Last year Dustin Connell had one of the most insane years ever in professional fishing – 3 wins. THREE DANG WINS! Crazy! He made Jacob Wheeler look almost like a little baby nurse shark instead of Jaws...😆
Anyhow, one guy we haven't seen fishing the final day hardly at all this season on the Bass Pro Tour is Dustin. Why? That was my first Q:
1. No wins this year yet and no top 10s since Redcrest, but you've been steadily in the top 20 – what's different for you this year?
> "Dude I'm gonna be straight up transparent. #1 I kind of had some bad luck, lost a few fish, one of those things that happen.
> "Redcrest I was leading in the Qualifying Round, at Douglas I could have easily won the Qualifying Round [and also Murray]. Cayuga I was in the top 3 in qualifying, St Clair.... Those Group A or Group B days honestly don't matter. In our format...we don't have the Championship Day til 6 days later.
> "Our format is completely different than B.A.S.S. or any other tournaments – I'm not using that as a scapegoat. So if you're in Group A or Group B in the Qualifying Rounds...if you catch them in the first Qualifying Round, the guys we fish against see what you're doing, the locals see what you're doing, and by day 6 those areas get bombarded by people. It's absolutely unbelievable.
> "Here's a perfect example. We go to Cayuga and I catch them on day 1. I had 24 lbs in the first hour and had 30 fish marked. 4 boats were there in group A, down the lake catching smallmouth, and all were in the top 4. Well somehow...by the end of the tournament...40 out of 40 anglers were in the south end.
> "I guess that's not too hard...if you're fishing the north end and no one's around they're at the south end. I'm not using that as an excuse, but I also had it happen on Murray too...I busted them dude. I had 23 lbs in my group, I had nobody in my way, it was unbelievable. We had the Knockout Round on a Friday, and locals were on all these places by Friday because they'd been watching Live all week.
> "All you need is about 5-10 boats to run all our stuff and you're trashed. You're done. I've had that happen like 4 times this year. I don't know if I have to do a better job of managing fish or a better job of managing media as far as cameras and stuff like that.... This format we have...your areas are very well exposed by the 6th day of that tournament.
> "B.A.S.S. does not have that problem. It's a 4-day event, cumulative weight, and if a guy catches 24 lbs day 1 and the rest of the guys have 18 lbs...they can't catch up weight-wise.
> "I'm really going to fight to make these 4-day events. I'm over these 2-day shootouts. Last year zeroing the weights after 2 days wasn't that crucial because you could generate bites throughout the day. When it comes to 1 bite to separate yourself [over 2 days]...it's a big-time luck factor.
> "But I'm not using that as an excuse.... It sounds like I'm making a lot of excuses, but that's really the stuff we're dealing with in our tournaments. The variables are the same for everybody so kudos to those guys.... Maybe I need to do a little better at strategizing on these deals."
[A little FLW Tour history: They tried all these formats too – cuts, zeroed weights for 2 days, for 1 day, etc and eventually because of pro complaints it ended up cumulative weights over 4 days. Wonder if that will happen again.]
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