Mental preparation is a major component in succeeding in all professional sports, a fact of which pro bass anglers are acutely aware. This season Davy Hite has something special going on on the BASSMASTER Tour, and one reason for that, he says, is his mental preparation.

"Some people are probably a lot more gifted than me," says Davy Hite. "They can prepare for one event, leave it and then go to the next one the next week, whether that's a weekend fisherman or a pro. But I have to be really be tuned into, and focused on, that body of water.

"Hopefully I'll know enough about it -- what's happening at that time of year, like the vegetation and water levels -- to adjust, no matter what the conditions.

"I hear a lot of people say a bass is a bass, and that's very true," he adds. "But every area of the country has certain characteristics, so you really have to tune in to a certain body of water to compete on it well."

How He Tunes In

Here's how Hite tunes in. "I spend time as close to the event as I can on that body of water," he says. The reason is to understand what the lake and the bass are doing.

"You can catch bass on a spinnerbait from Canada to Florida, but you won't catch them around the same type of cover and with the same retrieve. Also, water levels really affect spawning areas from one year to the next, the vegetation changes and where bait is holding also changes."

Hite typically spends 3-5 days on a lake before a tournament. "I pick a particular section of a lake and concentrate on it -- learn it. Once I feel comfortable with the shallow and deep-water cover and structure, then I need to leave.

"I might set out to spend 5 days on the water and leave after 3 if I feel comfortable with that. You can spend too much time on a lake" before a tournament, he notes.

He also notes that spending many days fishing doesn't mean you're tuned in mentally. "Just because you're fishing for 6 days, if you leave one body of water and go to the next, you have to retune into what's going on."

Feel Comes With Time

Of course, it's not as simple as that. The ability to get that feel comes with time on the water, and time spent competing on the water.

"I think you need to learn to develop that feel and get it in a 3-4 day period," Hite says. "When you're younger, you think you need to allow more days to get it and it does take more days. But what happens is that because it takes longer, you get tuned in on a pattern that may be going away rather than on one that's happening when the tournament is taking place.

"You can catch yourself chasing a dying pattern and it can really, really hurt you."

That's why the practice of some anglers -- particularly younger or newer pros -- "camping out" on a tournament lake for weeks beforehand doesn't bother Hite.

"The guys who spend 14 or 21 days pre-fishing are rarely successful," he says. "If you take 2-3 weeks (to pre-fish), you're not as intense on the water - - and again you can get going on something that's going away."

The thing is, lots of time spent on the water ultimately yields the feel that enables an angler to spend less time on the water and get more out of it. "It's just like any other sport," says Hite. "Like Vince Lombardi says: you practice until it's second nature. It just comes with time."

The Quicker, The Better

The experience factor is the main reason pro anglers -- unlike other athletes -- get better as they get older. But Hite notes that in terms of having a pro career, "the quicker you can get a lot of experience, the better off you are."

That, he says, comes from fishing tournaments at a young age. "The Catch 22 in our sport is that many times when people get the knowledge and the experience, physically they're way past their prime. So if you can get that experience and still be in good physical condition, you will be a competitive angler.

"I started fishing tournaments when I was 12 years old, and when I was 16 years old I was fishing 20 tournaments a year," Hite says. "Most guys don't do that until they're in their 20s or 30s."

You can't replace that early tournament experience, he says, "whether you're fishing against 10 boats in a club tournament or 150 boats in a $250,000 tournament."