"While my tournament record contains some individual wins that I'm proud of," said Parker during an interview, "I'm still content that my greatest accomplishment is revealed in the number of times I finished in the money," which, for anyone who doesn't already know, amounted to a whopping 76 percent of the time. "Put simply, if you're consistent, the wins will come."
Early in his career, Parker recognized that consistency was directly related to his ability to read the water and discern the appropriate patterns successfully. To constantly improve, he dedicated himself to analyzing his past tournaments and applying those "lessons learned" to future events. This led him to an exciting discovery: His best tournaments resulted from becoming "married" to a small area of the lake.
It turned out that running from one end of the lake to the other wasn't nearly as productive as when he married a small area, such as a creek, cove or bay.
"The majority of my wins resulted from getting to my fishing spot, dropping the trolling motor, and then not picking it up again until weigh-in," he said. "Staying in that small area inevitably gave me the most consistency and kept me in the money three out of four times.
"Naturally, what worked for me won't work for every tournament fisherman," Parker continued. As he pointed out, "No two anglers are the same. What's important to stress here is that we each have to find our personal strengths...those unique gifts that will lead us to do our very best. It's essential to discover our personal style, methods and philosophy of fishing and then fine-tune it over time."
According to Parker, a common mistake among tournament anglers is their trying to force fish to do what they want.
"Instead," he noted, "the key is to accurately read the water, then fish your strengths in a way that enables the fish to reveal what they are doing. This places the fisherman in a much better position to be productive. Let me give you an illustration.
"When fishing a lake with clear and muddy water, a clear-water fisherman is better served to run to the lower end of the lake, near the dam, and fish his strengths in clear water. On the other hand, a muddy-water angler might run to the upper end of the lake to find the dirty water that best suits his method, technique and style of fishing.
"That fact seems so simple to me now," Parker continued, "but I assure you it was just one of many lessons I had to learn fishing tournaments...and a few of those lessons came the hard way.
"I remember sitting and talking to Ray Scott after our tournament on the Potomac River had been canceled because of Hurricane Hugo. He had been suggesting that the first angler to win the Grand Slam would become one of the most famous anglers of all time." (FYI: The Grand Slam is an honor presented to the winner of four major events and awards, including the Bassmaster Classic, the qualifying tournament, a Super Tournament, and the Angler of the Year.)
Discovering that no angler ever had won all four, Parker set his sites on this goal. He previously had won three of the four but never a Super Tournament. That year, it was located on Lake Lanier in Georgia. As it turned out, the first three days of the tournament were dominated by Gary Klein.
"By the fourth and final day," said Parker, "I had remained consistent and was coming on strong. I was able to come to the weigh-in that day with a giant stringer of fish...the largest of the tournament. Ray said, 'Hold those fish up. Let everyone see them, and give the audience a chance to take some pictures!' So, I did...for quite some time. Finally, we weighed them."
When Gary Klein came to the scales, it had just started to rain, so Ray said, "Bring those fish on up here, and let's not waste any time. Let's put them on the scales and see what we've got." Gary won that tournament by one ounce.
"I learned a painful lesson that day," admitted Parker: "Never hold your fish up until after you weigh them. I can't prove it, but there is no doubt in my mind that I would have won that tournament had I put those bass directly on the scales and not held them up. That was a painful lesson."
Five years later in the Bassmaster Classic, Parker was able to benefit from that earlier lesson. In a similar scenario, he was in a shootout with Jim Bitter. Again, he came in with the biggest stringer of the tournament on the last day. And at the weigh-in, Ray Scott again said, 'Hold them up.'
"This time, I said, 'No, I won't hold them up. Put them on the scale.'"
Always a showman, Ray insisted, but Parker refused. "No, I won't hold them up," he said. "Place them on the scales, and then I'll hold them up."
Reluctantly, Ray had the bass placed on the scales, and Parker won the Bassmaster Classic by two ounces.
A painful lesson can become a great lesson if you learn from it. When you successfully apply that lesson to future events, it sometimes pays great dividends.
Incidentally, Parker got another chance to take a crack at the Grand Slam the very next year on the St. John's River in Florida. He won that Super Tournament and was blessed to the first to win the Grand Slam.
Now that Parker's son, Ben, is fishing tournaments, the latter often gets cautioned about the dangers of listening to dock talk. Some anglers do that to beginners just to psyche them out.
"Remember," said the elder Parker, "there was a reason old-time farmers used to put blinders on their mules when plowing. Those blinders prevented distractions and kept the mules focused on going straight ahead, rather than wandering all over the field. Likewise, if you're a tournament angler, you must wear earmuffs to prevent dock-talk distractions from influencing how you approach your tournament plan.
"My experience taught me it was better not to care what everyone else was saying or doing," he continued. "I needed to stay faithful to how I'd learned to read the water. Leaning on my strengths, it was my job to discern what the fish were doing on that particular lake. It was up to me, not others, to figure out the correct pattern and then bring those fish to the scales."
Parker continued, "There's an adage that goes, "A smart man makes mistakes and learns from them. But a wise man learns from a smart man's mistakes, to never make them. Whenever you can, be a wise fisherman and learn from other anglers' mistakes--don't go out on the lake and chase everybody else's patterns. To the best of your ability, lean on your own personal experiences and unique strengths to put together your own patterns."
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