After a very rough practice at Toledo Bend, I really thought the fish were going to be moving shallow or at least enough to stay in the game. I wasn’t able to fish any of the deep fish Damiki rig areas but on the final day of practice I did get some of those shallow clues that I needed. I was able to catch one around 6 pounds and two others around 3 pounds with a few other bites as well shallow. With an off day on Wednesday and temperatures in the 70s and a full moon coming on Saturday I thought it could happen.
Day 1 started out as I hoped! Now it was the first day of the two day cold front, the water was a little warmer after our last couple days of warm weather in practice. Within the first couple of minutes, I caught one close to 6 pounds on a large Damiki Brute square bill. This sure got my blood pumping! After catching only one other keeper around this area, I switch locations and was able to catch two quality, 3-pound fish off of laydowns on a BTS Damiki crank bait, which is another shallow running crank bait. I was heading in the right direction and just needed another bite or two.
Switching to my third location which was a little further north and warmer water, I picked up the BTS and fished around some shallow bushes and sticks. Here I snatched up a nice 3 1/2 pounder and then had that other kicker bite that I was looking for which was another fish just shy of 6 pounds on the Damiki BTS crank bait. This put my total over 21 pounds for the first day and in 17th Place, and a great start to the new season!
With high hopes, and a great start from Day 1, Day 2 yielded the exact opposite. I managed to catch one small keeper right off the bat on the same grass clump where I caught the 6 pounder of the first day. After this, it was very clear that no new fish had moved up. The cold front had messed with this for sure! I was able to catch one other fish, a little under 3 pounds late in the morning. This should’ve been the time when I made a change to go south and throw a jerk bait to try to catch a few more keepers and salvage the day. Unfortunately I chose to stay with what I was doing thinking the water would warm up and maybe be a fish or two would trickle up and that’s all I would need if they were the right size.
I tried to get to warmer water and change what I was doing a bit, but it just did not happen. I needed to change locations completely. Unfortunately, I finished that day with only two keepers and a few tiny keeper bites away from making the cut. This left me with an 83rd place finish and not a great start!
