Boat Positioning and other Keys to Success... Dan McGarry

Put a bunch of Bassfisherman together and you are likely to hear about good day’s bad days, what is the hot bait, rod, reel, line or favorite way to fish but you will never hear about the way they run their boat. Boat positioning falls into the often completely missed category or is taken for granted until a very windy day. The only press boat positioning gets is whether or not a guy was front seating or a guy was backseating all day long. Yes it is possible to backseat, this is when your partner is constantly casting way ahead of the boat and most times over your shoulder, most of the time this earns the guy in the back seat a new partner after one tournament. When it comes to frontseating or pardon the expression “[censored] viewing” this occurs in two ways, when a boat owner constantly casts to the back of the boat to get in that last good spot or putting the boat in a position that allows only the person in the front an opportunity of fishing in water 50’ or less. Both behaviors are intolerable and have ruined many a day on the water, but both are overstated... read more

Great article. I've spent alot of time fishing off the back in alot of tourneys. And to say some boaters aren't excatly curteous somtimes. But I have learn a great deal from them also. Every boater has their own way of fishing. Some stay 50 feet from shore others 50 inches. Some will burn down a shore line in ten minutes others have moss growing on their trolling motor. You have to learn to adapt to what they are doing. If they are throwing a crank throw somthing similar to their speed,a different crank or a spinner bait. If it's a jig or soft plastic match their cadence with a different color or style. I've also found if your boater puts you close to shore where you have noway of casting try fliping to cover or make your cast off the back of the boat paralell the shore. I've had great luck draging a jig or a crankbait that way and have many time caught fish my boater missed.

I have to say out of everyone I fished with over the years Dan McGarry was the fairest of them all. I fished a two day classic and the second day Dan was in front of my boat. I was the rider (back seat). I won the classic from the back of my own boat and thats because Dan gave me a fair shake at the fish. As for boat control, hands down noone comes close to Brendan. Incredible boat control no matter what the conditions are. Hats off to both legendary fisherman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good read... I learned a lot from it. Thanks!!

Let me add to the keys of Success or should I say Defeat . Maintenance on your equipment is crucial to doing well. I just fished an open tournament that what kind of costly (to me anyway). Preparing fishing equipment, rushing to get boat ready for first trip, tournament fees, tolls and fuel for a 5 hour round trip. The tournament was this past Sunday. I fished in a CT lake that was 172 Acres and electric only. There are both largemouth and smallmouth. With the unsettled weather we have been having I knew that the smallie’s were to be the target. To make a long story short I caught myself a beautiful 16.4 pound bag with the lunker smallie of 3.4. The tournament was over at 3:15 so I decided to give myself 20 minutes to get back to the ramp. At 2:53 I turned up both electric motors to full blast and headed back to the ramp. I was at the half way point of the lake. At 2:55 my front motor started to slow down rapidly. I was now running back 90 percent on on my rear motor. Yes I got back to the ramp nine minutes late. I lost nine pounds of weight and lunker. This dropped me down to fourth place with tournament paying only to spot three. Getting home I checked my equipment to find that my jumpers on my battery system were corroded and had over heated. If I did the proper maintenance on my equipment I would have won both lunker and 1st place. Also another important fact is I should have headed back 40 minutes early in case there were any problems.
Nunz’s new checklist:
Thoroughly check Equipment before leaving for tournament.
Head back to ramp site with ample amount of time.
Boy was this a hard lesson I learned. Yes I am man enough to say I screwed up bad.

Not having a fishing boat myself I never realized there were so many issues and challenges that crop up! Great read and thanks.

Lol somtimes it's just not your day. I had a tourney last year my draw partner had a really old and small basstracker. Two hours into the tourney his trolling motor dies tried to fix it but to no avail. So with some hillbilly engineering we cut acouple of tree limbs for push poles. To say the least it made it for a long day. But it also made us slow down and take our time and fish more thuroghly. Long story short I took a limt and so did my partner we took 2nd and 3rd place lost first by only an ounce. You never know what will happen just make the best with what you can . The rest just laugh about it.

Now that is a great story. You must of felt like you were in the amazon or in florida with the push poles....I assume the water wasn't to deep or did you make yourself some Mega-Poles?

Yeah we stayed in shallow coves and flipped and pitched brush and laydowns. The poles were only 8' so we couldn't fish any deeper. What we thought was going to be a crappy day turned out for the best. We just really let the wind drift us along and used the poles when needed. I think the key was not to let it rattle you why get upset over somthing you can't control. Deal with it and fish!!!!

This past weekend was my first time dealing with really heavy weather. 30 to 35 mph winds and heavy rain. So luckily my partner had a wind sock. I had never used one before but it was a god send. It really slowed the boat down so we could fish and really helped with keeping in position. I should have a boat ready for next season and I sure will have acouple of those in my rig!!