I just pulled into my motel at the Alabama River. I’ve never been here before so it’s a real treat. You can feel the bass fishing history as soon as you get out of your vehicle. It’s everywhere. Maybe I get a little sentimental sometimes but I get goose bumps when I think about all this area means to our sport.
Almost as good, there’s a Bass Pro Shops right across the street. After it gets dark, I can spend some time there looking around. Most of you know what I’m talking about. You can buy things you absolutely need, but that you didn’t know you needed until you saw them. It’s great. The only thing that’s better is actually fishing.
All in all, this is about as good as it gets, especially when you consider that this one is going to be a different type of event.
There’s been a lot of rain around here so I’m guessing that the river will be up and that it’ll be muddy. It’s that way now, anyway. I’d be surprised if it dropped much before the tournament starts. A lot of anglers don’t like those conditions but I’m not one of them. There should be fish shallow, and that’s just fine by me.
This one is critical. As the season goes along, it gets tougher and tougher to move up in the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year points standings. With every tournament, the points you earn become a smaller and smaller percentage of the total. By the time you get to the last couple of them, it’s darn near impossible to move up very many places.
That means I need to get going if I’m going to reclaim my Classic qualification standing. West Point sure didn’t help me. As a matter of fact, it really hurt. That tournament was a lesson, by the way. We’ll talk about that next week.
Regardless, I’m really looking forward to fishing this week. Although I’ve been fishing B.A.S.S. for over two decades, I’ve never fished the Alabama River so everything will be new to me.
One thing I found that’ll help me, though, is a website called Acme Mapper. (They are not a sponsor.) I honestly don’t know how long it’s been around but it’s new to me. I like the way they put things together and how it all works. The satellite views are super good, and you can find exactly what you want without a lot of hassle. That’s my kind of site.
I’ve been using it to scout some areas and do some early research from my motel room. That’s a lot of help. Two and a half days of practice isn’t much when you stop and think things through. I’m passing this information along in case it’ll help you somewhere along the line. We’re all in this together. It’s us against the fish.