As many of you know, I grew up on the Tchefuncte River since around 5 years old. I used to catch catfish off the bank behind the house, ran drop lines and trot lines with my dad and brother before school, and even learned to use a fly rod at an early age for when the bream were bedded up, but nothing ever got my blood pumping like bass fishing. I was a worm 
throwing machine at an early age, by 9, I was allowed to run the flat boat alone in the rivers throughout St Tammany Parish, and if it was in reach of my 6 gallon gas tank and 6 hp Evinrude, than I was there. During summers I fished almost every day, at least when I remembered to charge the trolling motor battery from the day before. And believe me, carrying a full size boat battery almost two acres from the boat slip to the house was no fun at all. Today, I spend most of my time in saltwater chasing trout and redfish, and every once in a while I get to journey south and chase Tarpon and Snook, and with all the great saltwater fishing around me, I still find myself thinking about bass fishing.So when an invitation opened up to attend the final day as a bass fishing event on Lake Fork in Tx, I turned into a giddy little kid. The event is taking place in November, and I have a lot of
preparation to do. I haven't competed in the bass world in over 15 years, and based on the lures and techniques I've been reading about, a lot has changed. I was so excited about this event, I even wiped off a couple of planned saltwater events, talked to my wife and made promises of weekends at home if I could go, I even cleaned up my dresser in the bedroom, and that's a big undertaking for me. 
I started google searches, wiping the dust off of old BASS Magazines, and circling lure choices in catalogs, when it all of a sudden hit me, all the knowledge in the world and fancy baits in the box won't do me any good if I don't start preparing myself mentally and physically for a change in technique and presentation.
So when I got an open invite to fish some good bass waters in north Louisiana, I jumped on it. I was able to go three weeks ago, and it was a blast. And thankfully for work, I was able to go again this week, with Adam Harbuck.
Adam brings me to a place I have nicknamed Harbuck Heaven, my first trip I landed a lot of fish, but one of them made the 4 lbs mark and another the 6 lbs mark, and landing fish like that in unchartered waters is like heaven to me.
But the trip this week didn't yield the same results. We were fishing the day following a cold front, temps had dropped, water temps had dropped, we had a stiff 15 mph wind, and sunny skies. 
I had a feeling the bite was going to be off and the fish were going to be finicky during early evening hours, and they were. I chose to fish a jig and pig, because I know its tough for bass to resist when worked right. It's also an old favorite of mine and I wanted to make sure I could get the feel back for a soft strike on a falling lure with slack in the line, that, and I know jigs catch big bass. The area we were fishing is full of grass on top and on bottom, its also covered in a lot of tree tops and hidden 
stumps. I worked the jig every which way I knew, I drug it, jumped, bumped it, even worked on digging it in when I hit grass patches on the bottom. It didn't take long to get a fish on, but it did take a couple hours before I was able to recognize the structure I was working the jig in to.  |
| Adam "the trainer" |
I finally figured the bass were holding tight to structure, they weren't at all on the edges, I had to drop it on stumps and crawl it off, in the middle of tree tops and then over sunken branches, and when they hit it, they just nudged it, but it was enough to either see the line flicker or feel that ever so slight bump.As the sun went down I made some moves on my lure choices, I caught a couple of bass on a home made contraption I named the Womper Stomper, and it worked great on surface grass beds as daylight fell.
I then moved to one of my all time favorites, the black spook. The only problem with finding a black spook is that Zara doesn't make them anymore. But fortunately I told Adam about this a few weeks back, and when I arrived, he handed me 3 of them that looked like they just walked out of the processing plant. Adam actually found a bunch of discounted spooks on sale, sanded them down, painted them, and customized the eyes, and I gotta tell ya. They are awesome. First cast landed a nice bass, second cast I had a bass knock the spook 3 feet in the air, 5th cast another bass, and this continued until it was too dark to fish and mosquitos where too thick to breath. 
Working this spook took a little bit of change, it wasn't that normal walk the dog approach that I would normally take for trout or reds, but I had to work it erratically, and so much that at times it looked like I was working a popper. It seemed that the harder you worked it, the harder the bass would attack it. It was yet another lesson re-learned, that I had filed way too far back in my fading memory.
This was a great trip and I thank Adam for all he's doing for me up in Shreveport, he doesn't know it yet, but he has become my silent training partner for the Tournament of Champions event in November. I can't think of another way to get back into the groove than fishing with someone of Adam's caliber.
Until Next Time,
Stay Safe & Catch1
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