How To Win A Classic

Everyone knows the Bassmaster Classic isn't just another tournament. It's a winner-take-all event whose prize is the most-prized title in professional bass fishing. In other words, fishing for points – the constant bugbear of pros in every other Bassmaster event – is out. Swinging for the tallest fence on the water is in.

Since fishing this tournament is so different, what does it take to win it? Laser-beam focus? Flawless execution? A little luck? All of the above and more, according to the following Classic winners who are fishing this week's big show.

Mike Iaconelli (2003)

Mike Iaconelli's recipe for Classic victory is part practice and preparation, part ability and intuition, plus a measure of fate – the last of which he says is largely, but not entirely, beyond an angler's control.

"Preparation and research is so important to me," he said. "A couple months after they announced that the Classic would be on the (Louisiana) Delta (last year), I went out and bought all the topo maps, aerial maps and nautical charts I could find. I also read back issues of magazines to learn all I could about (prevailing patterns) down there. In fact, I found the area that won the tournament for me (while studying maps) at home."

He also goes against the conventional wisdom of many anglers who believe whatever they find in pre-practice will be next to worthless a month later. "I get some grief from a lot of people when I talk about this," he said, "but the official 5-day practice is a big part of (winning). I feel like you win the Classic in pre-practice. You have five 12-hour days to learn as much about the lake as possible, and I hear guys are leaving on Wednesday or Thursday – how could you do that? Maybe on the 11th hour of that last 12-hour day, you find that hump where you win the tournament. But everybody has a different style – mine is practice and preparation."

But above all other factors that go into winning is the theory of fishing the moment, he said. "The best analogy I can give is fun fishing on a farm pond. Your thinking isn't tied to how you caught them in practice, or how other tournaments have been won (at the same lake). You fish more freely and open, and can change or adapt to whatever your instincts tell you at that moment. That's what happened to me last year with that swim worm. I had no intention of fishing it at all that day, but it was rigged on one of the eight rods I had on deck. And (the decision to throw it) just happened."

Last but not least, "everything has to fall into place," he said. "If you're leading by 10 pounds going into the final day and your motor breaks down, that's not luck – I hate that word – it's just one piece that didn't fall into place. Every piece has to fall in place. And I don't mean 8 out of 10. I mean all 10."

Jay Yelas (2002)

"There's no magic formula for winning the Classic, but the best advice I can offer is to locate a group of fish that is totally unaffected by spectators or local boat and angler traffic," Jay Yelas said. "The year I won, I was fishing skinny, rocky water right below a dam – a spot where spectator boats couldn't run past me. While those boats had muddied the river below my spot, I was fishing fresh, clean water delivered by the dam.

"People just don't realize how big a factor local traffic really is. You might very well be on the winning pattern, but by the second day, traffic kills your bite dead. That's why the Classic is different than any other tournament in the world."

Kevin VanDam (2001)

"Physically it's pretty demanding because of the heat, but it's the mental stress that's tough," said Kevin VanDam. "The Classic is probably the only tournament we fish anymore where I have those butterflies on opening morning at takeoff. There's so much uncertainty: what's going to happen, how will your patterns develop or not develop. To me that makes the Classic so special.

"It's kind of like buck fever. When you first start deer hunting, any old buck gives you buck fever. But the longer you do it, it takes a really big one to make your heart go in your lap. That's still what the Classic does for me. This is my 14th one, and I don't think it will ever get old."

Execution also is key, he noted. "If you lose many fish and still win the Classic, you have to really be on them. When I won, that's how it was. I pretty much fished a perfect tournament. But to me, that's the mental side. The concentration and the focus you put in when fishing the Classic is very physically draining. I'm wiped out at the end of the day."

On strategy, he said: "You have to take into account so many variables that you normally don't have: the traffic, the spectators, the hype, and the importance of what it means to win the Classic. All of that makes it that much tougher to (fish and win).

"The key is to be consistent for all 3 days," which he noted is tough to do and stay near the top since once you're at or near the top of the standings, you become a magnet for spectator boats.

Denny Brauer (1998)

"The Classic is a different animal because of all the hoopla and everything that surrounds the event," said Denny Brauer. "You'll get less sleep – the media attention, all the fans, there's all this fabulous stuff going on that you can really get caught up in. You need to appreciate that week and everything about it, but you need to turn that side off once you get on the water. Don't worry about anything but your job, which is catching fish.

"The more (times you fish the Classic), the more (all of the hoopla) is a part of your strategy, and the more it goes into your gameplan when you're practicing for the event," he noted.

He added: "What you can't do is let the excitement of the moment cause a train wreck. You can't do something stupid when you do catch a fish or get a bite, or get caught up in watching boats when you get a strike. You have to keep in control of the moment and your emotions to fish how you think you should. That's not easy to do at the Classic.

"And if you do lose a fish, you can't get too emotionally caught up in it. You have to realize that you still have a job to do."

Mark Davis (1995)

"First of all, I think you have to have something really special in terms of an area, a spot or 2-3 spots, or a pattern," Mark Davis said. "You have to have something going that's much different from the rest of the field – something unique, something special, and that's hard to come up with. But the guy who does come up with that will be your eventual winner. That's what it all really comes down to: who finds the right fish and the right pattern, and who has the right strategy.

"A lot of strategy goes into this event (at Wylie). The boat traffic, it's a small lake that will fish small, we'll be looking at each other a lot – a lot of strategy plays into that. We should expect to have to share some water, even with 50-man field. Normally any tournament with a 50-man field, you don't expect to have to share water, but I guarantee it will happen here. There are schools of fish that more than one angler will find, and that could play a big role in the outcome of this event."

Flawless execution is a prerequisite for any win, he added. "The last E50 I won, I lost a big fish (on the last day), and the only reason I won was because the rest of the guys lost 2-3 quality fish that day. So you can have the best deal going on the lake, but if you don't execute, you won't win."

He added that he lost fish this year when he did "absolutely nothing wrong. So when you make a mistake that's one thing, but when you don't make a mistake and still lose a fish, that's just a bad break – and you need no bad breaks to win a tournament."

He gave a pertinent example to illustrate his point. At the 1995 Classic, he caught a 4-pounder and a 2-pounder on the same crankbait. "I had 20-pound line – I knew my line was strong enough, so I decided to swing them in," he said. "I skied them in, lifted them up and the 2 comes off, hits the boat and goes back in the lake, and the 4-pounder comes off, falls in the boat and slides down to the bottom of the boat. That's the kind of break you need. If I hadn't gotten (that 4-pounder) in, I wouldn't have won."