In sport fishing, it is not enough simply to be good at catching fish. Sometimes it is much more important to recognize in time that your usual approach is not working, forget everything you prepared during training, and start practically from scratch.
The third stage of the Latvian Spinning Championship from boats on Lake Burtnieks was exactly that kind of competition for Mark and me.
In three years of competitive fishing, this is probably the first body of water that has exposed our weaknesses so clearly. At the same time, it reminded us why the ability to analyze, adapt, and make risky decisions can sometimes be more important than any spots you have found in advance.
When Your Strength Becomes Your Weakness
Pike fishing has always been one of our strongest areas. Mark and I love this fish, catch a lot of them, and in many ways understand their behavior in the same way.
Usually, that is a huge advantage for a team.
But there is another side to it: when both anglers think alike, sometimes there is no one to suggest a completely different approach.
Burtnieks greeted us with deep weed beds, weedless rigs, and a style of fishing that is difficult to call our strong side. We arrived in advance and were confident that a week of training would be enough to figure everything out.
It wasn't.
We caught one or two pike, had missed fish and empty strikes, but we never saw the amount of fish that other anglers were talking about.
Gradually, a dangerous belief began to form: maybe this lake simply has this kind of fish resource, and catching two pike in a tournament day is already a decent result.
As we found out later, this was one of our biggest mistakes.
When You Draw the Wrong Conclusions During Training
In sport fishing, it is not enough to find fish. You also have to interpret the information you receive correctly.
We decided that around 4,000 points would allow us to get through the stage reasonably consistently and maintain the overall lead in the Latvian Championship.
The first day of competition completely destroyed that theory.
Our problems were compounded by a Panoptix failure. We lost time trying to understand the cause and restore the system, and then accepted the fact: our usual “eyes” were gone.
Attempts to catch pike using the patterns we had developed during training once again resulted in missed fish.
To at least avoid finishing the day with zero, we switched to perch.
The result — one perch and second-to-last place for the day.
But the real shock came when we returned to shore.
We saw that other teams were consistently catching pike and had also caught good numbers of perch. What had seemed to us like a reasonable result after training turned out to be a completely wrong assessment of the lake.
From being leaders of the championship, we immediately dropped to third place in the overall standings.
These are exactly the moments that probably explain best what makes sport fishing different from ordinary fishing.
Sometimes You Have to Throw a Week of Training in the Trash
After the first day, we had two options.
Continue believing in our preparation and hope that it would finally work the next day.
Or admit the unpleasant truth: we had spent a week preparing the wrong strategy.
We chose the second option.
That evening, we completely reviewed our tackle boxes, training results, maps, and the areas where we had seen fish.
Our tactics were turned practically 180 degrees.
We decided to stop focusing on the fish we had been trying to catch all week.
Moreover, the failure of our electronics forced us to remember where modern fish-finding techniques originally came from.
Side scanning. Mapping. Scanning. Structure analysis. Looking for characteristic images on the fish finder.
No magic.
Just the old-school approach to finding fish.
Searching for Fish Instead of Waiting for Fish
The very first hour of the second day showed that the decision was the right one.
The pace picked up. The bites started coming. We began putting fish in the boat and gradually worked our way back into the competition.
The result — 4th place for the day, after finishing second-to-last the day before.
But then our limited pre-planned spots ran out.
And here we made another mistake.
Instead of continuing to search for new fish, we decided to return to the weeds and try to catch the two pike we had found during training.
We got two bites.
And lost both fish.
After that, the question of our further strategy was finally settled.
Day Three: Forget the Pike and Start With a Clean Sheet
Before the final day, there were practically no options left.
We completely abandoned our focus on catching pike in the weeds and gave priority to classic fish-finding.
The approach became extremely simple:
scan → find the right structure → find the fish → catch it → move on.
When the known spots ran out, we did not return to our old strategy.
We started searching for new areas right in the middle of the competition.
We read the side-scan sonar, compared bottom structure, looked for familiar patterns, and gradually found fish in areas where we had never fished before.
And that was exactly when we felt that we were back in control of the situation.
Sometimes the Result Is Not Winning the Individual Stage
By the middle of the final day, it was clear that winning the stage itself was practically impossible.
But something else had become clear — we were getting back our overall championship lead and our chance at the title.
After the tension of the previous days, this completely changed our mood.
We even calmly stopped to have some tea.
After that, we simply enjoyed what was probably one of the best perch fishing sessions of our lives.
Perch from 34 to 41 centimeters, constant searching, new boat positions, and that feeling when you are no longer trying to force the lake to play by your rules.
You finally start playing by its rules.
The Main Lesson of Burtnieks
This stage gave us much more than another easy, successful result could have given us.
Burtnieks showed us that there are fishing techniques where other anglers are objectively stronger than us today.
And that is a good thing.
Because now we know what we need to work on.
But something else is much more important.
This stage showed us how dangerous it is in competitive fishing to fall in love with your own strategy.
You can spend a week training. Find spots. Choose lures. Build a beautiful plan.
And then the competition shows you that the entire plan is wrong.
A strong angler is not someone who never makes mistakes.
A strong angler is someone who can recognize a mistake in time.
The Ability to Adapt Is Also a Fishing Skill
Modern sport fishing has long been about much more than simply knowing how to work a lure properly or make an accurate cast.
It involves a huge amount of analysis.
You need to understand fish behavior, read maps and fish-finder data, evaluate your competitors' results, distinguish a random bite from a pattern, and constantly ask yourself:
“Is what I am doing right now actually working — or am I simply continuing because it is what I know how to do?”
Sometimes one question like that can completely change a competition.
At Burtnieks, we were unable to win the stage.
But after finishing second-to-last, we found the ability to forget our own assumptions, abandon a week of preparation, turn our tactics 180 degrees, and get back into the fight.
And perhaps these are exactly the competitions that make an angler stronger than the stages where everything works from the very first day.
Sport Constantly Shows You Your Weaknesses
We would also like to give special thanks to our competitors for that.
Strong competition is unpleasant only in the moment. In the long term, it is exactly what shows you where you are behind and what you still need to learn.
If someone is catching fish where you cannot, the problem is not always a lack of fish.
Sometimes you simply have to admit:
they know how to do it better today.
And then you have a choice — look for an excuse or learn.
We choose the latter.
That is why Burtnieks will remain in our memory not as the stage we lost.
It will be the stage where we once again learned not to be afraid to change everything in the middle of the game.
Because sometimes the real victory begins at exactly the moment when you realize: the old plan no longer works.
