Top Professional Bass Fishermen Say, We Fish to Win
Target Fishing with Top-Pro Kevin VanDam
 Editor's
Note: Why do some bass fishermen consistently win tournaments
and other good, even great, bass anglers never win tournaments?
To learn the answer to this question, I’ve interviewed
some of the most-outstanding bass fishermen in the nation,
and they all agree that to win an angler has to make
a conscious decision to fish to win and leave the security
of trying to catch a limit behind.
With two Bassmaster Classic championships under his
belt and national recognition as one of the most-productive
bass fishermen, Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Michigan,
alw ays
fishes to win.
"I never fish for second place," VanDam says.
"When I’m competing in a bass tournament,
I’m here to win. I’m not here to earn points
or a paycheck. To win, you have to know what fishing
tools you can use to win on certain lakes. For instance,
at Table Rock Lake, you may have to use spinning tackle
and finesse worms because those are the tools that can
help you catch bass on that type of lake. But on other
big-bass lakes like Lake Amistad on the Texas-Mexico
border and lakes in the California Delta, you have to
use big-bass baits, if you intend to win. I have to
use the lures that target big bass on every lake I fish.
"Luckily, I work with Strike King Lures, and that
company has  a
wide variety of great bass baits. But I can’t
always just fish Strike King’s products, because
weather conditions dictate what tools I’ll use.
However, my primary big-bass baits are the King Shad,
a Strike King spinnerbait, a Strike King jig and the
Strike King Red Eye Shad. On Lake Amistad, where I finished
fifth with a five-bass limit each day and a total of
90 pounds of bass in four days, I fished the King Shad
as my primary bait, and then when the weather changed,
I used the Zero, a cigar-shaped worm, and the 8-inch
Iguana, a big plastic lizard.
"My number-one go-to big bass bait is the Premier
Model Strike King jig. A black-and-blue combination
is one of my favorite colors, and I also like the Texas
Craw or Green Pumpkin. In recent years, we’ve
seen more people fishing big swim baits like Strike
King’s King Shad. We know that when you’re
fishing on a big lake with big bass, the fish generally
prefer big baits. The King Shad isn’t so big that
other fish won’t bite it, but it’s a large
bait that big bass really like. This bait enables me
to catch 3-pound-plus bass on many lakes. 
"Fishing to win isn’t conservative fishing.
You take chances that you won’t take, if you’re
just trying to catch bass. You target big fish instead
of sitting in an area and attempting to catch a limit
of bass. Rather than fishing to upgrade your catch by
1 pound, you’re fishing for bass that will upgrade
your stringer by 5 pounds. Remember, when you cull a
3-pound bass with an 8-pound bass, you’ve increased
your stringer by 5 pounds. That’s the kind of
attitude you need to win bass tournaments. You need
to fish the part of a lake where the big bass live with
the lures designed to catch those big bass. When you
fish to win, you’ll either win the tournament
or finish in the top-five places, or, you’ll go
home in the bottom of the pack."
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