The term prefishing often comes up in regards to bass tournaments. However, a lot of people don”t really understand just how important prefishing can be.
For example, Lakeport bass pro Mark Crutcher won a $40,000 bass boat last weekend during the 100 Percent Bass Pro/Am Championship held at the Delta. He credits prefishing with playing a major role in his victory.
According to Crutcher, he prefished for several days prior to the tournament. In one stretch of water he located a good number of bass.
However, on the first day of the tournament he weighed in only 12.88 pounds, which left him in 14th place, well behind the leaders.
On Sunday, he went back to the same area and immediately caught a 6.63 pound bass on a topwater lure. For the next three hours he cast nothing but topwater lures but failed to catch another fish.
Crutcher then switched tactics and went to a drop-shot rig and immediately started to catch fish after fish. He ended up bringing 19.56 pounds to the scales for a total weight of 32.44 pounds, which was good enough to win the tournament and the $40,000 bass boat. Crutcher said he couldn”t have won the tournament without prefishing. Of course, it didn”t hurt that Crutcher is considered one of the top professional bass fishermen in Northern California.
“The two days I spent on the Delta prefishing paid off to the tune of $40,000. I knew good-sized bass were in the area and stayed with it. That wouldn”t have happened if I hadn”t located the fish during my prefish days,” Crutcher said.
For non-tournament anglers, prefish (some fishermen call it “practice days”) is a strange word and most have no idea how a fisherman prefishes prior to a tournament. Prefishing accomplishes several things. Fishermen use it to locate fish, find out what they are biting on and to eliminate non-productive areas of the lake.
Typically during the prefish time, a fisherman will try to locate at least three or four locations holding fish. He wants to find areas where the bass are active in the mornings, afternoons and late in the day.
Bass change feeding habits throughout the year. One time they will be shallow in less than 5 feet of water holding in the tules or under the docks. Another time they will be holding in the deep water over the rockpiles.
Some fishermen will even bend down their hooks so they won”t “sting” the fish during the prefish days. If they catch one or two quality fish they will quickly leave the area. A few fishermen even go as far as to mark the fishing location on GPS units.
Prior to the tournament, the fishermen keep their prefish areas a closely guarded secret.
At blast-off on tournament day, the fishermen will immediately head for one of the areas where they found fish earlier in the week. The goal of most of the tournament fishermen is to catch a limit of bass as soon as possible and then cull throughout the day as they catch larger fish.
Prefishing is so important to tournament anglers that many fishermen feel it gives the local anglers an unfair advantage. Years ago, most of the tournament organizations had off-limit days a week before a tournament to take away the local fisherman”s advantage. However, at least one or two days before the tournament the lake was always open for prefishing. Nowadays most of the organizations have no restriction on prefishing.
Prefishing is considered so vital by most tournament anglers that at least 80 percent will prefish the two days before the tournament. This is especially true for fishermen who are new to a lake. It”s also the reason a fisherman who is unfamiliar with a lake will often win the tournament, the reason being he located his fish by prefishing.
