Haven't blogged in a while, since just before our move from Iowa to Texas. Been busy with a lot of things. Initially, it was looking for work and hanging with the grand kids. Then it was putting a lot of effort in the new job (still am and love it) and hanging with the grandkids. Now I'm adding an old, yet new, twist to my spare time; I've joined the Denton County Bass Club and it's tournament season in Texas.
Reality is, it never ends. There are tournaments 12 months of the year! If I wanted to, I'm sure I could find one. Unlike in Iowa, where the ice is still 14-24" thick and ice fishing is in full swing, the weather here is like early spring. Windy, still cold at night, warmer during the day, but, can change at a moments notice. Still no spring storms, matter of fact, we need some rain so those would be welcome. The lakes are low and the boat ramps lower in many places. With water down in all but a few locations, it creates conditions that many Texas boys haven't even seen and puts this Northern boy of a bit more level ground!
Denton County Bass had their first tournament last weekend. It was on a warm water lake called Brandy Branch, which is near Longview and Marshall, TX, about three hours from home. Got over there on Saturday for a few hours, long enough to determine that the water temps ranged from 52-69 degrees. Fish were in all three stages: Pre-spawn, spawn and Post-spawn. There were quite a few beds, but no sun. Shallow beds were empty....so I thought. Deep beds, those in 10-15 foot of water, could be seen, but couldn't see anything on them without any sun. There was a lot of grass in the lake. Explored both sides of the lake in the little time I had to poke around. Decided that the warm water side was where I was going to spend the majority of my time. Went right to the egg beater and started throwing Hot Rod Baits senkos looking for fish on those beds I could see, but still wasn't seeing any fish. They were there though and the first two keepers came early! By 8am, had the third, the fourth came about 10 minutes later. In the next hour and a half, I had four more bites, but didn't get that fifth keeper until 10:30am. Five in the box, 5x3, we all want it, we all look for it, and there is a sense of relief when the fifth one hits the deck. Now it was time to go after upgrades. Fished hard for the next four and a half hours, but could only bring in short fish. Just couldn't get that one bite that mattered.
Time for the weigh in: I was a little nervous. Had five, but there were small, and I knew it. There are some pretty good sticks in this club, one of them is a past state champion! My co-angler had one super nice 5lb fish, I let him go take the bag and go first. When he came back, I loaded my fish and took them to the scale. They were all Kentucky Spots, and I knew 10lbs was a stretch, but was happy to have the five I had. Tale of the tape: 8.88 lbs. Now just had to wait. There were some pretty nice bags weighed and the winner had nearly 17lbs. weights dropped to 14, 13, 11 and 10 and then me. Sixth. Not bad, not good, I'll definitely take it. This year will be a big learning experience for me back on lakes, and in territory I've never seen. It will take all my knowledge of early tournament days in order to put five in the boat every tournament, but, we are gonna give it a shot. Good start, just have to keep it going.
A co-worker of mine, Ray Sims, is a seasoned tournament angler, having fished tournaments in Texas and Tennessee and other parts of the country for over 40 years. He needed a partner for this weekend and I wasn't going to tell him no. This was an extra opportunity for me to learn something about another lake that I wasn't going to have on my Denton County schedule this year. Saturday came quickly. The weather had improved temp wise from the previous weekend, but we were only a couple days in to an upper 50's weather cycle, meaning, the water we were fishing was still super cold. Matter of fact, Ray went out Friday afternoon for a while and called to tell me he had never seen water this cold in Texas. He was dumbfounded after not having one bite in four hours. He told me it was going to be tough and I knew he was right.
We showed up Saturday morning, launched and took a 10 minute drive down the lake. Man, it was damn cold. 38 degrees, on plane on a bass boat, the fingers and face were feeling it. We hit the first spot and started pitching rocks, nothing. Started cranking...nothing. Started throwing a slow rolled spinner bait a little deeper...nothing. Threw the jerk bait, then a beaver, then a senko.....nothing. Moved to the second spot. Rinsed and repeated. Nothing. Moved on to a third and fourth spot. Nothing. Neither of us had gotten a bite. Got to the fifth location further up the lake, water was a bit shallower and was warming in the sun, all the way up to 45 degrees. Grabbed a chatterbait and started tossing to another bunch of rocks. Three casts in, fish on! Finally! Was a short battle and Ray expertly worked the net. Looked to be about 2.2-2.3 lbs. One in the live well. It was almost 11am.
Ray was pretty happy, I wanted four more. He kept telling me that if it was this hard for us, everyone was having trouble. While I agreed, I still didn't think one fish was going to get us a check. Ray thought differently. I was certain that someone was on fish and we would see some nice bags at the weigh in. We fished hard till 2:30, and headed for the marina. We got the boat out, and all I heard was fisherman complaining. Ray took a walk while I was getting stuff put away and came back telling me he thought our one fish was going to cash. I shook my head, asked him for a weigh bag and got our fish ready for the scale. When I walked up, there were maybe 20 guys standing around and only two of us had bags in our hands. I knew that there were still teams trying to get out of the water as there were 32 boats/64 fishermen in the Forney Bass Club Tournament this day.
I looked at the guy standing there with his bag and he looked at me and said, you first. I didn't waste any time and put that one fish on the scale. I guessed 2.26. Total weight was actually 2.32. I took my fish and went to release him. When I got back, I learned that the guy that weighed in second had two small fish for something like 3.78 and neither fish went 2 lbs. Another guy came up, weighed one fish in at 2.21 lbs. There was some conversation about one more bag, so we waited and that guy came up with his bag and I still expected a five fish limit. It wasn't to be today.....he pulled one fish out that weighed 1.84 lbs. That was it. My one bite mattered a ton today. Was good for second place and we won big fish. Just a head shaker. Oh well. Reminded me a lot of a couple early season Hot Rod Baits tournaments last season with Brent Roloff. Those were brutal, from both a fishing and weather standpoint.
To all my Northern Fishing friends, live vicariously through me for a couple more months. Your day will be here soon enough boys, soon enough.....and just remember; Sometimes, one bite matters!
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