Those of you that are tournament anglers or aspiring tournament anglers need to know the importance of writing out a game plan. A big part of that game plan is consulting back to your past experiences on the lake. A journal can be an invaluable tool in accurately remembering the finer details that may slip your memory after time has lapsed for a year or more. A game plan should take into account what you learned during your practice period. Tournaments are won in practice so do your best to get out early and stay late. Many of your most successful anglers are also your hardest working anglers. A game plan should consist of a milk run that doesn't waste time zigzagging ineffiiciently. Typically a game plan for me would involve about 10-12 spots, some anglers will have a lot more and others will have less. You will need to have flexibility in your game plan as some days you will get to your first spot and never leave. Some days you will hit one key spot and that will be all it takes. Other days, it will be one here and a couple there and you may have to revisit some of the productive areas to get your weight for the day. You may even have to evacuate your game plan because things have changed but most often the fish are still in the area and you will have to relocate the school. A major advantage of writing out a game plan is that when things get tough, you have a written plan to fall back on when you might be stressing out about other things such as breakdowns, missed fish, etc.

Another tip that will help is plotting your game plan into a route on your GPS. It's pretty easy with many of the newer units. Just in case you lose your written game plan, you are still good to go to your spots.

I will be sharing some other tournament strategies in the upcoming weeks so if you are not following my reports, please add a follow to make sure you don't miss any of the upcoming reports. It won't be long before the tournament season is here.