The next Bassmaster Elite tournament will take us to a place I’ve never fished. This will be my first visit to the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, so I’m eager to see how it fishes.
Planning for this upcoming event got me thinking about how I’ve applied my northern skills to southern fisheries, while also working to expand my abilities by familiarizing myself with southern waters. This next Elite event is a good example of both points.
Honestly, I’m not super comfortable about fishing the Tenn-Tom, just because we don’t have anything like it back home in Canada. But it should be a lot of shallow techniques like swim jigs, crankbaits, spinnerbaits and jigs — things that I grew up doing.
Before I turned pro, most of what I fished was shallow largemouth, so those techniques are very familiar to me. Smallmouth get a lot of attention on the northern tournament scene, but on a lot of our lakes, largemouth dominate.
My favorite northern bait that also works in the South is a wacky worm. I’m not sure how much that will work on the Tenn-Tom because of lower water clarity, but I always have a wacky-rigged black and blue YUM Dinger tied on just in case I need to generate a bite.
One thing that’s encouraging to me is I had never fished tidal waters before the 2025 Elite at the St. Johns River. That was my first Elite event, and I finished 16th.
Since this is my first time on the Tenn-Tom, I’m looking forward to it, especially because I have no experience there. I can just go in with an open mind and focus on what the fish are doing when I get there.
I don’t have any history I can run, so I’m looking forward to just going to a new place and figuring it out as we go. Usually, that’s when I seem to have my best tournaments — when I don’t have any history to rely on.
In these scenarios, I usually try to do whatever technique I’m most comfortable with. Usually, it’s a wacky worm or a ChatterBait. I’ll start by sticking with these familiar baits just because I can cover water with the ChatterBait or slow down with the wacky worm.
I’ve found I do better when I focus on what I’m used to fishing and what I’m better at, instead of trying to fish techniques that may work on that fishery but I’m not comfortable with. I prefer to try and fish in my comfort zone, instead of trying to do what other people are doing.
I’ll follow this strategy at the Tenn-Tom, but I know I’m gonna have to cover a lot of water in practice. I’ve heard there’s a lot of dead water in there, so I’ll just try to locate four or five key areas that have fish and then rotate them during the tournament.
Hopefully, I’ll catch a limit each day, and hopefully I’ll have a couple of good ones in there.
