I spent last week at Sam Rayburn Reservoir near Jasper Texas practicing and competing in the Bassmaster Central Open held there September 3-5^th. The fishing was tough compared to Rayburn’s reputation. I did see some quality fish but not as big as what I expected to see and a limit of fish proved to be tough to come by for many anglers at the event.

On my first practice day, Monday Aug. 31st, we started out in a very small area near our campsite and quickly caught 3 keepers and a couple of dinks. This area was about the size that one boat could enter and turn around. You can imagine my impression at this point. 10 minutes into practice and already found 3 keepers! This area was a very shallow area with wood in it. The bass fell to a Senko and a Jig. I spent the rest of the day trying to reproduce these results. I tried many similar areas as well as trying several different types of cover and structure. I did manage 2 more keepers but it took the remainder of the day. Both of these came on a Fat Dink spinnerbait from Strictly Bass Lures. One 14 incher I found on the main lake shore along some cypress knees, the other bass was a nice 4.5 lb brut I caught running this spinnerbait several feet outside of a small patch of lily pads. I tried for about 20 minutes to repeat this but that fish seems to have been a fluke.

After that I spent the last couple of hour trying to locate fish in the deeper weed line throwing everything from a DD22 crankbait, Carolina Rig, Jig, to Texas Rigged worm. I fished several flats from 7 to 15 ft deep as well as a couple of drops along the edge of a ledge. None of this paid off for me.

On Tuesday Sept 1^st, my second day of practice, I began in the Ayish Bayou arm of the lake where I spent all of day one. I continued to check out areas that I did not get to before it got dark the day before. I found no better results and, in fact, caught only a couple of dinks. While my initial plan had been to only fish this arm, thinking that I should focus on a small portion of the lake instead of running all over this large reservoir, I decided to at least make a run up the lake to the Angelina River arm and at least look around. This was about a 25 mile run but I hope it would represent a significant move and I might find fishing to be different somehow. Call it desperation if you must I cannot argue I was getting very worried at this point.

This proved to be a good decision. I quickly found fish on a grass flat just below the Hwy 147 Bridge. While the keepers I caught were nothing to“go Ike” about they were at least 14 inches. I quickly caught 3, the first on a green pumpkin candy colored Strictly Bass Invader Jig with a watermelon Yum chunk hopped along the edge of the hydrilla, the other two ate a watermelon red Senko fished through sparse patches of hydrilla. At this point I realized I found an area with small keepers and left not wanting to stick too many fish.

I moved on up the lake and tried a couple of areas and then to an area with a network of islands near where the Attoyac Bayou met the Angelina River arm. This area had numerous small islands with lilly pads covering the water between them. This is a massive area that could have taken a day or longer to cover the entire area. I began fishing a Yum sweet beaver look-alike in the watermelon red color and flipping it into the holes between the lilly pads. This quickly paid off with a couple nice 17-18 inch fish and I only fished the first 50ft of the entrance before it started getting dark. I left because Sam Rayburn has a lot of standing timber and much of it is just below the water line and marked with jugs. These can be very difficult to see in low light so you do not want to run this type of unfamiliar water in the dark.

On Wednesday I only had half a day left to practice because we have to be in by early afternoon to register and attend the pre-tournament meeting. I went back to the same island network where I finished the day before. I wanted to expand and define the area to see what I could expect there as far as numbers. I started flipping the same bait into the holes between the pads. I fished in there for about an hour and had 7 bass pick up the bait and try to jerk the pole out of my hands. They all felt like quality fish but I shook them all off hoping to stick them the next day and take them to weigh-in. I only fished about the first 200ft of the pads and then moved around looking at all the rest of the area. The area was all about the same so I felt that I had a great primary area here and a good secondary spot back at the bridge fishing the hydrilla.

I finished out the day trying some new stuff in the timber and a couple of drops but nothing panned out so even though I only had two spots they felt like good spots that would hold up as the weather was going to change little over for the next day. So when I left the water I was cautiously optimistic and excited about my prospects. I knew I wasn’t on a lot of really big fish but felt like 14 to 15lbs a day could be had. Everyone knew it would take 18lbs a day to win but 14 to 15 should get a check.

On day one of the tournament I drew spot 123 out of almost 200. This worried me a little as I had seen several other pros practicing in my two areas. I was surprised when I arrived at my primary spot and there was only one other boat in there and he moved quickly through the area I wanted to dissect and he only touched the outside of the pad field.

Once I started working the area it quickly became apparent that something was different. I was a little worried before I got there that because it was cloudy and pad fishing might be tougher and this proved to be true as I fished there for about an hour before getting my first bite. This fish quickly wrapped me up in the pad stems and got off. Then about 10 minutes later I stuck a good one that was probably about 3 lbs and it hung me up as well but he did not get off right away. I pushed the boat up to where he had me hung up and as I reached into the water to try to get him he came out of the water about 4 feet away and threw the bait back at me. While I have never experienced a problem as bad as this in the pads this area was different that the Mississippi River backwater where pads are in 2 feet of water. These pads were growing in 6 to 10 feet of water so the stems were very long and the bass had plenty of room to wrap me up. It was just aggravating that I only seemed to find it impossible to land the fish on tournament day and not during practice.

About 30 minutes later after losing yet another fish in the same manner I decided to move to my secondary spot and maybe come back and try this spot again later. Once I arrived at this spot I fished my way back behind the hydrilla field and finally boated my first keeper when I flipped the Strictly Bass Invader Jig into a hole in the hydrilla. This is the fish shown in the weigh-in picture. It weighed just at 5lbs. I hoped I was onto something and tried many other holes along the edge of the hydrilla but only boated a couple of dinks. I then worked my way back out while fishing the sparse hydrilla patches with the Senko and caught 2 more keepers in the next hour. After fishing back and forth through this area a couple of times with no more bites I ran back to the pad spot for the final hour.

Once back in my primary area I hooked another bass and once again lost this fish when he hung me up deep under the pads. So I ended day one with only 3 keepers in the boat but had more than a limit on the line. I am still not sure how to grade the day. I think I controlled all I could but it just didn’t go my way. I weighed 8lbs 7oz on day one and it put me in the middle of the field for the day.

On day 2 I stopped at the hydrilla field first and fished for about an hour and a half and only caught 2 shorts. I fished the sparse area and the edges of the hydrilla as I did the day before. Then pulled out a 1-½ oz weight and began punching through the hydrilla. (Flipping this weight will really wear out your wrist by the way.) Five minutes later I boated my first keeper of the day that just squeeked 14 inches. I continued this for about an hour hoping that the fished had just moved under the hydrilla but nothing else materialized.

I then ran back to the pad area and after about 30 minutes boated keeper number 2 for the day just slightly larger than the first. I fished there for another hour and never got another bite. So I went back and finished out the day in the hydrilla but did not pick up any additional fish. Just before we had to be in I did try the small area near our campground where I caught several keepers during practice. But did not get a bite in there. I could not guard this area, however and my co-angler picked up a nice keeper fishing the opposite shore.

I only brought 3lb 2 oz to the scale on the second day and this dropped me to a dismal 141^st spot. This also dropped me from 54^th to 89^th in the season standings. All in all a disappointing finish but I am still happy that I found fish in 3 days on a new lake and fished hard bringing in fish each day.

Remembering that probably 85% of the field had previous experience on the lake and many of them had significant experience on this lake helps me to keep my performance in perspective. Keeping a positive attitude even after a poor finish is very important. Do not write off your entire performance after a bad finish but focus on what you did right and learn from the mistakes.