We’re now a couple weeks into a summer break in the Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series season schedule. We have about a month and a half until the next event, and I can tell you, this is a very important part of the year.
Depending on how your year is going, you can take this one of two ways. If you’re on a heater and everything is going right, you want to keep fishing. You wish tournaments were just back to back to back.
On the flipside, if you’re not having a good season, it can be good to step back and take a deep breath. “Okay, let’s resettle, regroup and get our mind right, so hopefully, we can get the last two events rolling like they need to be.”
In my case, I need to have two really good tournaments, but anything can happen at the next two places. One event will allow forward-facing sonar and one will not, so it’s going to be a good variety.
Lake Champlain was always one of my favorite places we’ve ever fished. This year, without forward-facing sonar, I’m going to be able to go back and fish it the way I used to the first time I went there.
I was finding them on 2D, drop shotting and I’d run up and do some shallow stuff too. It’s gonna be neat to go back and replay that, because rocks don’t move. It’s going to be interesting, depending on if the water is high or low.
The St. Lawrence River is the St. Lawrence River. It’s going to be fun. It’s gonna be big weights, big smallies, big runs, big waves. It can be challenging, but it’s a cool place to fish.
Between now and August, I’ll be spending a lot of time helping my wife with her business. She has me delivering bounce houses every weekend.
I’ll also fish a little bit with my dad. We have a couple of local tournament trails we like to fish, but it’s less about the competion, than it is about spending time with him.
I’m also gonna try to do more fun fishing. With the kids growing up, I’ve spent less time fun fishing than I normally do. So, I need to spend more time on the water just to keep that excitement.
I’m especially interested in fishing Bois d’Arc Lake in Texas. That’s a fairly new reservoir that Texas Parks and Wildlife stocked with ShareLunker genetics, and I hear guys are catching 40-pound bags and tons of fish. There’s a lot of timber in that lake, so I’ll probably take my aluminum boat.
Most of my fun fishing will on bass lakes, but I’ll also do a little crappie fishing with my mom. She like catching them, and we like eating crappie when she cooks them.
Along with the fun fishing, my wife and I are planning to take a family beach trip. We’ve never had all of us together at the beach, so we’re looking forward to that. Corpus Christi Beach is about eight hours from us, and with a 1-year-old and an 11-year-old, that’s plenty far enough.
ICAST has been a part of my summer plans in years past, but I probably won’t be making the trip to Orlando this year. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t be keeping an eye on all the new introductions.
One of my sponsors, PRADCO, will be introducing some new topwaters and a new flipping bait that we worked on for a couple of years. All of us lure fanatics still like the old stuff, but we’re constantly looking on the internet to see who’s dropping what.
We’re always looking for an edge, so you can’t wait get your hands on the new stuff before it really takes off.
