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By Pete Robbins
Palaniuk
F
resh off of his second Angler of the Year title,
Brandon Palaniuk resumed daddy daycare,
hit the woods and fulfilled his ample media obligations, just another week in the life of the now-35-
year-old pro.
I was a long cast away from his when he first burst
onto the national stage at the 2011 Bassmaster Classic in
New Orleans, and I’ve watched him on and off the water
since then.
While he’s clearly gifted in more ways than one, his
ascent has been an iterative process, with each day a
building block.
I’m not here to argue that he’s the best tournament
angler who’s ever lived (for the foreseeable future that
title will remain with
KVD) or even that
he’s the best one
competing today (a
colorable argument
could be made for
Jacob Wheeler, among
others) but more than
any other pros in the
modern era he’s laid
down a template for
what a pro career
should look like.
Here are four
lessons to take away,
whether you’re one of
his competitors or just
an aspiring tour-level
angler.
LIFELONG LEARNER
The information age moves fast, and in this era of the 24- hour Twitterverse, and constantly-changing
technology, the angler who ignores any single strand of the fishing mosaic does so at his peril.
Don’t like forward-facing sonar? You don’t have to like it, but you have to at least give it a side-hug if you want to be consistently competitive. The days of going out with just a jig, or just a spinnerbait or just a shakey head and hoping to make checks let alone championships are over. Palaniuk knows all of this.
Even if it’s subconscious, he’s curious enough and intellectual enough to break things down into their component parts. He may not be the best sight- fisherman or cranker or big bait chucker on tour, but you can bet he’s spent substantial time with each of them. During a recent podcast with Dave Mercer, he discussed
some of the
performance-oriented
psychology books
he’d been reading
and how they applied
to his fishing, just as
his wrestling career
that preceded it also
informed his efforts.
To be a great angler,
you have to be 100
percent immersed in
the moment, but also
able to utilize other
influences to your
advantage. He does
that far better than
most.
REBOUNDS FROM ADVERSITY
During his first Angler of the Year campaign in 2017, Palaniuk finished a pitiful 105th at
Winter 2023
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