Updates from Grand FLW Costa event and Toledo Bend BFL

Posted by ken on May 9, 2017

It has been a few weeks since I posted last so a quick update, first FLW Costa event at Grand. I went up thinking that it was going to be a sight fishing slugfest, not wanting that, but thinking it. The first few days were windy, rainy, overcast, or all three and less than perfect for looking, so I spent Saturday through Monday fishing, and truthfully never really got any real confidence. However I got a clue and missed it, Sunday morning I picked up a Tenkuu, which is a Yamamoto jerk bait, and a 12' fish absolutely crushed it, but for some reason I put it down, within 10 minutes of picking it up I laid it on the deck and never touched it again. The only thing I could consistently get bit on was a 5" Senko, and a very occasional fish on shakey head, but I was only catching a few keeper size fish, so with the blue bird skies of Tuesday I never got a rod out of the box, I just went looking. I think I found about 40 fish on the nest that I felt were keepers, but the few pockets they were in saw a constant stream of guys looking, I felt that's what I might be forced to do, but the forecast for the remainder of the week was storms and wind and my confidence was really lagging, Wednesday I found a group of release fish in Wolf Creek near the launch site and decided I would try to catch one of the few good fish off the nest if I got a good boat draw and then come back to the release fish to try to catch my limit. But then in the room Wednesday night a friend, Billy Cline, said that he had been getting a few good bites on a jerk bait, it didn't change my mind on where or what I was going to do, and as i noted at the ...continued

Rayburn event dock talk is really dangerous, especially if you are dialed in, but here I was way less than dialed in, and from that one bite I thought to myself "I may have missed that bite and I had a clue", so I went out Wednesday morning with that in the back of my head. My plan was to run to one of the 3 fish over 4 pounds I had seen on the nest and try to put at least one good one in the livewell, but when i drew a really high boat number I knew that strategy was out the window, so I stayed close and started on those release fish. Unfortunately that water had continued to get more muddy and about an hour and a half in I had caught two short fish and a really nice drum. So I locked everything down and went about 25 minutes down the lake. When I arrived an old fella on the dock at the mouth of the little 4 acre pocket I wanted to fish warned me that i would be the 8th boat through there that morning, but I just had a sense there were fish in there. I had planned to fish it hard with my senko, but knowing the traffic and that my day was already a quarter of the way gone the jerk bait called out to me, the first two bites were short, but within 30 minutes i had boated 2 solid fish and had a third follow my jerkait off a point. I made a wide circle and a long cast back to the point with the baby bass senko and caught the follow fish, my third keeper. Over the course of the next two hours I caught about 9 keepers, alternating between the jerk bait and Senko, specifically throwing the Senko over cables behind docks and up into the docks I fished through. I ended day one with just under 14 pounds and in 19th place, honestly I was thrilled based on my practice. We got stormed out day 2 and to make up the ground on the top 10, many of whom were sightfishing, I really needed us to fish that day, but Ron made the right call, it was nasty and dangerous and I got caught up on some sleep. Day two, which was actually Saturday, was much cooler and overcast and the sight fishing guys struggled, unfortunately my jerk bait bite evaporated and I had to go to the Senko exclusively, however I didn't make that adjustment quick enough. I broke one about 2 1/2 off on a metal pole at the mouth of the dock that cost me 10-15 places in the standings and about $1,000 as I only weighed 4 keepers the last day, but for my practice a 30th place check of $2,020 and 8th in the angler of the year standings is an outcome I am really pleased with. My lesson from the tournament, don't spin out, keep an open mind, and listen to what your bites tell you. Had Billy not clued me in, since I put the Tenkuu down in practice after getting bit on it, I could have had a much different outcome in this tournament. Since this got a bit long I'll give the Toledo update in a follow up blog in a few minutes.