It’s been another busy week around the Lane house. We had a couple of meaningful birthdays this week, not the least of which was my sister, Kellie’s. We always try to recognize special days. Everyone likes to have one day that belongs to them. That’s part of the family thing, at least in my opinion.
My friend, Pat Kelly, also celebrated his birthday this week. We’ve been friends for a while. To give you an idea of what I think of Pat he’s on his way right now to Arkansas to pick up my new Legend boat. It takes a real friend to do something like that for you.
I’ve already wished them a happy birthday privately but I want to do it again, publicly. They both mean the world to me. Pat’s older than Kellie. Out of an abundance of caution, however, I’m not going to tell you how old either one of them is.
Beyond that it’s just been a matter of putting everything together for the Classic. The good thing for me, though, is that I don’t have to pack for Texas. I can come back to Guntersville and swap tackle before the Elite season starts. That makes the next couple of weeks a lot easier.
You never know exactly what to pack at this time of the year. The weather can change quickly out in Tulsa so I have to be prepared for darn near anything. My main lures will be jigs, jerkbaits and all the stuff I need to make drop shot rigs. My best guess is that those three choices will handle whatever’s going on out there.
But, you never know so I’ll also be taking a handful of other baits along — just in case. Come to think about it, I’ll be packing more than a handful of other stuff. It’ll be more like a truck and boat full of stuff. You can’t be looking for lures when you’re fishing a Bassmaster Classic. You must have what you need, when you need it.
Once I settle on my lures I’ll have to pack rods and reels. The specific baits I mentioned all require different rods and different reels to fish them properly. You have to have several that work with each bait under different conditions, and something that’ll handle different sizes and weights of the same lure.
I’ll tell you what, back in the day we didn’t have all the tackle we have today. Back then you could fish with a couple outfits, and it seems like we caught our share of fish. Now though, you have to have something special for everything. I’m not complaining, and there’s no doubt today is better. But today is also different. It’s a lot more technical.
The last thing I want to mention is that I have something special, really special, that’s happening in my fishing life. I can’t talk about it now but I’ll announce it at the Classic. I think you’ll want to hear about it as soon as possible, so stay tuned. It’s huge.