Jay Kumar

Dock Talk, Dang It!

(Strike King photo)

Perusing the Strike King site again, happened across this advice from one of the true gems of our sport, Mark Davis. I read it and was like – phhh, everyone knows that.

But then I realized that not only do I let dock talk get in my head in fishing – doesn’t even have to be competitive – it also screws me up bird-hunting: My hunting buddy and I have wasted a TON of time following others’ recommendations, and every dang time we say we’re not going to do it anymore.

But we do.

Anyhow, here’s what Mark said, then a question for you:

A big part of following your instincts is not being swayed by the conversations you hear at the boat dock.

For instance, as you’re getting in your boat, you know you should be fishing points and ledges with a Carolina rig. But some guy who’s just come off the water asks, “How are you going to fish today?” and you tell him, “I’m going to fish points and ledges with a Carolina rig.” He may say, “Oh, no. You need to be fishing buzzbaits in the grass.”

You’ve got to listen to your own voice and not the voices of others who probably don’t know as much as you do. You’ll do a much better job of catching bass by following your own instincts than you will following somebody else’s recommendations.

He also said, this which I’ve done – the 30 minutes part, tough to overcome sometimes especially if there’s someone else in the boat saying, “This sucks, let’s get outta here.”

Learn to listen to your inner voice, and be confident that that inner voice is telling you the right things to do. Don’t be out fishing during the day, make a decision on pure instinct, and 30-minutes later decide you’ve made a bad decision.

So, tell me you’ve never done this. Or if you have, how ’bout a doh! moment when someone won the tourney on a spot or using a pattern you’d planned on.

More

The headline of this post reminds me of the time I first said to the fellas we needed the Dock Talk section of BassFan. They were like, What do we need that for?

I was like, “It’s crack cocaine! That’s why!” (Not really.)

Still cracks me up….

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. samuel groves

    June 25, 2011 at 11:57 am

    been there and done that.

  2. Big Brake Basser

    June 26, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    Dock talk can be helpful if you know how to decipher reality from exaggeration. I’ve taken others reports and built upon what I already knew that was working at the moment. If it’s a hard left from what you’re already doing it could wind up being a great contingency just in case your plan fails.

  3. Rich Arnold

    June 27, 2011 at 10:36 am

    Had it backfire on me too. The day before a tourney, I started a rumor that the fish were hitting a certain type of bait in a creek farther to the North from where I wanted to fish. I did this because there is this guy who always corwds me where I wanted to fish on that lake on that particular day. I also knew he was very influenced by Dock Talk. He was ahead of me in launch order and blasted out straight to the rumored honey hole and I was able to fish my area free of pressure. I was in a great mood and giggled to myself all day…until weigh-in that is. The rumored honey hole ended up being the winnning honey hole! I never ever did that again!

  4. Bass Pundit

    June 28, 2011 at 2:27 am

    I don’t generally know what the dock talk is beyond maybe asking if they pre-fished and if they caught fish doing it. It’s not like the guys in my club are like me writing a blog about what they are doing. Plus I usually just go where my boater takes me anyway.

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