Do you fish for your 5 before looking for kickers or concentrate on 5 big ones right off the bat? I get stuck in a 5 big bites mind set and feel it costs me some tournament wins instead of starting the day fishing for a limit

My tourney days are well behind me, but I'll share my thoughts on this and hope you benefit from them.

When I had the opportunity to pre-fish an event, I would attempt to locate multiple spots and I'd choose the order that I was going to fish them by the size and numbers of bites I got.  The majority of time, I'd start out at the most productive of spots and after getting my limit, I go to the one where I'd gotten the biggest during practice. 

Of the many lakes I've competed on that I was unable to pre-fish, I would get as much information as I could from maps, calling local tackle shops, checking weather history, etc, work out a game plan and then just eliminate areas when it came time to fish. 

In both instances, catching a limit was my initial focus and I was rewarded with many top five finishes. I should point out that at weigh-in there would always be one or two guys with two or three nice sized fish that wouldn't make the cut because they didn't limit out.  13lb-15lb bags would put me in the money the majority of time.

I know you're not asking the general BR community but here's my 2 cents for what it's worth.  Bigs or limit?  Depends on how long your event is.  The vast majority of the tournaments I've fished have been single day events.  In those, I'm looking for big ones from the start.  Why spend and hr or 2 catching fish you'll need to cull anyway in order to place high or win?  I do understand that having a limit in the box early is good for you mentally.  You'll often make better decisions during the day knowing you'll at least be able to weigh in 5 when it's over.  I guess the decision to chase bigguns off the bat would also depend on the body of water you're fishing.  If it's know for small fish...probably don't pull out the big jig.  Where I fish back in NY, you can't win ANY tournament with under 14lbs of largies or 20lbs of smallies.  Pretty much makes the decision for me!

 

It's a totally different mindset when you're fishing multi-day events (and even more so when you're fishing for a living).  Most pros NEED to cash checks in order to keep their seasons going.  In order to do that, you have to be able to catch a limit every single day.  Just an educated guess, but I would wager that most pros are going to fish for limits and hope for a couple big bites later in the day.  

All the tourneys I fish now are single day events so I'm not fishing for club points any more . Just can't decide how I want to approach the season. I did have one year where I was prefishing the day before my tournaments and i seemed to do fairly well that year with an even mixture of average keepers and solid fish but still find my self just looking for hawgs still

 

    I kind of always seem to swing for the fences and end up choking when I know I should have done better that's why I'm looking for advice 

Generally speaking I try to choose to fish in a way that gives me the best opportunity for both and not necessarily strongly in one camp or the other.  It doesn't happen often over the course of a tournament year where I have the luxury of targeting 5 big fish with larger field sizes (150+ boats).  It really also depends on the current conditions, the type of lake, time of year and if the lake has a large population with numbers of big fish?  If so you really need to focus on catching at least 2 to 3 big ones if you want a fighting chance.  If I know that the lake has a history of producing numerous heavy bags and the conditions are favorable (low pressure and low light conditions) I will push harder towards what I perceive would produce bigger fish.  If the opposite is true after the first bit in the morning then I would make sure that a nice limit is secured before I try to go big.  Over 90% of the tournaments I fish are multiple day and points style events in an effort to qualify for a championship event, which makes it more problematic of recovering from in that event and for the season if you have a bad day.  As you know, big fish are a high risk - high reward proposition, so I give it careful consideration before competition begins and really don't have a standing order of going big.

On Pickwick and most Tennessee River Reservoirs, ya gotta go BIG!

https://www.alabamabasstrail.org/tournament-series/pl-results/pl-tournament-recap/