Tournament fishing is intense and brings with it a number of challenges that the casual angler never deals with. If you've fished in tournaments you know what I'm talking about... if you haven't, allow me to explain.

The first limiting factor when fishing a tournament is time, meaning the angler has a set amount of time to fish, generally an eight hour period from the first hour after dawn until the middle of the afternoon. Now this sounds like a lot of time, but it really isn't when you are actually on the water fishing. Prior to the tournament an angler has to develop a strategy. You know, first thing in the morning you start with Plan A and then move to Plans B, C and D as the day progresses.

The second limiting factor is fishing pressure. When pre-fishing, you'll likely have the lake more or less to yourself. On the day of the event you'll be up against 100 to 200 teams that are all vying to catch bass. If you established an obvious pattern during pre-fishing, it is a virtual certainty that the other competitors will know about it too.

So what's the bottom line? Tournament fishing is about preparation and execution. You've got to prepare a strategy that will allow you to put the largest bass possible in the boat quickly. And you've got to do it while avoiding as much fishing pressure as you can.

Once you've established a plan you've got to execute and stick to the plan while making as few stupid mistakes as possible. One blown opportunity can make a tremendous difference.

Now I'm by no means a hardcore tournament angler, but I do enjoy competing. This winter I spent some time thinking about how I could be a better tournament angler and I decided that preparation and establishing a fishing strategy were areas that I could really improve upon.

A few weeks ago, with the Future Pro Tour Tournament at Lake Berryessa looming just around the corner, Mark Fong gave me a call to see if I wanted to go out for a day of "fun" fishing at Berryessa. Mark is a seasoned tournament angler and I jumped at the opportunity.

I really enjoy fishing with Mark and I figured he could give me some pointers on tournament preparation. We are both busy guys, so it took us some wrangling to get our schedules aligned, but we finally agreed on a day during the third week of March.

For an extended period leading up to our trip the weather was fair and warm. The reports from the lake indicated that the bass where moving into shallow water and beginning to lock up on spawning beds. As luck would have it a cold front moved through just days before we planned to fish and we knew that it would likely disrupt the fish.

My previous pre-fishing experience had consisted on driving from one likely spot to another and throwing my confidence baits. When I located an area with responsive bass that's where I fished during the event. After Mark and I launched his bass boat at Markley Cove, school was in session and I was the student.

As we headed out through the marina, Mark explained that we would head down near the mouth of the narrows. "The coves down there have very steep banks with spawning habitat toward the backs. I like to start fishing steeply falling banks because it allows me to quickly determine the depth the fish are holding at and what they will hit," said Fong.

Mark killed the big motor out in front of a large steep point, dropped the trolling motor and broke out an arsenal of St. Croix rods. "Lets start out work rip baits and see if we can stick some reaction fish," Fong said as he began casting a Lucky Craft Pointer.

I was busy tying on a Yo-Zuri Hardcore Minnow, when Mark hooked and landed his first bass. As soon as I started working my bait a bass followed it to the boat. As we worked along the point we could see bass ghosting along under our baits, but they would commit to hitting them.

As we worked our way into the cove, Mark suggested that we try something subtler, so he knotted on a weighted hook with a pearl Zoom Fluke pinned to it, while I started working a wacky rigged Senko. I don't think Mark had made a half dozen casts when a spot came up and sucked in his fluke. In quick succession Mark nailed three more small spots.

"These spots are willing to move a long way to hit this fluke, I think they are spawned out. Generally the fluke bite is good right after the spawn. I'll bet the largemouths haven't spawned yet. Let's head out onto the main lake and check out a couple areas and see if we can pinpoint some shallow water largemouths," said Mark as he strapped down his rods.

The first area we stopped at was a large gently slopping flat. Mark related that the flat is generally covered with grass. I couldn't see the bottom with my Strike King glasses, but the gradient lens of Mark's Solar Bat glasses gave him a clear view. When he discovered that the grass had not yet started growing we didn't waste much time going in search of greener pastures.

We zipped behind the islands and Mark pulled up to a long gently sloping point that projected off a rocky bank. Almost immediately we spotted a handful of big beds that had been abandoned. Either the fish had been caught or the storm had driven them offshore. The only way to be certain would be to move out into deeper water and see if we could hook some fish.

I tied on a Carolina rigged lizard, while Mark started working a green pumpkin Big Bite Baits tube jig. Mark insists that he doesn't have a go to bait, but this was my second time fishing with him and I've noticed that when the going gets tough, Mark reaches for his St. Croix spinning rod armed with a Big Bite tube.

The fish weren't interested in the lizard, but they took a liking to the tube. In little more than a half-hour Mark nailed a quality smallmouth and three largemouths. The bass weren't as big as the fish we hoped to find, but they were bigger than the spots we'd found earlier.

"Okay there are some decent fish here, and if you worked this area hard you could probably put a limit in the boat. Let's move on and see if we can find something better," Fong suggested.

Our next run took us well up the narrows nearly to Pleasure Cove Resort. Mark pulled into a small cove that featured a steep bank and some submerged brush. He continued using his tube, while I switched to a firecracker colored Ring Worm on a split shot rig. We didn't have any action until we moved out of the cove and started working deeper water offshore. The fish were not too interested in the tube, but they were all over my worm and I caught 3 largemouth and a 2 pound spot in short order.

Our last move of the day took us back to the cove where we'd started. Mark switched back to throwing a fluke to see if that bite would still be going on in the afternoon, while I stuck with my trusty worm. Mark got some action on his fluke, but it was my worm that did the hot business. I caught 3 or 4 spots and largemouths quickly and ended the day with a quality 2 plus pound smallmouth. What had we accomplished? Well, we'd located some areas that held fish, but beyond that we'd determined that despite the warm spring conditions the better quality fish were holding offshore in 20 to 30 feet of water. The next challenge was for me to use what we'd learned during the Future Pro Tournament. To find out how I did, keep an eye out for the edition of Bass Angler News.