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Today’s Top 3

Sorry didn’t send a Blaster yesterday. Power outage in my corner of the bassin’ world, hopefully fix’t permanent-like now.

1. Browning’s winning squarebills were…

Stevie Browning, another awesome Elite dude if you haven’t met him yet, won the Red River Central Open this weekend doing egg-zactly what BassGold showed should work: fishing in backwaters around wood.

BassGold said that Red River derbies this time of year are won on all kinds of baits, but mostly plastics and jigs…but as so often happens, Stevie did something different than most: he cranked.

B.A.S.S.’s reporting didn’t include what bait he was using so I called him. He didn’t want to say because he was using non-sponsor baits, but he said they were squarebills in sexy shad that ran 2.5′ and 3.5′ soooooooooooooo…I’m betting they looked like this:

Yep, Strike King 1.5 and 2.5. Got a few more tidbits out of him, a couple on the BassGold blog, a couple others that are only going into BassGold…!

Worth noting is that FLW Tour pro Wes Strader finished 2nd, apparently by fishing for main-river spawners. Interesting.

Also worth noting: Is this the first Open ever won by a guy wearing plaid??

2. I would just say a prayer and He answered.

– Browning on the good Lord helping him go from 12th to the Classic in one day. Whole quote:

“The good Lord blessed me to even be standing here today. [Day 2] with about 5 minutes left I caught about a 5-pounder and only had two fish. I don’t know why but the last two tournaments right at the end of the day when I really needed one sometimes I would just say a prayer and He answered them. He answered them today [day 3] because I was struggling big-time.”

Stevie standing up for The Man!

3. Houston 16 and 68.

Are you more amazed that Jimmy Houston is 16th in the FLW AOY points or that a guy with that much energy who looks zactly the same as he did 30 years ago is 68 years young?

Couple good’uns from the Bassin’Fan story:

> Houston attempted to attribute his success this season to his twice-a-day consumption of an energy drink that bears his name.

> “The difficult thing is your body doesn’t perform as well for you at 68 as it did at 23 or 33 or 43. It just doesn’t. It makes it a lot more difficult.”

> “I think [the A-rig] is one of the best things that’s ever happened to bass fishing.”

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Didja check out the awesome StrikeBack spinnerbait yet?

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News

1. KY: First high school champs.

Fished Fri-Sat at a rainy and cold KY Lake. Bracken Robertson and Dillon Starks, Calloway County High School. 34-04 and day 2 had the biggest limit of the tourney at 18-08. Fished shallow brush upriver, no bait mentioned (dang it!).

2. KY has big basses too.

Particularly in “overlooked” smaller lakes. Here’s one from Corinth Lake:

3. OK: Home needed for $5mil tackle collection.

Owned by Karl White of antique tackle, etc. fame. I’m thinking…Bass Fishing Hall of Fame?

> “I better (find something) in the next year or so or I am going to have to sell it,” White said.

4. TN: DeFoe holding Goodwill derby on Douglas.

Ott knows Douglas, and if you ever plan on fishing a derby there, this might be your chance to follow (er…’observe’) a stick at work…but you didn’t hear that from me. A good cause too:

> Goodwill Bass Tournament on June 8 at Douglas Lake at the Shady Grove Ramp. The grand prize will be $1,200. Pay out for prizes will be one place for every six boats, based on a field of 40 boats.

> The tournament will start at safe light and weigh-ins will begin at 3 p.m. Anglers may register any day from now until June 7th at 4:30 p.m. The registration fee is $100 per boat. Late registration is available on the morning of the tournament for $125 per boat.

> To register for the tournament or to review the rules, call Goodwill at 865.588.8567 or visit www.gwiktn.org.

5. FL: Latest wacky aquarium fish to catch.

Peacock bass ain’t bad because they, you know, look like bass. But the clown knifefish? Uh…no thanks. If’n I caught one o’ those, would have to take a cue from a Miami guy and “introduce him to my little friend:”

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Tip of the Day

Browning: Spring flat tips.

From a good (but long) post at W2F:

> “You absolutely have to use your electronics to find the depth change—that is always my first step. Start out at the very beginning of the flat and try to find a small drainage ditch that leads into it. You need to find the highway the fish are using to travel to and from the flat.”

> He also makes it a point to monitor the bottom composition. As they prepare to spawn, they will be on the lookout for hard bottom areas, such as sand or gravel.

> His next order of business is finding any available cover on the flat such as stumps, rockpiles or submerged vegetation. “Every time I feel my bait hit something, I make sure to enter a waypoint on my graph. This helps me fish more efficiently when I come back to it. Instead of bombing casts to low-percentage areas, I’m able to pinpoint exactly what I’m casting to. Sure, bass will roam around on these flats and you can catch those fish, but they’d much rather be snugged-up to some type of cover.”

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Quote of the Day

I just hope they weigh in whatever fish I had in the livewell.

– Jimmy Houston from the above Bassin’Fan article talkin’ ’bout one scenario of his demise. Quote started this-a-here way:

> “I’ll probably slip and fall out of a bass boat and drown on a tournament day some time and that’ll be when I quit. I just hope….”

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Shot of the Day

Sent in by Hall of Famer Ken Cook this weekend:

> “I just happened to catch a good’un today. She ate the new Rapala Scatter Rap crank in hot mustard. Using 12-lb Berkley 100% flouro, the fish ran out of shallow water under the boat. It had to to get to deeper water. Swam into some bushes, then around the lower unit. Had to trim up and un-wrap from the prop. It was a fiasco and I definitely was lucky to get the fish. But I did get it and it weighed 11-05 on both my scales. You gotta love spring.”

Dang straight! Xcept we don’t have 11s in my neck o’ the woods…. If you do, no excuse for not playing hookey when the time is right!

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