differentiate among any lure that we put in the water. It draws a different mental image of it. And with more and more people fishing, we all know the importance of doing something different."
Clunn's peak educational experience about that came at the 1984 BASS Masters Classic, which he won. The first day he caught 24 pounds and the next day he caught 23. All of those fish were on a 6A Bomber, a "loud plastic bait," and on the second day he had to work "very hard" for his fish.
"That night I was sitting there thinking of all the things I could do to catch more fish," he says. He thought he found an answer, but on day 3 he started out fishing the Bomber. "The first two passes I didn't catch anything," he says. "Then I tied on a wood bait -- it was quiet, no rattles -- and caught 28 pounds.
"That subtle changed turned a worn-out spot into a virgin spot again. And that experience taught me that something was going on." Clunn led that Classic every day and won with 75-09.
As you might expect, the new crankbaits will be different than other baits. They're based on a principle derived from lateral line understanding called Advanced Target Imaging, or "hydrodynamic imaging."
The baits won't be out until winter or spring, and should be part of an arsenal. As Clunn notes, "If everyone starts throwing that bait, the fish will become conditioned to it. So it's really a matter of understanding what the fish reacting to."
