A rough couple of weeks

I don’t have much insightful information about bass fishing to offer today. I’ve been sick for a couple of weeks and really haven’t done much of anything, at least not anything useful.

I don’t have much insightful information about bass fishing to offer today. I’ve been sick for a couple of weeks and really haven’t done much of anything, at least not anything useful.

My sinus infection hasn’t gotten any better since Thanksgiving, despite going to a couple of different doctors. The darn thing just keeps hanging on. It saps every bit of energy out of you and makes it almost impossible to work. I don’t know why it won’t go away but it won’t. Does anybody know of a good home remedy, or maybe a witchdoctor practicing somewhere around my neighborhood? If you do, don’t be shy.

On top of taking all of your energy, it’s caused a ringing in my ears. I can’t hear a thing except for that. It’s driving me crazy. Then, I caught a cold from Becky last week when we came back from Florida.

You guys may not know about it but several of the wives got together and decided to run from Miami to Key West to show their support for us. It was pretty neat, really. They each took turns running a leg. It started about 6 a.m. on Friday (January 6) and ended in the late afternoon on Saturday (January 7).

Vegas and I had T-shirts printed that said we were Becky’s official water boys. We met her at various points along the way to give her encouragement and, of course, water.

They just did it for fun this year but they’re thinking about making it a charity run next year. They could raise money from sponsors and donations and then give it to a charity of some sort. That would be nice. They could show their support for us and help the less fortunate at the same time.

In a future column, I’ll give you all the names of the ladies involved but I’m still working on that. Three of the wives had friends running. I don’t know their last names. I don’t want to leave anyone out or misspell their name. If they were nice enough to participate, I want to be nice enough to accurately recognize them.

Once I start feeling better, I’ll be getting ready for the Classic. I need to look over my maps and notes from the other times I’ve fished the Red River out of Shreveport so I have a reasonable game plan when I get there.

The Classic is a very compressed event. There’s only four days of practice, and they’re broken up by all the festivities so it’s hard to put a serious pattern together. You have to do the best you can and then hope you make good decisions on the water. That requires knowledge of the fishery. You only get that with preparation. There are no shortcuts.

That’ll do for now. Next week — if I’m feeling better — I’ll give you some of my thoughts about what it’ll take to win the Classic as well as a few things to watch for while you’re following the action.