So....Back at the lake.........

​So now I have a 6#er and one about 3#. I have put out of my head going "way up north" and settled into my area for most of the day. It was slow fishing only about a bite an hour but my co-angler and I both have a limit. I have about 16#s in the well and I think he has about 9-10#s. We had a 3:30 check in time and the first flight checks in at 3:00. I have always like fishing that island right in front of Umphreys and I usually catch a few nice ones there. The only problem is EVERYBODY likes to fish that island on the way back to weigh in. At 12:30 I decide to leave the area and try and beat everybody back and see if I can catch a couple of upgrades there. I have one fish that is only 14 1/2 inches and two that are 15-16 inches the 3#er and the 6#er. I need to catch a few bigger ones to get in the top 20. So we head back to Umphreys to fish that island. We arrive at 1pm and there is already one boat there fishing the south end where I like to fish. We stop on the north end and work our way back towards the middle where there is a nice road bed or  some type of rise and a sluff off from the bank. My co-angler catches a culler on a split shot fluke off the first nice drop from the bank. While he culls one out I get to that area with the rise and sluff and fire out my biffle bug and hook a nice 2 1/2 pounder and cull my 14 1/2 incher out. Thank you Jesus! Then my co catches another one and culls out another one of his. Fire out the biffle bug again and THUMP I get another bite! This is a goodurn! Its my second best fish! 3 1/2 to 4#er. Thank you JESUS! We fish there in until weigh in and I cull one more for ounces and my co catches one more that helps. I caught a few more keepers that didn't help. in an hour and a half we caught 9 or 10 keepers off that island and both cull up three times. WOW that was a good decision. while we where there 8 or 9 boats came to fish that island but I was able to protect that good area and I never saw anyone else catch a keeper, We go weigh in and I have 18# 2 oz. 18th place on day one! Within striking distance of the top 10 IF I can repeat on day two. Not a bad day for a guy who didn't have a plan for day one except to punt! Stayed tuned for day two...................

    Well, I haven't written anything in a long time! I think I have been sulking over missing the championship last year by two places. Just have to let bygones be bygones and move forward! We had a good start this year to 2017 season at the Sam Rayburn event with a 30th place finish! Not bad for a 60 year old fat man that doesn't get enough time off to pre-fish enough. I was able to spend the Saturday and 2/3 of Sunday the weekend before the tournament and returned Tuesday night and was able to fish Wednesday until about 4pm before having to go to meeting and registration. The lake was fishing completely different than it had the year before. I really did not get anything going during the first two days of practice. I caught a few fish but it was random and I hadn't discovered any type of pattern. I like fishing the north end of Sam Ray and I spent all of my time north of the 147 bridge. About the only thing I discovered was the few fish I was catching were around the Hydrilla in about 2-4 ft. I didn't catch a fish in practice over 3 pounds and at Sam Ray you need a 4# average just to be close to a top 10. I was fortunate on  Wednesday to discover a shallow bay with a couple of islands and 3 little pockets that had some decent Hydrilla in it just north of the bridge. Holy crap though, there were about 10 boats in there Wednesday afternoon.
    So, off we go to the meeting and pairing! I draw a  boat #68 or something close to that and meet my partner for day one. I told him that I was thinking about scrapping all my pre-fishing and just running way up north, north of 103 bridge and flipping bushes because I hadn't really figured much out and the one place I liked there were a bunch of boats in it on the last day of practice. My mind set was to "swing for the fences and pray". At takeoff the next morning I told him we would start on the island right in front of Humphreys if no one else did, sure enough someone else started there. NEVER pass up that island! I have caught many a fish in the last 30 minutes there and some good sized ones!
​    They call my number and here we go! we get to the 147 bridge and I think to myself I might as well stop at the bay where I practiced the last day and just see if I can catch one or two swimmers and take a leak before I go way up north. The last day of practice when I was in this area I was throwing a Kietech 3,8 swimbait on a 1/4 oz Owner flashy swimmer. My friend and fellow angle Brandon Pedigo put me on that bait two years ago at the BASS central Open on Ross Barnett Reservoir. (you can read about that in the blog below) I had caught three keepers on it fishing it around grass in 1-3 feet of water. the only problem was they were all 2#ers and that won't get you very far in a Sam Rayburn derby.
​    During preparation for this tournament I gave a lot of thought too and did a lot of research on what I should fish with and I knew this would be a good time for a strong "trap" bite. I thought the fish would be over exposed to the "rattle trap" during the practice period because everybody throws a trap at Sam Ray and for good reason, it catches fish. Me, I am always trying to figure out something a little different so I got to thinking maybe a "silent trap" would work better on those fish who have been over exposed to a "rattle trap" during practice so I went online and bought me some "stealth traps". The stealth trap is a rattle trap WITHOUT the rattles. I did not fish it in practice hardly at all but when I saw the scattered clumps of Hydrilla in the area I was fishing in 3-5 ft. I knew it would work there. On my deck I had 8 or 10 rods that morning with a "stealth trap", the afore mentioned Kietech 3.8 on the Owner flashy swimmer, a split shot fluke (always tied on), an Eakins finesse jig, a chatter bait, a square bill, a Biffle Bug on a hard head, a punch rig and a Texas rig. I was planning on catching them on the Kietech and the Trap and maybe a few on the fluke.
​    Back to the area we stopped at first, (on my way, way up north). When I started fishing I couldn't believe we were the first boat there! I started at the first little pocket at the front of my area and it wasn't long until my co angler caught one on a fluke. I had been throwing the swimbait so I picked of the split shot fluke. The better fish I caught during practice were not in the shallow hay grass and milfoil but were a little deeper and close to the Hydrilla in about 3-4 ft. BUT when you co-angler catches a two pounder up in the hay grass it makes you "change your mind" instead of sticking to the plan, especially when you haven't had a bite yet. so tossed my split shot fluke up towards the hay grass, a couple of cast later I decided to stick to my plan and fish a little deeper. I started reeling in the fluke kinda fast I had it out a full cast then decided to "jerk" it back in with fast twitches of the rod and BAM I see a fish roll up on the fluke, didn't feel the bite but reeled up and set the hook on a nice 3#er. YES my first fish of the derby. Fished to the back of that pocket and caught one more in skinny water off a clump of grass on the swimbait, a 2#er. Now we are an hour and a half into the day and still no one else has come into this area! Wow, hard to get an area with 100 acres of Hydrilla all to yourself at Sam Ray. I move out of the first pocket and have a bank about 200 yards long to get to the next little pocket. I picked up the stealth trap and parallel cast in the 3-5 ft range looking for clumps of Hydrilla to pop that trap out of. There is a little flat point at then of that stretch and I fire a long cast about 20" in front of it. I let the trap fall for 2 seconds and when I pick it up I have a fish on it! A BIG fish on it. at the end of a longggg cast. GET THE NET!!!!! come on baby don't you JUMP, stay down! GET HER IN THE NET! Got her!!!! YES a 6+ pounder! WOO-HOO! I am pumped!  Well so much for going way up north, I think I will stay HERE, I still have another pocket to fish and the two islands.........

We will finish this in the next blog!