This long break in the Elite Series season is kind of hard to deal with. We’ve been in full fishing mode for the last few months, and it has been easy to stay pumped the whole time. But the six-week break is making it hard for me to maintain my energy.
However, I’m in the fortunate situation where I’ve already made the Classic, thanks to winning an Elite Series event this year. I don’t have a chance at the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year title, so the pressure isn’t on me as bad as it is some of the other guys like Brent Chapman and Ott DeFoe. I think this would be a pretty intense time if I were in the AOY hunt or on the Classic bubble. That said, I’d still prefer to feel that burn and be in the AOY race, but it just didn’t work out that way this year.
Since I won early on the in season, I’ve said that I was going to be more aggressive this year, and that’s exactly what I’ve done. It’s worked out for the most part. But, I might have “gone for it” a bit hard at the last event in Green Bay. I got stuck on a sandbar. After the second day, I had enough weight to make it to the Top 50 cut, but I had run out of fish. Desperate for more and better fish, I found a backwater on the Internet and drove past it with my truck that evening. It definitely had enough water to fish, but what I didn’t see was how shallow the entrance was. The following day, I revved my SHO Yamaha and tore off toward the backwater.
It went OK for a while, but I soon realized I was in trouble when I quit moving and was surrounded by sand. I called the Coast Guard, who called the sheriff’s office who sent in a rescue boat, but there couldn’t get within a quarter mile of us. In the Elites, if you receive any sort of help from anyone, your catch from that day is disqualified. But I was in a corner, so I had to get my Marshal to help me push my Skeeter a foot at a time for a quarter mile. It was grueling!
After all of that, I called B.A.S.S. Tournament Director Trip Weldon to DQ myself. But, like I said, I’ve been taking risks. Hopefully I can head up to Oneida for the last event and have a good finish to the year.
In other news, the Jones family has moved. We now live in Lorena, Texas, which is outside of Waco. We’ve got a little bit of land now where I have a barn for the RV, the boats and a tackle room.
Finally, I haven’t been to Falcon since the Elites started this past spring, but I think I’ll be heading that way this Friday. However, if the water gets any lower, it’ll be nearly impossible to put in at the ramp there, and it’s the only one around! I think the lake is nearly 40 feet low. But, it’ll be a good time scouting and looking at things on the bank that are normally about 40 feet deep. I’ll have my camera with me and my finger on the “mark” button on the GPS. Plus, the fishing should be great!