During practice for the FLW Tour event at Lake Hartwell, I’d committed myself to sight fishing. It just seemed like it was warming up, there were fish up shallow, and every once and awhile you’d see a good one. And the thing with sight fishing is, you’re always thinking, “Well, maybe they’re in the next pocket or the next pocket.” So you keep sticking with it.

In hindsight, I think I should have ran more and different patterns. It kept me tossing and turning the entire night before day one. I just felt I’d made a fatal mistake. The one thing that allowed me to sleep was knowing I could catch a limit sight fishing.

So that’s what I did. I ran the sight-fishing pattern to the best I could to start. I could have easily stayed with that pattern, too. Instead, I used my early limit as a luxury to hopefully make up for my mistake in practice and try something else. I simply wasn’t seeing the quality I thought I should up shallow. That meant to me the fish were staging elsewhere. So I started running history; spots I knew fish would stage. So it was new water, but it was all similar.

What I found was a pattern I’m excited about. I had an early check-in today, and I spent a lot of my morning sight fishing. So I don’t know if it’s only an afternoon deal, but I know I caught my two biggest fish in the last hour of my day.

So right now I’m tickled. This was best-case scenario. I was able to use my safety net, but then find a new pattern with even more potential. Just goes to show you always have options, even after what you feel was a mistake.