If you don't know how to flip, you're not going to win or place high in many tournaments. More often than not, power techniques rule, and flipping and pitching more so than most.

But everyone knows how to flip, right? Okay, but how come tour pros are so good at it? What makes them better? To find some answers, we asked Gary Klein, who is having a good year on both tours in large part thanks to his flipping and pitching skills.

Time and Experience

"The most important thing is time on the water and experience," he says. "The actual technique is nothing more than a technique to help you present a lure in cover to fish.

"Just like you hear Fritts say all the time about cranking: it's the cast. There's a thought process behind how he's fishing his lure. It's no different in flipping. There's a tremendous thought process there, everything from cover and boat position to lure presentation. Anglers can only achieve that from time on the water. It's hard work and dedication."

Pattern Within a Pattern

All top pros look beyond just patterns. They look for refinements that are sometimes called "secondary patterns" or "patterns within a pattern." That's how Klein approaches flipping.

"When I look at a piece of cover, I don't just look at a tree or bush. I look at the front side, the back side, the shallow side, the deep side -- I'm trying to develop a pattern within a pattern for where those fish are exactly positioned within the cover."

The toughest part about establishing a pattern within a pattern is that your best information comes at the strike -- the time when your reactions take over and your brain is most likely to go on autopilot.

"When a strike occurs, that's when you should start gathering data," he says. "Where was the fish positioned, when did you make the flip, was it the first flip or the fourth? You have to figure out how the fish are positioned so when you move on to the next target, you'll remember where the last fish came from."

He notes that fish position "changes by the hour. But if you're in tune and listening to the fish, they'll tell you everything you need to know."

Boat Position

"Then there's boat positioning," Klein says. "When you know when and where you'll get the bite or should get the bite, you'll know how to position the boat better to help boat that fish.

"A lot of times I'll go out of my way to position the boat at the best angle to clear the fish after the strike. If you take a little more time and preparation, you can lead that fish out of the bush instead of through the bush.

"Say for example that you know the fish are on the shallow side of heavy cover, and you're approaching a laydown tree," he says. "You know the fish aren't on the end of the tree -- they're back where the tree meets the bank. I'll position the boat so that when I present the lure, I won't have to pull the fish out through the branches. I'll have clear water from the tree to the boat."

Presentation

Much has been said about the importance of a "feathered," low-noise, no-splash presentation. Klein says that's important sometimes, but it depends on the bite.

"Sometimes I like to make a lot of noise, especially if I'm fishing heavy cover. At Seminole this year (where he won), a lot of times I'd slap the mat to get the bait to go through -- but I also wanted to make a splash to get the attention of the fish. You also do that to pull fish to the edge of cover or out from underneath a dock.

"Many times in competition if your presentation is real smooth, you don't get the strike," he adds. "But if (the bait) goes in kind of hard, you do. You have to listen to the fish. Usually you want a perfect presentation, but it's not the only thing you have to do."

Tips

> Common mistakes -- "I see a lot of things," Klein says. "People don't position the boat correctly for the flips. They try to hurry through the water - - they don't fish thoroughly, and don't listen to what the fish are trying to tell them. And there's a big different between throwing a lure out and reeling it in, and throwing a lure out and fishing it back to the boat. When you're dialed in, you have good visual picture of the lure the entire time you're fishing it. That's when good things happen."

> Hookset -- His hookset is "always the same. I use a really firm pull. I don't snap-set. If you do that, you deliver too much energy to the hook, which bends hooks and breaks lines. So I use a really firm pull-set."

> Efficiency -- "You're always tweaking as the day moves on. But one thing that developing a pattern within a pattern helps you do is that when you go into area, you don't have to fish the whole area. You see the key thing you're looking for -- what fish are relating to -- and you fish it and move on. Don't waste time fishing the whole pocket."

> Gear/Lures -- Here's his favorite flipping/pitching gear: 7' 6" Quantum PT heavy flipping stick, Quantum PT 600 high-speed reel, 80-pound SpiderWire Stealth when fishing aquatic vegetation (to cut through the grass), and 30- pound Berkley Big Game when fishing wood. His favorite flipping lures are a 1/2- ounce Lunker Lure Rattleback Jig (black/blue) with various trailers depending on the conditions, and a 6-inch Berkley Power Lizard (black).