Well, another year of fishing with the Big Sandy Creek Bass Club is in the books. With this year being my first year of being a full-time guide, I chose to largely stay out of the tournament scene and focus on my guide business this year. However, I didn’t want to just not fish any tournaments at all, so I chose to commit myself to fishing every club tournament throughout the year in order to keep my competitive drive and ability going strong. I’m not going to lie, I really wanted to take that Angler of the Year title this year. I can think of two events that I felt like really hurt me this year.
The first one was our tournament on Lake Travis. Not because the other guys really gained a bunch of points of me, but because I feel like that was a tournament where I really could’ve gained points on them. That was a tournament where I had to fish as a non-boater because it was during the summer after the sinking of my boat, ‘Merica. I fished with an angler I’m not very familiar with, and he didn’t seem too keen on fishing the way I was suggesting to fish. Not that I’m complaining that he was a bad boater to fish with, because as the boater, he had every right to call the shots and fish how he wanted to fish. Unfortunately, that’s just part of the game with fishing as a non-boater. You have to be able to catch them regardless of what the boater is doing. Which, I typically have confidence that I can do, no problem, but Travis was fishing so tough at the time that there really seemed like there were very few ways you could catch them. Unfortunately, the way he had the boat positioned all day, there was just no way I could’ve fished any of those ways that I felt like I could catch them. This tournament though was really out of my control, and I don’t know that there’s much I could’ve done to change the results for this one. So I don’t know that I can truly blame this tournament as the event where I lost AOY.
The other tournament that hurt me, and this is really the event that I felt like I lost my shot at AOY, was at our Lake Dunlap event in September. This is the tournament that was 100% within my control, and I blew it. Up until this event, Justin, Luke, and I were all pretty neck-to-neck for AOY. However, this event, I completely failed to get dialed in to the bite until way too late in the day. By then, it was too little, too late. I only weighed in 2 fish and both Justin and Luke caught limits. After the tournament, I looked at the schedule for the rest of the year, and I knew my odds of catching up to either of them was going to be pretty slim.
Yeah, there were other events where the other guys definitely gained some points on me, but I felt good overall with my performance in all of the other tournaments. I can think of lost fish that certainly hurt me and such, but those things are going to happen and they happen to everyone. However, when you fail to “figure out” the fish in an event, that’s where you really blow it. Dunlap was it. You can bet I’ll be looking to get my revenge on Dunlap whenever it is we end up going there in 2016.
Congrats to both Luke and Justin who finished ahead of me in the AOY race. Luke took the AOY title, and that dude is always a force to look out for. I figured he was going to be the biggest threat this year. And no offense intended to Justin, but that dude really surprised me this year. He flat out proved that he can fish this year and most definitely earned my respect. You da man, Justin, and congrats on a good year.
I’m planning on fishing the Top 6 State Championship at the end of February with the club, but I don’t think I’m going to be a real threat at taking the BSCBC AOY title in 2016. I’m going to be focused on guiding again, but I’m also going to be mixing in another tournament trail or two. Club events will unfortunately take a back seat to those other priorities in 2016. I just don’t think I will be able to fish enough club events in order to really threaten that 2016 AOY title. I am still looking forward to the events that I will be able to fish with the club though!
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