Well, it happened again. For the second tournament in a row, the leader out of day three focused on catching bigger fish rather than many fish. Word is that Michael Bennett didn’t catch quite as many bass as some of the other pros who limited out, but he certainly caught the heaviest five that counted. The same thing happened last month at Lake Toho when Brett Hite overtook Carl Svebek on day three with a quality-fish pattern over a quantity pattern.
What’s going on here? FLW tournaments are all about fish management. The weights are zeroed out for the final round – it’s not a cumulative-weight format – so after making the cut, the smart anglers try to have some big fish saved up for the last two days. That was the case with Hite in Florida, and it appears to be the case with Bennett here in Alabama, too.
I talked about this at Toho, but catching quantities of bass isn’t necessarily always the best approach. Oftentimes, more means smaller. It’s great for fishing guides who need to keep clients active and happy, but for tournament anglers quantity just doesn’t necessarily translate into quality. They can only keep five of them, and they want the five biggest they can get. At Smith, there are lots of anglers who caught a bunch of fish, but anything less than 15 inches long couldn’t even go in the livewell.
What does this mean for fantasy players? Look at Bennett and Hite. Both of them have mentioned that they’re fishing this season “with the pressure off.” In January, both of them won their matchups in the FLW Series East-West Fish-Off. That means they have already qualified for the Forrest Wood Cup this summer. They’ve already done the legwork it takes to fish for that coveted $1 million and they don’t have to think about it during this FLW Tour season. Another of this week’s steadiest finalists, Koby Kreiger, is in the same boat. In other words, for these guys, the pressure really is off; they don’t have to worry about filling out their limits with smaller fish just so they can climb up the standings a few points in order to make the Cup. What that means is less time spent going after smaller fish and more time fishing for big ones, or as they say, “swinging for the fences.” They might not get as many bites, but it doesn’t matter. The ones they do get are likely to be bigger.
There’s a theory here and I’m not sure it’s rock-solid because this is the first year we’ve had FLW Tour pros prequalified for the championship before the season even started. But here it is – and this is what matters for fantasy players: Fish-Off winners might be better picks than non-Fish-Off winners. In other words, if you’re stuck between a pro who is already qualified for the Cup and one who isn’t, it might be better to pick the Cup-qualified guy.
Again, it’s still just an early theory, but it fits so far. We’re hearing a lot about “having the pressure off” and “swinging for the fences” from the leaders of the first two events, and that’s because they’re already in the championship. You could argue that everybody in the final round swings for the fences, which is true, but subtler forces are at play here. Competitive fishing is a very psychological game. Take the guy who doesn’t have to worry about his rank versus somebody who does have to worry about his rank to make the championship. I’m guessing – whether it’s a conscious effort or not – the guy who’s worrying about his rank will burn through more of his fish in the opening round of a tournament to ensure a higher finish, at the very least. Or he’ll give up on the bigger fish, or stop “swinging for fences,” to go somewhere else and fill out his limit with smaller fish sooner in the day than the guy who’s not ultimately worried about his finish for that event. Positioning is the key for anglers hoping to make the big-money Cup event.
For those who aren’t worried about making the Cup, the only goal is to win the tournament. Without fail, the winner of a tournament, simply enough, finds a way to catch the biggest bass. And oftentimes, catching the biggest bass means you’ve got to ignore all the little ones. And that often means you get a whole lot fewer bites during the day, but when you do get one it’s a big payoff. It’s a lot easier to go without any bites for a few hours when you’re not worried about crawling up the results sheet 20 places at the end of the week.
Thus, Bennett and Hite. Granted, these are both good anglers in their own right, pressure or no. But good anglers plus no pressure seems to be the winning ticket so far this season. We’ll see if the young Californian can remain “unpressured” tomorrow.
Still, that doesn’t explain Scott Canterbury. For that, you’ll have to appeal to the local-advantage theory.
Here are your day-three results.