It’s been a long off season.. With so much anticipation for the first Elite Series Event, I’ve been counting down the days. We are only a week away from leaving for the Sabine River, and it’s crunch time.
February has had a firm grip on me with seminars at boat and sporting shows, a few tournaments, and guiding. Two weeks ago at the Bass Pro Shops Boat show, I was lucky enough to spend a day doing seminars with Jimmy Houston, one of my fishing idols as a kid. Jimmy was just as fun to be around as you would expect, he’s a great guy. The Phoenix ISE was this past weekend and it’s always one of my favorite shows to speak at. This year, the bass tank was full of giant rainbow trout. It was different to say the least, but the trout didn’t seem to have much trouble blasting the 3.5” Pro Minnow (glad I cut the hooks off this time…I wasn’t that smart at the last BPS demo and accidentally hooked a 10+ lb bass). I want to thank everyone that came out and wished me good look at the shows this month, I really appreciate the support.
The FLW Everstart Series came to Roosevelt Lake over the weekend of February 21-23. It’s great to have an opportunity to fish a large event on a home lake in front of friends and family. The tournament went very well, and when all was said and done, I finished 2nd place with a paycheck of $10,400. 2nd didn’t hurt too badly this time, as the winner John Fuqua lead by about 5 pounds at the end. Congrats to John and the other anglers who made the cut in this tough tournament. The first day of the event, we had some clouds hanging around and the fish were up shallow and ready to bite. The rest of the tournament we had bright bluebird days and the fish were in lockjaw mode. It was key to slow way down, and make repeated casts to the same structure to get the fish to bite. Overall, it was a great way to start the season with some momentum.
My next blog will be from the road at the first Elite Series Tournament of the season. The Sabine river will be a very challenging tournament, as it is a new locale and there is very limited information and knowledge on this river system to be found. I am excited to get out there and rip some lips with my TFO’s. After the river I will head strait to Falcon Lake for the Rigid Industries Falcon Lake Slam. The fishing should be pretty good there.
Until next time,
Josh
