Christie: Takeaways from Texas

BASSfest will be the official transition from the shallow events the first half of the season, to deep, summer fishing.

The recent Toyota Texas Bass Classic (TTBC) on Lake Fork brought a bunch of new experiences for me. Some were good, some not so good, but all were relevant to my career as a professional fisherman.

For starters, I weighed my heaviest tournament limit – 37 pounds, 4 ounces – on day one at this event. That sack included a 10-1, which was the biggest I’ve ever weighed in a tournament.

On the tough side, this was the first time in my career that I’ve finished second. I’ve been fortunate to have several first-place finishes, but in all the other top finishes, I’ve never come in second.

Am I thankful? Yeah, on one hand I guess I have to say that I am.

On the other hand, it sucks. I mean to be that close, after carrying a big lead into the final day, I feel like I just got my butt kicked.

But that’s what competition is all about. You push as hard as you can and if you come up short it hurts.

I feel the same way about my competition on the Bassmaster Elite Series. There are some differences between standalone events like the TTBC, but I think all of these experiences help keep me sharp and provide great opportunities to continue developing my career.

On the business side, it gave me another opportunity to fish a big money tournament. But this is also a fun event, and it always takes big weights to do well, so I’m always excited to fish this one.

For my sponsors, I was happy to have another big stage for brand promotion. It was a shame that the weather didn’t cooperate this year, but on that note, I have to thank Toyota for doing an outstanding job of putting on another great event in some tough conditions.

Not only do the folks at Toyota produce a great event for us professional fishermen, they also donate a huge amount of money – over $2 million to date – to the Texas Parks and Wildlife so all anglers can enjoy the state’s outstanding fishing.

As far as my fishing goes, the TTBC marked an important change for me. All spring I’ve been fishing shallow, and next week the Elite Series goes to Kentucky Lake for BASSfest.

This will be the official transition from the shallow events the first half of the season, to deep, summer fishing. I can tell you there won’t be a shallow rod in my boat, so the offshore fishing I did on Lake Fork helped prepare me for the second half of the Elite season.

The tournament gave me a good week to practice my idling and looking. This is my first year with Garmin, and I gained a lot of confidence using this equipment to idle around and find offshore fish.

This got me in the mood to start thinking about deep strategies. When I go to Kentucky Lake, I’ll have a pillow to lean against while I sit at my console for three days of practice – just idling and looking.

Another thing the TTBC did for me was it gave me a chance to fish wide open. This event has kind of a Bassmaster Classic mentality. It’s a limited field of qualifiers, there are no points on the line and you’re out to win.

Everybody brings their A game. You don’t fish for a limit, you fish for the biggest five you can catch.

I like these types of tournaments because you leave everything on the water. If you only catch three, you say, “I did the best I could, and I fished to win.”

Of course, I want to win every Elite Series events, too, but if the bite’s tough, you have to know when to punt. With Angler of the Year points on the line, sometimes we have to balance that competitive nature with season-long strategy.

That’s why it feels good to have a couple events every year where you can just step on the gas.

Honestly, I went into this event feeling no pressure because there was no entry fee and no points to consider. At the beginning, I was very laidback, but then I catch 37-4 the first day and I was like “Oh my goodness, now this is getting serious.”

I held on to the lead on day two, but I think what kept me from closing the deal was the shorter day. I had a couple of spots where you could set your watch by the fish biting at 2:30. On the last day, we had to check in by 2:30, and I missed what had been my best period of the day.

But we all had the same amount of time to fish. Even though this one just didn’t work out for me, I still took away several good experiences.

I forgot to mention another first at the TTBC. This was the first time I ate really good southern crawfish and man were they spicy. They lit me up pretty good and my lips were red ‘til the next morning.

I think the only thing that burned worse was finishing second.

I guess I’ll just have to work out that frustration on Kentucky Lake. Thanks to the Toyota Texas Bass Classic, I’m ready for those offshore fish.