Sometimes a Plan is just a Plan....and NEVER a Guarantee

 

 

 

 

How many times have you heard someone say, "He only catches fish because he has a honey hole" or "I've never caught that many because I don't fish waters that are stocked with fish", or even "He only wins tournaments because he has more time to scout than I do" ???

Well, I have heard these and a lot more mumbled and whispered throughout crowds and one offs over the years, and let me be the first to tell you, just because you work hard to find them, are fishing in "stocked" waters, or have a  so called "honey hole",  doesn't always mean fish will end up in the box.  Sometimes a plan is just a plan, and if you don't, or can't, execute in a manor that the fish are interested in, than no matter what gimics, locations, or honey holes you have, its not going to matter.

I learned this lesson, yet again, during the Bayou Coast Kayak Fishing Club's Golden Meadow Smackdown this past weekend.

Over a couple weeks time frame, I made three pre-fishing trips down to the tournament area. 

The first trip I wanted to venture into new waters and explore some areas so far south, that I knew I wouldn't run into any other anglers and I wouldn't have to compete for space.  And while it all looked good on the map and when I reached my destination, I couldn't land a redfish to save my life.  It was a trip where every time I crossed a point or grass bed and expected to see tails everywhere, I would end up landing a trout.  Don't get me wrong, I love catching trout, just not when I am trying to catch reds in preparation for a tournament.  I threw, jigs, matrix, vortex, live target, skitterwalks, inline spinners, corks, and even gulp, but no matter the location or the lure, trout was all that was coming over the edge of my Outback.

2nd trip was planned with a known favorite on the BCKFC circuit, Steve Lessard.  We fished waters that we both knew somewhat well, but we decided to call it a "fun" trip and not a pre-fishing trip.  Yeah right, when your with someone of Steve's caliber, you want to do anything you can to outperform him, to help add a little nitrous to the confidence tank.  Well the water was about 4 feet high, storms were brewing all around us, we were following two other yakkers into the same vicinity at times, and like the week before, the redfish weren't there, at least not for us.  I think I landed 3 and only one was a keeper, while Steve, I believe landed 3 or 4 with 2 keepers.  We did manage to land some solid table fare trout, so it wasn't a bust, that and we somehow survived the lightening show that took place around us and on top of us at times.

Trip 3 was a doozy....I teamed up with Craig Brown, and together we both managed to talk ourselves into fishing from one town to the next, little did we know we would end our trip 13 hours later, and 22.95 miles for the day, and believe me when I say we fished every nook and cranny along the way.  About 4 hours into our trip, we found the "honey hole".  I pulled up a 26 and 3/4'' red tailing, turned the corner and picked up a 25.5'' red, turned the next corner and there was a school of 4 reds all in the 25-27'' range.  I yelled over to Craig and told him, "this is it, this is where we are going to start tomorrow, we aren't passing go, we aren't exploring, we will be sitting right here when the sun comes up."  It was the cleanest water either of us had seen in weeks, and it was full, and I mean FULL of tournament sized fish.  Now that we have found the reds and figured out they were aggressively hitting dark spoons with chartreuse trailers, a newly designed lure I made and tested, now known as the Womper Stomper, and inline spinners we both had a high level of confidence for the next day, tournament day. 

From here we continued south to Golden Meadow in search of more red fish, but keeping our focus on the trout, as having 5 reds and 3 trout for the weigh in would yield an extra pound to your total.  We found deep water, skinny water, winter holes, and a lot of areas that were new to both of us, and during this excursion we found trout.  It wasn't schools of trout, it wasn't easy pickings, but it was what we were looking for, I think one of my 16" trout even pushed the scale over the 2 lbs mark, they were chunky trout, perfect for the weigh in, but we had to work for them.

As we finally made it to our pick up location, I ended the day with around 15 trout and around 10 of them being solid weighing trout, and I tagged and released 14 red fish, with 6 of them going between 26.25'' and 26.75'' and most of the others were in the 22-25'' range, it was a solid hard fought day.

Tournament Day

We altered our routes the night before to avoid the long trek of launching and picking up from different locations, we rigged up with all the right things that worked the previous day, we were sitting in our yaks at the launch at 4:30am with our feet kicked up and drinking coffee.  We had grins, we had jokes, we welcomed other anglers coming to the launch spot, we watched the duck hunters race off in the darkness, we had a pre tournament party of sorts.  I  couldn't help but remember that a week earlier I was stressed out about this tournament because I hadn't found fish in the two previous trips, but now I was sitting down with a grin from ear to ear, because today, I knew where the fish were, what they were biting on, and the how big they were. 

As the 5:00 hour rolled around, Craig and I turned on our lights, pushed off the rocks and began our 1 hour paddle through the darkness to our "honey hole."  About 2 miles into the trip I realized I had forgotten my glasses, kind of an important thing when most of your cast are based on site and not blind casting.  So for the next mile or so, I started to visualize the area and adjust my strategy around blind casting. We ended up reaching the grounds a little earlier than expected so we decided to hit an area outside of the honey hole where we landed some trout the day before in hopes of knocking our three trout out early.  As Craig stayed within seeing distance slinging topwaters for trout, I eased over to an island that I could see redfish splashing and tailing in the reflection of the water as the sky was just beginning to light up.  First topwater cast, fish on, and he was a brute, as I calmly got the mid 20'' red yak side, the hook  came right out, and he swam away.  I was disappointed to say it nicely, but I knew I wasn't even to the hot spot yet.  Two cast later, I hooked another weighing red and lost him halfway to the yak. Now I was aggravated, but because it was still early, I tried to keep my cool.  I made one more cast into the cut of the island and fish on, it ended up being just under 27'' and almost 7 lbs. 

I made one circle around the island waiting on the sun to get higher and as it did, I made a mad rush to the hot spot. When I pulled up there were fish everywhere.  The wind was calm, the water was clear, the tails were high, the fish were in schools of 2-5, and I knew, it was all or nothing at this point.  First cast landed me a 25'' red and in the bag he went, I now had two solid reds in the bag, the rest of the day was going to be easy, so I thought.

All of a sudden I had two reds turn away from my topwater, I was surprised to say the least.  Then another red ran from it, and now I was rethinking things.  I grabbed the spoon, that dominated the day before, and the next four tails I threw at, resulted in reds running away like an elementary school boy being chased around the playground by a girl, but I still wasn't worried.  When all else fails and red fish are nervous, a fluke always does the trick.  Then I saw one, about 30 yards away working a bank line, I pedaled over, laid my fluke in the weeds, eased it off the bank, and settled it right in front of the nose of this beast, and YEP, he ran off too.  This happened several times.  I was now completely confused, it seemed as if the higher the sun got, the more skittish the reds got.  They were still exploding on bait, and they were still moving around, but as the wind began to create some ripple on the water, they were moving into the grass and off the points.  After chunking everything I had, I finally resorted to my trout faithful, a jig head and Matrix Shad.  And while it worked wonders, the big fish had moved on.  I ended up pulling 10 reds off of points and out of the grass and unfortunately every one of them ranged between 16 and an 8th inches to 16 and a quarter inches.  I even pedaled a mile or so south where I landed some hogs the day before in the heat of the day, but it only yielded small reds too. 

As I made my way back to the hot spot, Craig showed me one of the reds in his bag, I was speechless, seeing the gut of that 8 lbs slot red was awesome, but deflating all in the same breath.  At this point I decided to tuck my tail and head toward the launch, and on the way, I was able to land a couple trout, one of which I got to weigh, and a few more reds, but they were the same size 16 inch ones I had been catching.   As I loaded everything up, Craig made his way in and he was also disappointed in his total bag, he had a limit, but it wasn't anything comparable to what we did the day before.

The weigh in was great, with nearly 30 people making the weigh in, it was nice to show off some of the new advances the club had made.  It was our first weigh in with the new custom BCKFC weigh in tent, and the new high end LCD crowd display weigh scale, we were definitely taking it up a notch as a club. 

Finishing in the top was 1st Jonathan Craft with a giant 33.7 lbs bag, 2nd Steve Lessard, 3rd Clayton Shilling, 4th Randy Robichaux, 5th Travis Johnston, and BIG FISH Craig Brown with an 8.02 lbs slot red.  Special congrats to Jonathan for his first BCKFC 1st place finish, and to Travis for his first time weighing his way into the money.

 

 

This was a great event that yielded many lessons for me.  I have replayed this tournament in my mind 1000 times since weigh in, and have even lost a little sleep over what I could've and should've done that would have enabled me higher than an 8th place finish.  And the best all around answer I could come up with was, a plan is just a plan, and no matter how good the waters may be, or how high the fish may be piled up in an area, you have to bring your A+ game.  I thought that because the waters were so good, and the "Honey" in the hole was so thick, that we could have been blind men throwing hot dogs on a noose and we still would have had 30+ lbs in the bag.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, I didn't mentally prepare as I usually do, I didn't have a back up plan, and I didn't have a back up plan for the back up plan, I hadn't visualized every cast or catch in my mind the night before or during the pedal out, all I had was hope and expectations.

The one thing I can say for sure, is that this won't happen again.  While putting in the time to find the fish was a long road, in the end, it was only half of the equation, and performance was the other half.  Performance that I took for granted, and it cost me.  Lesson learned, to me, and to those out there that think the guys that always win, only win because they have a honey hole. You might just want to rethink that process the next time you feel the need to make a comment about it.  Because I have the skills, and I HAD the "honey hole", I just didn't put the two together on this day.  And as I have said for years, it's not all about the location, its more about the angler.

 

Until Next Time,

 

Stay Safe & Catch 1

Chasin Bass in Harbuck Heaven

 

 This past week I got the opportunity to chase some green gold with one of the Bayou Pirates Kayak Fishing Club members, Adam Harbuck, in his home waters around the Shreveport/Bossier, La area. 
I was excited about the trip for several reason, 1st I was getting to fish freshwater(always a welcomed change for me), 2nd I was getting to explore some waters that I had never been too, and 3rd we were going to be fishing an oxbow lake that was developed off of the Red River.  I have fished plenty of lakes, marshes, and bays in my life, but fishing an oxbow full of flooded timber, stumps, and never ending grass beds was going to be a first for me.
It didn't take long for me to fall in love, as we crossed over the levee I could see the lake, and it was riddled with cypress trees throughout.  All that was running through my mind was jig and pig and black & blue worms.
Adam was rigged with his infamous spinner bait that I have heard so much about from other Bayou Pirates known to fish with Adam, but against the odds and against local knowledge, I chose to run with the lures that have yielded me larger fish in the past. After all, I was on this trip in hopes of pictures with a double digit largemouth, no way was I gonna throw a spinner.
Well, almost an hour in and only two fish landed, both on a jig & craw, Adam and I crossed paths.  I was fishing the deeper cypress tree riddled bank that was covered in the shade, and Adam was working his way back to where we originally launched.  I was a little confused as to his tactics, but when he told me he already had three bass in the boat, I started to take notice. 
Adam was working the edge of a grass bed as the sun was falling, he knew that the bass would congregate here as the water cooled and the shadows fell over the area.  As I sat and watched Adam land a nice bass on the edge of the grass while working a topwater frog, it didn't take me long to change tactics.

I held my ground until Adam made it several hundreds yards away and then it was on.  I took a 180 and made my way to the grass, the next 8 cast with a puppy spook, landed 5 bass.  I then went to ole faithful, the shad colored fluke.  First cast landed a largemouth in the mid 4 pound range, about 10 cast later landed one in the 6 lbs range, and as the sun fell, I continued to land fish after fish, with a total of 12 in the last hour of daylight.
I continued casting until I saw Adam's headlights come on in his lime green colored Jeep, and at that point, I knew the day was over.  If I didn't have to work early the next day, and Adam was willing to stay, I'm confident I would have sat in that lake until the sun rose the next day, but in no way was I going to push the limits or wear out my welcome. 
Fishing for bass is a past time I grew up on, I have done it for fun, and I have done it competitively, and although today, saltwater fishing is what fuels my fire, bass fishing will always make my blood boil.
I would like to give a very special thanks to Mr. Adam Harbuck and the Bayou Pirates as a whole.  Adam, you were a great host and guide, and I guarantee you that next time, I will heed the words you speak, and to the Pirates, you guys have done a great job promoting and growing the sport of kayak fishing in the northern region of Louisiana, and even if it was only for an evening, I was happy to be associated with all of you.

Until Next Time,

Stay Safe & Catch1