While it was nice to be fishing in my boat over the past couple of weeks down in Florida, it was not a good start to the Bassmaster Elite Series season for me, with two tough finishes to start the year. After an 83rd place finish last week at the St. John’s River, I followed it up with an 81st this past weekend at Lake Okeechobee.
I managed to catch limits each day but, again, missed out on getting a big fish or two, which is important in the Sunshine State. Okeechobee is a lake that I have fished several times in the past, but it is nothing like it’s been on past visits, after suffering severe damage from hurricanes in recent years.
Much of the vegetation around the lake, which provides habitat for bass and helps to clean the water has been destroyed so the lake is very dirty, almost like chocolate milk, which makes the fishing tough. In an effort to restore the lake and the vegetation, the state is lowering the water level to allow growth to start happening.
This took a lot of the traditional areas out of play and made the fishing quite difficult. When you look at the weights, a lot of big bass were still caught and guys figured out areas where they could catch fish, but most were not caught with traditional techniques at one of the most legendary bass fisheries in the world.
After a tough first day of practice, I ended up locking out into one of the canals that surround the lake. The water was clear and the fishing was actually pretty good. I thought I could catch five nice fish relatively easy, but when the tournament rolled around, that did not happen for me. I think a lot of anglers ended up in the area that I was fishing and too many fish got caught prior to the tournament. Or the pressure just made them a lot more difficult to catch.
It’s a ruthless sport because the highs are so high, yet the lows are so low. I can tell you; it’s a lonely feeling in the boat during the tournament day when you are nowhere near catching what you need to catch to be successful. I don’t get too up or down, regardless of how things go, and when the tournament is over, you try and learn from your mistakes and do better the next day or the next event. But it’s disappointing, for sure.
We have nine events over the season to accumulate points to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic and after these first two, I have dug myself a pretty big hole. There is still a bunch of fishing left on the season so I just have to do my job and everything will be good.
Next tournament for me is the Bassmaster Classic in a few weeks at Ray Roberts Lake in Texas. We have about a week and a half off before we head over there to start practice, so I’m just going to spend as much time as I can in my boat, working on my game. That would be a great event to turn things around at.
At the end of the day, I’m still very lucky that I get to fish for my living but it’s not always as easy as it looks from the outside or from social media, where we mostly just show the good stuff. It’s a lot of time away from home and it’s expensive, but I love it. I’ve been down before and things always work out in the end.
You just can’t give up.
