I would love to be me telling you I was $200,000 richer and
headed to the Bassmaster Classic next year after winning the BWS Championship
but unfortunately, I wasnt even close!
My Texas trip was a disaster from the get go and I spent most of the
drive down and the first two days I was there working on my Suburban. I sprung a transfer case leak just outside of
Little Rock, AR and luckily caught it in time to keep from doing any major
damage. It did however cut into an
already abbreviated practice period and I ended up getting only 10 hours of
practice on a lake that is huge and not very easy to navigate due to random
standing timber scattered around as far out as 60 ft deep.
With very limited practice time I decided to pick an area of
the lake and cover it as fast as possible.
I found a few stretches of grass I got multiple bites in and the only
deep place I found was by accident when I stood on the front deck of my Triton
looking for grass and a huge school of Gizzard Shad came up under my boat. I fan casted a 6XD in the area and caught a
couple of 3lbers. I figured out pretty
quickly the kind of grass I needed to look for so I decided to start the
tournament on my deep place and then run through the grass stretches Id
found. If and when I got a limit, Id
spend the rest of day one looking for more areas with the right ingredients.
SAM RAYBURN
TOURNAMENT DAY 1: I headed straight
to my deep place the first morning and wouldnt you know it, there was a boat
sitting pretty close to where I wanted to be.
It was a long point and he was on the opposite side of where I wanted to
sit but he was basically throwing at the same place I wanted too. I decided to idle in and see how close Id
have to get to him in order to fish and I realized it was my buddy Scott
Mansfield. I couldnt believe wed found
the same spot but I ask him if I could fish in there and he said he didnt mind
so we fished within yelling distance of each other for about an hour. I never caught a fish and Scott boated a
couple of decent keepers so I left. When
I reached my first Hydrilla mat I didnt know what to expect since Id fished it
so fast in practice. I got bites on my
first two flips and missed them both but that let me know there were a lot of
fish around. Well, two hours later and
four passes up and down the stretch, Id had over 20 bites and had two keepers
in the boat! I missed them and lost them
every possible way you can imagine and finally made a pass without a bite so I
left. I went to my next stretch which
was more sparse coontail scattered around some lily pads and I had gotten eight
bites there in practice fishing wide open so I thought if I slowed down I could
surely scrounge up a few more keepers. I
spent an hour in there and only got three bites. One was a short fish that got wrapped around
a pad stem and came off and the other was a 2.75lber that came off in mid air
when I tried to swing it in the boat! I
landed the other one believe it or not but it was just a 14 keeper. I ran back to my first grass stretch but it
had been picked apart by several other guys by the time I got back and I never
got any bites. I finished up the day on
the deep place I started on and scrounged up another 14er on the 6XD but that
was it. I weighed in 4 fish for a whopping 6.73lbs.
SAM RAYBURN
TOURNAMENT DAY 2: I decided to start
on the grass on day 2 which was about 20 miles north of take off. The wind cut
loose that day and we were greeted with 5 foot swells when we came out of the
marina which is nothing for my Triton 21 HP but it did make fishing a little
tougher.
I reached my Hydrilla mat and had picked it apart for about
an hour and had two bites which…you guessed it, I missed! I decided to scrap everything and just go
look for new water and I found a perfect looking stretch of Hydrilla and
started punching through it with my Rage Craw. I caught a 2lber and lost one about 3lbs two
flips later but that was it. I ran to a
pocket in a creek loaded with grass and put my Motor Guide on high and made as
many flips as possible until I ran out of grass. I missed four bites, caught a 2.5lber and a
short fish and that was it. I finished
up the day on my deep place and caught a 2.75lber on a 6 XD. I weighed in 3
that day for 6.99lbs.
SAM RAYBURN
TOURNAMENT DAY 3: I knew I needed about
16lbs to make a check and salvage my tournament and I knew that was doable
flipping the Hydrilla but I also knew Id have to fish perfectly and not lose
90% of my bites like Id been doing so well the first two days. I decided to
start where Id been starting and work my way back down the lake. I was 1 for 2 on my first stretch and boated
a 2.75lber but lost one about that same size. Not a good start. I ran to another stretch and didnt get any
bites but I fished further back into the creek than the previous days. I caught a small keeper and a 3.5lber back
there and of course I missed a bite or two.
That told me I may need to fish further back on my other stretches so I
finished out the day doing that. I
scrounged up one more decent keeper before time ran out. That was my best day but I had about 10 or
11lbs with those 4, not nearly enough to get in check range so I pitched em
back and put it on the trailer.
SUMMARY: Man,
what a way to end the season. I was
pumped over this tournament and couldnt wait to get to Rayburn. It was bad enough I barely got to practice but
to lose all of those fish on the first day was tough to stomach. Oh well, things happen and it wouldve taken a
miracle for me to make a run at winning as the locals dominated the top of the
leader board and it took 86lbs over 4 days to win it.
Overall it was a pretty successful season. My guide business really picked up this year
and Ive already booked a few trips for 2013.
As far as tournament results, I managed top 10s in exactly 50% of my
tournaments and checks in 57% of them.
Those numbers were down a little from last year but, I had two wins this
year which more than makes up for missing a couple of checks. I also accomplished another goal and that was
winning the Angler of the Year in the BWS and I finished 3rd in the
AOY race in the BFLs which is my best finish to date in that division. I also recently found out that I was the
leading Triton Gold money winner for the entire Bassmaster Weekend Series and
Triton is going to use my photo in the Triton Gold ads for 2013 which will be
great exposure for my sponsors, so that was very good news.
The only thing I would change would be the championships and
regionals these past two months. I had
several shots at winning a boat or a really big paycheck and things just didnt
work out. I had the best practice of the
year in a couple of the team championships on KY Lake and something always went
wrong, be it the weather or mechanical issues or something that I couldnt
control. Unfortunately thats part of the
game, a big part of it.
