Pro Tips Weekly: Randy Blaukat

Awareness is everything

The first fish of the day is the most important. It’s where you start to map out the rest of the day, and how well you interpret what’s going on then will also help determine how your fishing will go.

After you catch that first fish, take a breather and look around. Make yourself aware of everything: the wind, cloud cover, lake level, water clarity, types of cover, angle of the sun, activity of squirrels on the bank – whatever. Don’t just stop with noting the color of the lure, how you were working it and that sort of thing. Absorb as much as you can about everything going on around you. The reason is that the more information you can gather about the circumstances of that first bite, the better your chances of repeating it will be.

Don’t just fish randomly. The best fishermen are those who make note of all the details and fish where as many of those details as possible are duplicated.

— Pickens Plan pro Randy Blaukat of Joplin, Mo.