Losing Big Bass Is a Problem, But You Can Solve It

As pro tournament fisherman Jay Yelas (right) explained, "You can have the sharpest hooks ever made; reflexes as fast as a running back dodging tacklers, making cuts, and running for daylight; the best rod, reel and line; and do everything you're supposed to do to catch a big bass and still lose that fish."

Yelas harkened back to a tournament on Kentucky Lake when the water was up in the bushes, and he was flipping a jig to get a bass bite. The first day of the tournament he had a 19-pound limit. The bass seemed to be in every bush. Often he could see the bass in the bush before he made a flip to it.

"I didn't lose any of the bass that took my bait that first day," he said. "On the second day of the tournament, I'd see the bass in the bush, pitch the jig to it, pull the bass to the top of the bush where I could see it, and the fish would come off the hook. Other times I'd set the hook solid on the bass and pull it out of the bush, and it would jump and throw the lure. Sometimes I'd be leading the bass to my dip net, and for some unknown reason, the fish would come off the hook before I could get the net under it."

On that second day, he felt like the main character in a horror show...one who had something terrible happening to him, every way he turned.

"There's no rhyme or reason as to why you lose bass one right after another," he continued, "but those days will happen to everyone who bass fishes. On those days, I've seen bass fishermen lose their tempers, break rods over their knees, and mentally go berserk or have temper tantrums. However, I've learned that you'll always have bad days and lose bass, and...generally most of the time...they are big bass. That's all a part of bass fishing, so on those kinds of days, I just reason that at least I'm getting bites. As long as I keep trying to catch bass, the chances are extremely good that I'll have other bass bite that won't get off my hooks."

As it turned out, Yelas weighed 15 pounds that second day, instead of the 25 pounds he would have weighed if he hadn't lost any fish. To keep his efforts in perspective, he kept telling himself that weighing 15 pounds was better than weighing no pounds.

On the third day, Yelas fished the same pattern, flipping a jig into the bushes, and only lost one bass. He finished the tournament in the top 10 and got a good paycheck, even though he'd had that disastrous second day.

"When you have a bad day of losing bass," he cautioned, "don't give up mentally on your ability to catch them. Often you can find bass, learn a new technique or a new way to fish and turn a bad day into a good one," he concluded.