Not sure what it means when you are excited to draw boat number 203 which is a 100 boat improvement over the last one you fished. But in this case we were actually happy to take the late draw as once again the prior night dipped into the 20's. But once again we did not catch them. My partner Dicky Newberry had stuck the fish to win the BFL the prior weekend but had some bad luck in trying to put them in the livewell, so we went back to fish for those fish. We caught a lot of fish, probably 15-18 keepers and although they weighed 16+ on our scales BC's weighed them at under 14. But even though we did not catch weight, and 2nd and 4th place were caught within shouting distance of us, I feel like we made good decisions all day. The fished, or at least the larger females backed about 300 yards back out from the last grass in the drains to the first grass in the drains. We got fooled because of the number of bites we got and the fact that we did have 2 solid 4+ lb fish on mid-morning. We kept thinking that the 4+'s would replace the 2+'s we were catching as the day warmed but it never happened. Would I like to do the day over again knowing what I know now, absolutely. Do I question any of the decisions we made that day, no, we made good decisions, which along with good execution is all you can ask for. Even out lost fish where not execution mistakes, they just came unbuttoned which will happen with trap fish (in this case Midasu fish). Lesson of the day, sometimes you do have to leave fish to find fish.

Lesson learned, again, and again and again. I went to Rayburn without prefishing as I mentioned in my blog last week. However I knew that the fish had come shallow the week before at Rayburn, maybe not in the bushes shallow but shallow nonetheless. But I went with the intent to catch them deep, which takes me to something Jay Yelas told me the other day. I am working on an article with him where I interviewed him the day before he started practicing for the FLW tour event at Toho and also each day after practice and after each tournament day. As he was driving cross country to Toho he said "I try not to make the mistake of showing up telling the fish how I'm going to catch them"...

So I stayed deep, caught one 5 lb fish and some smaller keepers, but they whacked them up shallow. My thinking was how cold it got the week after they went shallow, and actually the water temp Saturday morning was 49 degrees. But at Rayburn, especially if you are approaching the third full moon of the year, once thye go shallow they truly do not want to go back out deep. I knew this, but I went over there with the intent to catch them deep, and it costs me. 

It is not often I blog beforehand but I'm sitting here in my office 11 stories above Central Expressway watching it snow while all my competitors are down practicing. Practice, huh, guess I am going with the blind hog-acorn thing for the first Cowboy BFL for 2015. It has been 7 weeks since I was on Rayburn last when Skip Chancellor and I fished and won the West Ice Bowl January 10th. Funny, although I haven't been down I actually think that may be an advantage. Don't get me wrong, practice is important, but I'm guessing the water temp at Rayburn has probably dropped 6-10 degrees since last Sunday and still dropping. That's going to make any shallow fish either retreat or get really hard to catch. I'm going to start the day deep, probably 18-25 feet and just keep getting deeper until I either get bit or the clock expires. Since I can't get out of Dallas until late this afternoon which will put me at the lake around 10:00 tonight I went ahead last night and went to boat storage and rigged everything. I did tie on 5 shallow baits, a spinnerbait, a chatterbait, a new, unnamed 6th Sense protype shallow crankbait (the one Albert Collins won at Lake of the Pines with a couple weeks ago), a 1/2 ounce Yamamoto Midasu rattling bait, a Tenkuu jerkbait in the 110 size. However those 5 rods are in the bottom of the rod locker, on top and 2 black blue 1 oz football jigs, 1 brown and orange 1 oz football jig, 2 rods rigged for Hog Farmer A-rigs, a 6th Sense 500DD and a Carolina rig. My first 15-20 minutes will be the black blue jig...from there, if the weather is as nasty as the forecast the Hog Farmer A-rig is likely to be a key player in my day, only one way to know, put on 37 layers of clothes, a good pair of gloves, a warm hat and let's go fishing. I will report back Monday.       

My newest article "Mike Tyson On Fishing" went live late last week while I was at Amistad. it's an interesting conversation with Ranger Pro's Jim Tutt of Texas and Bernie Schultz of Florida.