Costa Rayburn, decisions, decisions, desicions

Posted by ken on March 2, 2016

First big congrats to my friend Ricky Guy on a spectacular tournament, and also to friends Chris McCall and Cory Rambo on giving him a good chase. About a year ago I left Rayburn in a well documented pretty bad mood (see Rayovac Lessons learned article). This year, although I finished poorly, I think overall I made good decisions and I fished an almost flawless tournament as far as landing what bit. Actually might be kind of interesting to see what my fellow fisherman think, so here goes my week, what I thought, what I saw, and the decisions I made. You guys and girls tell me if you would have done differently. First we spend Friday and Saturday on Toledo fishing the Texas Team Trail, I can honestly say I have never thrown back a 15 lb limit knowing we would not get a check, but we did there. I left there realizing that the fish had moved up and in a big way, even though I went shallow for a few minutes Friday afternoon and saw some fish cruising and setting up on bed, guys catching mid 20's off the nest blew my mind, BUT it made me watch the water levels and weather forecasts for the following week really closely. If you a don't recall we had a full moon on Monday with unbelievably warm weather forecast until the day before the tournament when we were to see first wind, then rain, then mid 30's nighttime temps.

So my first day on Rayburn was Sunday and my buddy Steve "Moonpie" Evan joined me for a day of fishing. We spent the day fishing for fish that the cold weather would push back out into the drains, we knew (continued)    

a lot of fish had come shallow but I thought, and Pie concurred, that the likelihood was that many of those fish would disappear once the cold bluebirds showed up. We basically pitched 1/2 traps, specifically Bill Lewis rattle traps and Yamamoto's Midasu's. What we found was that if we could find hydrilla, which there is not a lot of due to last springs high water, we could get bites. And in general those were good bites, over the course of the day we saw two in the 5 lb class, and two more in the 4 lb class, along with several 2-3's. We discussed that the drain reaction bite should get even better and I went to sleep Sunday night pretty optimistic even knowing I was not going to get to practice Tuesday. Monday I ventured out on my own, I started the day about 3/4 the way up the lake in the back of a drain and caught two solid 2 1/2's. I reasoned that if there were solid fish in the backs there were big girls not far away. I worked my way out and on a little hidden secondary point near some haygrass one literally stopped my Midasu and started peeling drag. I was able to quietly boat her and out of curiosity weighed her at 6.75. Next drain had no hydrilla so I snugged up to the haygrass on a secondary point with a Tenkuu and a 4.5 smoked it.

Two drains later I caught another about 4 on a rattle trap and I knew I was onto something. Later in the day I boated another over a patch of hydrilla about 20 yards wide and 60 yards long that weighed just under 6, my best 5 for the day was somewhere in the 25-26 lb range. I had a meeting in Dallas Tuesday I had to attend (dang work) so I headed north feeling pretty good about things. Wednesday I had decided that I needed to check on the flipping bite, I knew there was one, and I knew that things could go wrong on a winding bite, so I made a pass through some of my favorite stuff north of the 147 bridge in a 30 mph wind and over the course of about 3 hours I had 12 flipping bites, however I was able to see 4 of them and none were over 3 lbs, as a matter of fact the only solid fish I caught, a 3 1/2 was over a drain I had just flipped around with a trap. I went to bed that night with rattling baits and 6 lbers on my mind. 

First day of the tournament I started mid lake over some really great grass that had been full of fish Sunday and although I had several slaps it took me the better part of the morning to put a really small limit together. In my mind, or usually for me if I catch big fish on a rattling bait I catch them early, and then sporadically throughout the day. I did go shallow a couple of times to flip but really got no bites doing that. I also did about 30 minutes worth of dragging for one 2 lber, and I weighed the smallest limit I have ever weighed on a rattling bait, at under 11 lbs. My buddy Ricky Guy, not to to far away from me had made a pass that morning through an area he said had a bunch of 2 lbers in it and left with the makings of his 26 lb stringer. I was certainly disappointed, but based on my practice I did what I thought was going to work.

That night as I pondered my day I realized I fell to a habit I have, that is as a tough day wears on I tend to tighten my circles, meaning I don't fish new water, and even in the water I am fishing I start pounding what I perceive to be, or what on prior days the sweet spots. I knew from talking to him that Ricky had caught his big stringer on a trap and also knew Chris McCall was likely throwing a trap and had certainly cover many more miles of water than I had and he'd pieced together a 22 lb stinger. So day 2 I did cover more water, had an almost respectable 14+ and interestingly caught all but one of them in water that I not only didn't catch them in the prior day but had not caught them in during practice. In the old bass club days two limits of any size would get you a plaque and some attaboy's, at this level 26 something barely gets you in the top 100. I did go to the bushes again on day two but the only bites were little guys, where I think one of Ricky's first bites was 10+, so maybe I chalk this one up to "not my tournament". I got to fish what I wanted, I executed well and I really have a hard time questioning anything I did other than not covering more water day 1, but I am open to thoughts?