We’re less than a week away from the start of a new Bassmaster Elite Series season and you know me, I’m anxious, I’m excited, I’m a little nervous.
I’ve been doing this for many years, but every year, it’s like the first. I go to bed thinking about the upcoming event and I get up thinking about it.
I’ve visualized the St Johns River several times. I’ve even visualized certain stretches of pads and how I’d fish them.
I’m also very excited that I get to start in Florida and then go down to my home lake, Okeechobee for another shot of Florida fishing. I don’t mind starting in other places like we did last year, but kicking off the year in my home state presents a great opportunity for me. It takes the edge off.
On the other hand, there’s always a little extra pressure to do well. I don’t want to bomb in my home state, so I have to be confident in my experience and my decision-making.
So, I guess you could say I’m excited and anxious, but a little nervous. Not in a scared way, but a “We gotta do well” way.
From a practical standpoint, starting in Florida gives me a little advantage when it comes to packing. A few days before I left for the St. Johns, I was going through my garage saying, I don’t need that, don’t need that, don’t need that.
Let me grab this little bag of worms here, let me grab a couple extra packs of those right there, let me grab these two or three topwaters, let me grab that little box right there. I can throw everything in a little duffle bag and have all my bases covered for the next couple of events.
Of course, when we come to Okeechobee for the second Elite, I’ll have all my stuff here. That makes it convenient, but my point is that you don’t have to overthink techniques in Florida — you just have to find fish.
By comparison, you go to Texas right now and you can catch them on everything from a minnow, to a swimbait, to a crankbait, to flipping, to dropshotting. I’d have to pack half of my garage if we had two events in Texas.
Thankfully, I can keep it pretty simple to start this new season. I have my new Lew’s rods and I rigged 30-, 40-, and 50-pound braid on a few of them, 65-pound braid on a few more, I put some 20-pound fluorocarbon on a handful of others and I’m good to go.
I don’t have to worry about little jerkbait rods, little minnow rods, so it’s a simple approach and like starting off the year not having to overthink the process. Let’s just do down and fish.
We’ve had very stable weather since the big cold front in late January, so the wave of bass spawning is happening. I think the St. Johns should see a prespawn-spawn bite, but because a lot of these fish have already spawned, we might see some fry guarders.
We have some cold weather coming during the tournament week, but I don’t think it’s going to affect us as bad as it would if the fish were just tricking in. A lot of the fish have made their move to the spawning area, so even if the colder weather slows things down a little, I think we’re in for a good tournament.
