I’m writing this a few days before the Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest benefiting the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Regardless of how I do in that event I want to put down some of my thoughts about bass fishing in The Lone Star State.
Texas is a great place to fish, tournament or otherwise.
The thing about most Texas lakes, especially in May and June, is that you can catch bass darn near any way that suits you. They have shallow cover — bushes and the like — as well as deep, offshore structure.
There are opportunities for great topwater fishing, flipping and pitching, and just about any shallow bait you want to throw. Square bills, spinnerbaits and swim jigs will all produce. You can even drag a worm or a Carolina rig if you want.
Another thing I like about Texas is that there are so many lakes around the state that a guy can fish new places almost anytime he wants. I like that about Texas Fest this year because we’ve never been to Lake Travis before. I’m not positive about that, but if we have been there it’s been a long time ago so it really doesn’t count, at least not for most of us anyway.
Those two things will make this tournament an exciting event. Guys can fish to their strengths. That means an exciting tournament. We’re professionals, but that doesn’t mean that some of us aren’t better at doing one thing than we are at doing something else. When you get more than 100 bass anglers who are at the top of their game doing what they do best there’s no telling what will happen.
Add to that the fact that most of us don’t know much about Lake Travis and you have us fishing on a level playing field. We won’t be fishing history, and we won’t be influenced by what happened in the last five or six tournaments. It’s fresh and new. Almost everybody will have a shot at doing well.
I love the weigh-in format, too. I’m a huge conservationist so the idea of weighing in the bass at the boat, and in the place where they were caught, is right up my alley.
At this point I can’t tell you what I’ll be doing because I haven’t prefished the lake yet. My plans are subject to change but at this point, but I think I’m going to try to fish shallow, up in some of the bushes. That’ll be a great opportunity for a topwater bite, which I love, and it’ll give me a chance to do some flipping and pitching.
I’ve even gone so far as to pick out a couple of my favorite lures for this one. I’m going to start with a Yo-Zuri 3DB Series Pencil on top. I can fish that one in the heavy stuff without too much of a problem.
For my flipping and pitching I think I’ll go with a Yamamoto Cowboy. I like the way it performs and with a name like Cowboy it’s gotta work in Texas, right?
This is my kind of tournament. It’s a new lake in the right state with wide open bass fishing. It doesn’t get any better than that. I can’t wait to get started.