January Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League Cowboy Division tournament on Lake Sam Rayburn.

I fished the Wal-Mart BFL over the weekend on Saturday January 27, 2007. This is the first of five qualification rounds for the 2007 season. I am competing this season as the "Pro" on the the BFL tour fishing with my boat and drawing a co-angler for each event. There were 165 boaters and non-boaters entered in the event. I placed 113th with two fish 3 lbs 14 oz. It was a tough day to be out fishing, the weather was in the 40's and 50's all cloudy and raining all day. Rayburn is 2 feet above pool with stained water. Water temps were 49 to 57 degrees, main lake vs back of the creeks. The bass are in prespawn staging with big females holding in creek channels and points in 7 to 15 feet of water. There are some buck bass up shallow in five to one foot of water on flooded points with brush and grass.

Pre-Fishing:

I arrived on Thursday night in Lufkin Texas to meet up with my friend, Lanton Chumley. Lanton and I are going to prefish for the event as much as possible this season. We got everything ready for two tough days of fishing. Next morning we headed out to the pavilion next to Twin Dikes and launched the boat. Headed out to the dam to check some spots along there for staging fish. Lanton picked up a 2 1/2 lb bass on a red rattle trap on the first pass down the bank. No other takers on the second pass so we ran up the lake to fish a hump and see if any fish were there. I was expecting the hump to have 5 feet of water on top of it, but turns out it had 10 feet of water on it and the lake was much higher than I had planned for when I was thinking about how I was going to fish this weekend. Anyway we marked some fish out from the hump in 40+ feet of water but nothing on top of it. We gave it a shot anyway and after a few lost Carolina rigs it was time to go. We tried some stumps up shallow in 8 feet of water that have been productive, but nobody was home today. Headed up the lake to Veach and fished there for a while when Lanton set the hook on a 4+ lb bass with the same red rattle trap. We fished around there for a while in the crowd of boats at Veach and then decided to hit some less popular places. We found a nice little point later in the day, where we each caught a fish and lost a fish. Finally the kind of water I need for tournament day. We headed out to the pretournament meeting. All of the water we covered prefishing was 4 to 15 feet deep.

The Tournament:

Saturday morning I met up with my coangler at 5:30 AM. We launched the boat and went through boat check. I took the boat over to the shore and we sat in the boat and talked about fishing and stuff waiting for the take off to begin.

Boat 88 was called and we headed out to the point where I stopped fishing the day before. As luck and speed would have it I was the first boat there, passing a Champion boat on the way who followed me into the creek. A few casts after starting I set the hook on a 3 lb fish with a red rattle trap. We pounded the banks for the next few hours and I missed a few strikes. I hadn't fished in any of the shallow brush and was just concentrating on the outside edge. As we worked a point, I could see a boat on the other side flipping to some of the inside brush in 2 feet of water and the Pro stuck a 2 lb fish. I turned the boat around and headed into the brush to try my luck in the shallow water. I flipped a watermelon senko to the base of a floating log and stuck my second keeper. I kept fishing at it and missed a few up in the shallows, one of the missed fish felt very heavy while it was on the line before it broke the line wrapping up in the brush. After lunch time I gave up on the shallow points and headed to Veach Basin to fish the grass 8 feet of water. There were boats in all directions out there, but it didn't matter because the fish are moving around. I watched three or four boats pass by pounding the brush and then the next boat through there managed to catch a keeper out of the same area that had been saturated with lures. I was fishing the deeper creek channel in hopes of catching a larger quality fish like the one Lanton caught the day before. Unfortunately it didn't happen for me and that was it for the tournament.

Tournament in Review:

We caught fish in 2 to 15 feet of water on rattle traps mostly, 2 fish for 3 lb 14 oz to get me 113th place. Everyone has an off day now and then, for example: Kevin VanDam, one of the most successful bass fisherman today, caught zero weighable fish on day 3 of the BASS Legends Tournament last season. The important part of the trip is that I caught fish and earned points toward qualifying for the regionals at the end of the season.

Special Thanks -

Thanks to Kelly, and my kids for supporting me in this event. While they didn't come along for the trip they said prayers for me and were glad to see me home safely after the long trip.