As the fifth season of this Performance Psychology and Tournament Fishing column begins, let me offer some ideas and suggestions for you, the Average Guy. You know who you are: You enjoy fishing, but you don’t get out as much as you’d like to. Most years you fish a few local tournaments, a pro-am event once in a while, and maybe you belong to a club within The Bass Federation. But your first priorities are your family and your job.
You know you’re never going to fish the FLW Tour or the PWT, and it’s even unlikely that you’ll wind up in the BFL circuit. Sure, the competition is fun, but you want to go to Johnny’s soccer games, and for sure you’re going to help coach Missy’s basketball team; you’re not giving all that up just to be a tournament-fishing maniac.
Still, you’d like to improve, and at one level this Performance Psychology and Tournament Fishing stuff makes sense. It’s just that it seems really complicated and pretty involved, and it sure takes a lot of time to do all those visualization and commitment and goal-setting exercises. Isn’t there something an Average Guy could do that’s a little bit simpler and easier to understand, but could still help Git-R-Done, you ask? Well, sure there is! Check this out.
Average Guy Technique No. 1: Goal-setting
So you have probably heard stuff about goal-setting and how it’s useful, and maybe you even read the Performance Psychology and Tournament Fishing article on goals back in March 2003, but to you it seems like doing all that turns fishing into work. Besides, who has the time to write down long-term goals and then short-term goals and then daily or weekly goals?
OK, forget about the whole goal-setting system, but do this instead: Think about one of your regular, or yearly, fishing trips. Maybe you go to Canada in the summer with a group of guys, or maybe you just go up north to the lake for a week with the family. Either way, spend some time talking about this trip with one of the people you like to fish with, and talk about what went right last year and also what didn’t. Then, pick out just two things that went wrong last year, and make a decision to not let those things happen on the 2007 trip.
There, you’ve done it! You went and used goal-setting. But then contact me after the trip, and tell me if it worked, OK?
Average Guy Technique No. 2: Visualization and mental rehearsal
Back in December 2003, there was an article in Performance Psychology and Tournament Fishing on visualization and mental rehearsal. That seems way out there to Average Guys, I know, so here is a shortcut I think you’ll like. You’ve got a camera in your cell phone these days, right? So, get one of your kids to show you how to use it, and then this summer, take a picture every time you go fishing.
What you will wind up with is a series of visual images of both your successful and unsuccessful fishing trips. At the end of the summer, delete the pictures from the lousy trips and keep the good ones. Then during the winter, you can look at those pictures, and it will be just like doing visualization exercises. You’ll remind yourself of your good days on the water, and that will help you feel more confident. When you see the pictures, you’ll also remember what you did that made the day successful, and that will help too.
Average Guy Technique No. 3: Getting help
This column has devoted several articles to the topic of learning new fishing techniques from someone else. You’ve read about getting a coach, about observational learning and about techniques for enhancing individual skill development. You haven’t read those articles? Well, you should; they’re all in the Performance Psychology and Tournament Fishing archives.
However, even if you don’t put in a serious effort to learn something new, without too much effort you can make a unique, near-universal facet of human behavior work in your favor. To begin with, who is the best angler on your lake or river? Where does Mr. Local Hotshot stop for coffee in the morning before he goes fishing? If you don’t know, find out – there are only a few places around where he could stop. Or better yet, where does he go for a cold one after he’s done fishing? This is even easier to find out – just follow him someday when he leaves the lake.
Anyway, once you’ve discovered where he hangs out, go there yourself when he’s likely to be around, and make sure he sees you, but don’t talk to him directly. However, do start talking to the bartender or the waitress or some other guy about fishing, and make it clear you’re not catching very many. After about the third or fourth time you do this, Mr. Local Hotshot won’t be able to stand it, and he’ll just have to lean over and tell you a thing or two you about what you’re doing wrong and what you should be doing. I’ve seen this happen before, and so have you. It’s a great way get help without really asking for it.
Once you’ve tried these Average Guy techniques, you might even decide it could be worth going back and rereading the original articles. You might even consider doing the Tournament Version of these exercises.
Jay T. McNamara, Ph.D., L.P., is a psychologist, who is also an avid bass and walleye angler. With more than 26 years of professional experience complemented by participation in competitive fishing at local and national levels, he is uniquely qualified to illustrate how performance psychology principles apply to tournament fishing.
