I once caught a bass off a tombstone on Nickajack Lake. More on that here shortly.
BASSfest is going to be an interesting event. I’ve been watching the water rise and rise every day. It is not supposed to rain much during the week, which is good and the fishing will be really impacted if they start dropping the water. I will be keeping a close eye on water levels.
From my research I learned that Texoma has smallmouth and is normally clear down the lake. With all this water coming in that means the water will be stained to muddy and that should almost certainly mean the fish will be shallow. Flipping and pitching will be the way this one should be won.
I love fishing shallow and not having been there before I won’t have history on the fishery and that may be a good thing. Guys with a lot of experience on the lake will know areas that are generally good but with it being flooded it should even the playing field. I haven’t seen where many big tournaments have been on Texoma in a good while so many of us will be seeing it for the first time.
It’s kind of hard to tell what the weights will be with these conditions, but I do know the lake has some big fish. Given who all is in this field I will anticipate the guys will catch them good so I hope to as well. I need a good finish for Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings.
My plan will be to get a flipping and pitching bite going this week. When flipping and pitching in flooded water during the postspawn my favorite bait is a full-size Zoom Brush Hog. The reason being is that it is a larger flipping bait and in warmer water bass really like a bigger bait.
I rig it up on a 3/8 or 5/16 tungsten sinker, 20-pound Vicious fluorocarbon and a 5/0 Grip Pin Max flipping hook. My favorite flipping rod is one I built on a MHX FS904 blank from Mud Hole Custom Tackle. It is 7-6 in length and is absolutely perfect for flipping. The tip allows me to be very accurate and it handles the big Brush Hog perfectly. With the Winn grip on there I can flip bushes for days.
I assume we will be flipping bushes. It may be trees or something else down at Texoma. With the water levels being where they’re at we may be fishing in people’s backyards or even a cemetery or two. Maybe we will be fishing barbecue grills, swimming pools, see-saws…who knows? I caught one off a tombstone one time on Nickajack and that was a weird feeling let me tell you. I would be fine doing that this week in Oklahoma.