This year seems to be no different than any other year. Full of highs and lows. The biggest setback this year has been boat problems. Always with the boat problems! Never seems to end. I’ve had to fork out a whole lotta money to keep ‘Merica goin’ strong. I’m hoping and praying that we are past the worst of it now and that she will run strong for some time now. The first half of my tournament season was fraught with boat problems and mediocre tournament finishes. Some of those mediocre finishes were a result of boat problems. Actually, now that I think of it, I did cut a couple of checks. Here let’s go through the season so far:
Media Bass @ Lake LBJ – January
This was a rough one. I weighed in 2 little fish for like 2.8 something pounds I think. I don’t even remember how I caught those fish. I’ve blocked it out of my memory. Ha! I had a pretty good pre-fish too. One day I caught an 18lb bag on a jig fishing deeper rocks and docks, including a 7lber. Tournament day though, that bite was gone. I’m not sure what happened. Not much to talk about with this tournament other than… it sucked.
TTZ @ Lake LBJ – January
This was actually our best TTZ finish so far this season, although we’ve really only fished three TTZ events this year. My partner, Stephen Malina, and I ended up cutting a check in 11th place. It was a total junk fishing kind of day though. After having sucked in the Media Bass tournament on this lake just one week earlier, I was clueless with where to start or what to do. I left our starting location decision up to Stephen, which was good. It started off with me catching a 5lber on a Rapala Shad Rap on 8lb test on a spinning rod off of a dock. Pretty intense. That got us pretty pumped up and I was hoping the Shad Rap would be the deal. Not the case. We ended up catching all 5 of our fish on different baits and all in completely different depths and structure. Stephen caught another good 4+lber on a Biffle Bug on some deep offshore rock later in the day. So basically, we got lucky and just happened to get the right bites in the boat. I don’t think we would’ve had a repeat performance the next day, but luckily this was just a one day tournament. Our season was off to a decent start.
Media Bass @ Lake Austin – February
BOAT PROBLEMS. I had a pretty great pre-fish and was whacking fish left and right on a jerkbait. I was ready to tear into ’em and had an awesome prespawn staging area where they were ganged up on. Probably only a 4-5 minute run from the boat ramp too. As I was running to that spot first thing in the morning, I made it maybe halfway there and my motor instantly shut down and was making a terrible racket. I was dead in the water. My heart sank, and I just felt sick for the rest of the day. I spent the day on the trolling motor trying to make the best of a horrible situation in unproductive water. I think I caught two fish on a jerkbait, lost one on a Shad Rap, and broke one off on a PowerTeam Lures Finicky Tickler on their Peahead Shakyhead. With only 2 fish in the livewell towards weigh-in time, I figured it wasn’t worth trying to hitch a ride back with someone back to the weigh-in, so I just loaded it up on the trailer and took a zero for that tournament. And oh, it was a lower unit issue. Got it replaced and was back on my way thanks to Gary and the guys over at Tracker Marine here in Austin.
TTZ @ Lake Austin – February
Just a mediocre finish here. We decided to take a risk and see if we could avoid the crowds that we knew were going to flock to the grass on the upper end of the lake, and we took our chances on the lower end since both of us had caught good fish down there pre-fishing. We ended up catching a lot of fish, but we simply could not find those bigger bites. Lots of fish on a jerkbait. It was a lot of fun, but we completely missed the target by not heading uplake. There was a ridiculous amount of 20+lb bags weighed in and the tournament was won with a nearly 44lb bag! INSANE!!! I don’t even remember what we had. It was like 13-15lbs or something lame. At least it was lame compared to the scores of 20lb bags. Boo.
Media Bass @ Lake Austin – March
This was the month when there was a conflict with TTZ and Media Bass and I decided to fish Media Bass. I had points I needed to make up after my boat problems at the last event in February and my terrible finish in Janary. Time to make up ground. I did it with a 3rd place finish weighing in 22.75lbs with a big fish of 9.5lbs. I had a 7lber in my bag as well, but the other three were dinks. I just needed to swap out one of those dinks for a 3lber and I would’ve been in great shape for a shot at the win. Cut a check and put myself back into the point standings to qualify for the championship. Mission accomplished.
Even got some GoPro footage at this tournament:
Media Bass @ Lake LBJ – April
Finished just outside of the money. I had a pretty good pre-fish for this one and found some pretty good post-spawn fish in the backs of creeks and sloughs willing to eat a River2Sea Spittin’ Wa (hollow-bodied frog bait). Unfortunately, I had a hard time getting those better bites come tournament day. I still primarily caught them on the Spittin’ Wa, but the were smaller. I weighed in 12.88lbs. I caught one big one that should’ve been an easy 6lber, but it was SO SKINNY. It was maybe 4lbs. Skeleton fish. So I didn’t finish as well as I would’ve hoped, but it at least kept me up there in the point standings to qualify for the championship.
TTZ @ Belton Lake – April
Another mediocre tournament. We finished pretty much exactly in the middle of the pack. I, unfortunately, didn’t really have much of a chance to pre-fish for this tournament. I had about 3 hours one morning to test the bite upriver and that was it. There was a decent bite up there, but it didn’t pan out in the tournament. Stephen pre-fished one day and found a good little spot downlake, but again, didn’t work out in the tournament. There was fish schooling all over it when we got there, but they were pretty much all white bass. Bummer.
That brings us to where we’re at now. I have two regular season events left. One Media Bass tournament and one TTZ tournament. Media Bass is this weekend on Stillhouse and TTZ is next weekend on Lake Waco. I’ve never been to Waco before and it has been years since I’ve been on Stillhouse. It should be interesting. I’ve got the next couple of days off work, so tomorrow I am headed to Waco. That will be my one chance to scope out the lake before the event. The goal is just to take a tour of the lake and get a feel for each area of the lake and see what’s available there to fish. We’ll have to figure them out in the tournament. After checking out Waco, I will drive to Stillhouse to stay in a hotel there tomorrow night, wake-up and pre-fish Stillhouse Friday, and then fish the event on Saturday. I wish I had more time to check out Waco, but I just don’t. It’s ok, I’ve been fishing pretty well the last couple of weeks during my free time and feel like I’m “in tune” with the bite here in Central Texas in general. I’m going into these last two regular season events looking for a win!
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