Kevin VanDam often mentions Denny Brauer as the guy who taught him how to go for the win. This has nothing to do with baits or dropoffs or that kind of stuff. It's beyond all that, and let's face it: VanDam and Brauer are beyond most anglers.
Even so, there's always something to be learned from the best fishermen in the world, so we asked Brauer a few questions about how he fishes to win.
First, he says: "I don't know how much my type of thinking applies to the average fisherman. Guys that are coming up are trying to build a career or win a points race. They're in a mindset of being more consistent, or conservative, and that's not the way my mind works anymore -- though it did for a lot of years because I was so reliant on sponsors to do this and further my career."
Are You Willing?
That said, "the bottom line is how many people are willing to totally embarrass themselves," Brauer said. "You can't be afraid to finish last.
"If you're not afraid to finish last, you'll finish 1st a bunch more. But if you are afraid, you will finish in the middle of the pack.
"In other words, you have to be willing to take a few more chances."
Okay, But...
How do you know when to take those chances -- assuming you don't have a 30- pound lead? "You get these little feelings that it's time to move, to take a chance," Brauer said.
"Some of that comes from time on the water and experience. But some of it comes from allowing your mind to work in a way that lets you follow those feelings. Don't get so bullheaded that you don't let those juices flow.
"If you can get in the hunt in a tournament and just let your mind take over, you'll give yourself more opportunities to win that event."
Tiger and Bogeys
At the recent PGA U.S. Open, Tiger Woods was asked about a few bogeys (one over par) he made in a round. He said that he just realized he would make a bogey, concentrated on making that bogey instead of shooting 2 over par, and then forgot about it and played the next hole. Do the best anglers also have that ability to shrug off SNAFUs?
"Golf is a pretty good comparison to fishing in lot of ways," Brauer says. Notably, "there are a lot of things in golf you can't control."
Me mentioned that U.S. Open runner-up Phil Mickelson said that a golf ball can bounce "any way. It can bounce onto the fairway or into the rough and you have no control over it.
"Fishing is the same," Brauer says. "For example, when you hook a fish it can run one way or the other way. Good and bad things can happen. What you try to do is make good things happen, control all the parts you can, so if something happens it's not your fault.
"So to get back to what Tiger was saying, If you did nothing wrong and that fish comes off, don't dwell on it. But if you did do something wrong, that's the time to dwell on it, analyze it and make sure it doesn't happen again."
You Want To Throw Fits, But Don't
That doesn't mean Brauer is always cool as a cucumber. After all, he's one of the most intense competitors of all time. But he knows how to control that frustration.
"At tournaments I can see guys beating themselves up mentally because they've had bad things happen on the water," he says. "They lose a fish or their line breaks and they've taken themselves out of the game when that tournament is still there to win.
"It'll tear you up inside," he says. "You want to throw fits, but you need to know how to control that to where it doesn't compound itself. If you don't, you probably will lose the next fish, or you won't get the bait where it needs to be or you'll miss a strike because you're not concentrating."
That's a waste of energy. "If there's nothing you could have done about it, what good is it to beat yourself up?" he asks.
However, if Brauer loses a fish during a tournament where bites are few and far between, he will change his fishing a little. "If I lose a fish under those circumstances, I'll push harder because I know I'll only get so many opportunities. I'll push hard to get that one more opportunity I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
"The bottom line is that when you fish smart and fish hard, good things will happen."
