Video Day

The final day of my most recent trip found me on the opposite side of a camera from what seems most normal for me. Dustin Elder and I fished from kayaks while Fred McClure followed in his boat with video equipment. We fished a small Forest Service lake in Oklahoma that has some big bass in it and was ideally suited for kayak fishing and filming. The bite was a little slow, but we managed a few, and I enjoyed the opportunity to offer a few tips for the camera. The first video to run is about a Cotton Cordell Super Spot, which is one of my absolute favorite lures for early-season bass fishing.

Fishy Start to Spring

Spring officially got underway last week, and I'm delighted to have gotten to start the season with four days of fishing (and catching!) I spent the first three days of the season on Arkansas' Lake Ouachita, fishing mostly a bass and a bit for crappie to take photos for work. I then strayed farther west, to a small lake in the Oklahoma portion of the Ouachita National Forest, to do a bit of bass fishing from my kayak for videos.

It was definitely a spring bite on Ouachita. The largemouths were shallow and in a pre-spawn mode, and spinnerbaits produced the best action. We mostly caught males, so the bigger females were most likely staged nearby. We also got some good spotted bass atop rocky points and sunken islands that were close to deeper water by dragging Carolina rigs and by swimming a Flash Mob Jr..

The best crappie action occurred in less than 3 feet and around buckbrush. We caught them by suspending curly tail grubs a couple of feet beneath Thill floats, casting close to the buckbrush and twitching rod tip just enough to rock the float and make the jig dance. They were hitting the jigs hard, more like what I'd expect from a bass, ripping the float out of sight in an instant. Big fun!

I only managed a few bass at the little lake, which was pretty busy on the first Friday of spring and with beautiful weather leading into the weekend. However, two of three were way up the lake's most significant creek arm, on a very shallow flat, and hit a Rebel Bluegill, which is a shallow crankbait that looks like you would expect it to based on the name.

Rain & More Rain

Rain is falling steadily outside my North Georgia home, as it did most of yesterday and is forecast to do all of today and part of tomorrow. That's not bad. While enough remain has fallen that most streams are apt blown out and many lakes and ponds are muddied up, the big surge will settle fairly quickly, and the rain will serve as a nice recharge for our streams and the lakes.

I'm supposed to do some photo work on Lake Lanier on Tuesday. As of today, the forecast looks good. Only a 20 percent chance of scattered rain. A couple of days ago it said 60 percent, though, so hopefully it stays at 20 or gets better. The lake's far upper end might get dirty from all this rain, but Lanier is so deep and rocky that the lower main body normally stays in good shape. Therefore, I'm guessing we won't have a problem finding good water.

Later in the week, I hope to do some small-water fishing farther south in Georgia. This rain has been fairly warm, and the week's temperatures look warmer, so small-water bass fishing should be waking up. I'm not sure just how plans will shape up, but I have several ideas that offer good promise.

This year has started slowly, fishing wise. I've fished a handful of days in Arkansas and North Carolina and have caught some trout, but I've yet to make a cast in Georgia or to catch any warm-water fish. Hopefully by this time next week the report will be much different. One way or the other, I'll be on my way to Oklahoma next week around this time, and fishing prospects look good on that trip. I suppose that's getting a little ahead of the story, though!

Bass Between the Storms

As appeared would be the case when I posted previously, my most recent round of fishing travels hit heavy storms square in the nose. Crashing rain, intense thunderstorms, flood warnings, muddy water and powerful winds were all part of the equation. However, through a willingness to adapt and work hard by a couple of great pros, I still managed to get in some excellent bass fishing and photo time between rounds of storms.

Eric Porterfield somehow found a place and a pattern when all the waters in his part of Oklahoma were several feet above full pool and the color of chocolate milk, and we caught a surprising number of good fish and got great work done. Pete Ponds saw the next round of bad weather was charging hard toward Mississippi and rearranged his schedule to bump things up a day at the last minute and even got out ahead of me to get started figuring out the fish. While you'd never know it by the photo above, when we got off the water (at about the same time I was originally supposed to arrive), heavy rain was coming in sideways and the distant thunder was quickly becoming less distant.

It was a full week with a lot of scrambling and figuring, but it was also mighty fun and produced some outstanding opportunities to shoot photos for Norman Lures and Bandit Lures. Big thanks to Eric and Pete.

Lots of Rain

My most recent blog post spoke of upcoming back-to-back-to-back photo trips, and right now I should be between rounds 1 and 2. However, extensive rain in Tennessee blew out the first trip. The lakes where Jim Duckworth fishes are 20 feet above normal pool, knocking the fishing way out of whack, and it was supposed to rain throughout the window he and I had carved out for doing photo work. Although neither of us wanted to do so, we agreed that we had to pull the plug on that trip.

My Arkansas/Oklahoma plans also take me into flood conditions, with plenty more rain falling over the weekend. In fact, tomorrow's forecast where I'll be is for heavy storms and 3 to 5 inches of rain. That trip is built around a plane ticket and affects more people's plans, though, so we'll just plug ahead and do the best we can between the biggest storms. I should get good content about fishing in high muddy water, on dark days and in poor conditions!

Trip 3 only looks to be in the way of scattered storms, but that's next week, so we'll worry about the trip to Arkansas, which begin this morning, first!

As many challenges as the rain brings for fishing and photo plans, it also refreshes the rivers and the lakes and is especially welcome in Southern trout waters just before summer, when low water and high temperatures can really stress the fish. So while all the rain alters some fishing plans, I'm thankful for it.

Here, There & Everywhere

It's sort of like a fishing/photo tour. Between Wednesday and Friday of next week, I'll spend time on the water in at least four (maybe five or six states). The difference is that there's no real flow to the path. Instead of a tour, so to speak, it's a series of quick-turn around trips in different direction.

Tomorrow night or Wednesday morning, I' drive north toward Center Hill Lake in Tennessee to do a quick photo shoot for Bandit Lures with legendary guide Jim Duckworth. Depending on when I go, what I get done between now and then and water conditions, I might do other fishing in Georgia or North Carolina along the way, which is where states five and six could come into play.

I'll be home by Thursday evening and on Friday I drive to Atlanta to fly to Arkansas to spend a couple of days bass fishing and shooting Norman Lures photos in Oklahoma with Eric Porterfield and a day in Arkansas with Chad Warner.

I fly home from Arkansas next Tuesday and leave the next day for Mississippi to spend a couple of days fishing and doing Bandit photo work with Pete Ponds.

That's a lot of running in a different directions for nine days, but I expect there will be some good fishing action mixed in, and I have no doubt I'll gather loads of fine material because all the guys I'm fishing with are great at what they do.

I suppose I'd better start going on stuff around here so I'll be ready to go when I need to later this week!

Year's First White Bass?

When Eric Porterfield and I caught several white bass between largemouth catches in Oklahoma last month, I didn't even consider that I might be adding to my year's species list. White bass are such common catches in my travels that I normally log my first of the year by the end of spring. While updating the list the other day, though, I started looking up and down the list and found no listing of white bass, and as I think back, I can't specifically remember catching others this year. I could have caught others and forgotten to record them, but for now anyway, white bass is a November listing, my most recent, and species number 37 for 2017. I'm headed to the coast, where any cast is apt to produce a host of different species, later this month, so maybe the final tally will find the forties.

Listening

I'm riding to the Tulsa airport after a media event, with Jacob Wheeler and Mark Daniels Jr. in the row in front of me in the vehicle, and am enjoying just listening.

 

As they talk about soft plastic colors for various situations, new fishing techniques, home waters, tournament strategies and much more, there's just so much I can learn.

 

It makes me think about the general value of listening to other anglers - around boat ramps, in bait shops, at dinner... I think it's easy to get caught up wanting to tell my own fish stories instead of listening and learning. Everybody knows a little different stuff and I can learn so much by simply shutting up and paying attention.

 

I'm not suggesting keeping everything I know a secret. I'm always glad to answer questions or share something that might help someone else catch a fish. I just don't want to get caught up wanting to boast about what I caught or what I think I know and miss the opportunity to do some good learning.

New Water

Bruce Stanton of Rebel Lures has spent quite a bit of time fishing Oklahoma's Mountain Fork River and much more time fishing Arkansas' Ouachita River. Nevertheless, Stanton and I spent all day fishing those two rivers yesterday without hitting any water he had ever seen before.

Instead of going to the known spots, we took a pioneering approach, looking for access as we paralleled sections of both river and getting in to fish where we could.

The upper Mountain Fork runs through a lot of private land where we were, but we were able to gain access at an RV park/canoe outpost along the river and were able to launch our own boats to fish both upstream and downstream of the resort. The Ouachita runs extensively through National Forest Service land, so we simply watched for the brown signs, followed arrows to public access points, and started wading wherever we could get to the river.

While we didn't find the smallmouths we hope to catch, we did find some willing spotted bass, and we loaded up on various kinds of panfish, and the simple approach of finding a public place to get in and seeing what we would find was simply fun. Plus we both know a little more than we did about both rivers!

Classic Stories: From Local Favorite to Maine First-Grade Teacher

Local favorite Jason Christie is in 6th place after Day 1 BASS photo by Gary Tramantina.

"I got goose bumps right there just talking about it," Jason Christie said after attempting to put into words what it would be like to win the Bassmaster Classic at home. The Oklahoma pro has been asked the same questions a million times, but he still doesn't know how to answer them becasue there's no way he can imagine how it would feel -- if it were to happen. In truth, it's probably hard for him to wrap his mind around his current emotions as he competes for his sport's biggest title on waters he is so familiar with and where he has had so much success.

After Day 1, Christie was in 6th place and in a solid position, but other names around him are some of the biggest in the sport: names like Kevin VanDam and Mike Iaconelli.

And then there are names like Jonathan Carter of Maine, who virtually no one knew anything about going into the tournament and who found himself in 7th place at the end of the first day. A BASS Nation representative who has never fished a pro level tournament with BASS, Carter is also a first grade teacher in his home state who had to use every ounce of grace he could get from school administrators to fish the necessary qualifying tournaments and the Classic itself and who almost missed a connecting flight on the way down that would have cost him a day of practice.

Mark Pierce, another Bass Nation qualifier, caught the biggest bass of yesterday. Pierce only weighed on fish, but that one fish weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces. Just being in the Classic was extra satisfying for Peirce as he had missed making the field as a BASS Nation represented by a single place a year earlier.

"Persevere," he told the Classic crowd. "I kept trying and here I made it to the biggest stage in bass fishing."

When all the fish have been weighed tomorrow afternoon, the biggest stories will be about who caught the heaviest three-day sack and has been crowned Classic Champ, just how big the winning weight was, and the lures and patterns that produced the winning fish. But to me the most interesting stories right now are the personal stories about the 53 competitors, how they got there, their perspectives going into the event and some of the little things that happen each day.

Yesterday the severe cold was also a major story at the weigh-in, although different anglers' takes on how it felt and how it affected the fish varied immensely. Florida anglers said they'd never fished a colder day, while northern anglers boasted that it wasn't really even that cold. Some said it really slowed the fish. Others suggested that it triggered a better bite.

I look forward to seeing how the stories continue to develop today. They actually are developing already as the pros have been on the water for two hours. I think I'll head on over to BASSTrakk before I steer toward the Classic Expo.

Great Crowd for First Classic Blast-Off

Cold was obviously no deterrent to Oklahoma bass fishing fans as hundreds came out at first light to watch Bassmaster Classic competitors blast off despite temperatures hovering right around 20 degrees. We arrived an hour before blast-off and folks were already there in big numbers, watching boats launch and positioning themselves for the blast off. Headed back to Tulsa now.

Crappie on Ice & a Cold Classic Start

We won't quite need augers to fish for crappie tomorrow, but the banks of Oklahoma's Lake Eufaula might be snowy, and the foul-weather gear might play an important part for warding off an icy rain. That's OK. I'm glad to have my long drive to Fort Smith behind me, with no problems caused by the fairly heavy snow I drove through for the last couple of hours.

Of course, from the photos I've seen that pros have posted, the snow I drove in was light compared to what the 53 Bassmaster Classic contenders fished in during today's final practice day. Looks like it snowed pretty much the whole time. Given the snow that fell today, the wintery mix that continues to fall and a forecast low in the low 20s on Friday morning (when the competition starts), it would seem the fish might be in true winter mode to start the tournament. However, by Sunday afternoon, the temperature is supposed to climb into the 60s, so I'm really curious how the fishing will change over the course of the tournament.

That's getting ahead of things, though. The cold crappie come first!

Converging on Tulsa

The migration has begun. Big Show, Ike and college champion Matt Lee are among the Bassmaster Classic Competitors who posted about Tulsa travel plans yesterday. I trust several others will move that way today and that  by tomorrow, most (if not all) of the field will be in Tulsa or at least en route. I'm not sure when they have to arrive or when official Classic practice begins, but the real thing starts a week from Friday, so you can trust it's all seeming very real to all the anglers who are headed to the dance.

Meanwhile, media folks, pro anglers, fans and the host of folks from companies that will take part in the show that accompanies the Classic are scrambling to get things done at home and to prepare for the main event, with their own travel plans not that terribly far away. I know I am. I leave a week from today, and by this time next Wednesday I'll most likely be in Alabama. When I look at stuff I'd like to accomplish before then, a week doesn't seem very long.

Making things ever more real, the first day of competition is now on the Tulsa 10-day forecast. High of 54. Low of 31. Big variances in the highest highs and the lowest lows between now an then though, with conditions ranging from warm sunshine to snow. We'll see soon!

Classic Attire

As I look toward the Bassmaster Classic travels, I'm not sure whether I'll need short sleeves and a ballcap or a parka and a beanie. Recent days' Tulsa temps have ranged from the low teens to the mid-70s, so there's really no saying what the weather will bring. I'm driving and can tote all the junk I want, so I'll be prepared either way.

I can't imagine trying to figure out whether the fish will be in a winter or spring pattern and knowing that what happens during practice could be completely different from what happens during competition days. Fish move a lot based on weather this time of year, and their behavior changes dramatically with passing fronts. Most pros I've talked with are going with a mindset of expecting cold and sort of planning for that, figuring they can more easily adjust to familiar and comfortable spring conditions than to expect spring and have to adjust the other way.

It's currently 48 in Tulsa. Lowest low in the 10-day is 26. Highest high is 64. The competition begins two weeks from today, so the 10-day brings us to the very beginning of Classic week, when official practice begins. I'm guessing most competitors are watching the Oklahoma weather every day, and with a lot more on their minds than what clothes to bring!

One Month & Counting for Classic Competitors

2008 Bassmaster Classic champion Alton Jones, who earned entry into this year's Classic by winning the Elite Series opener on the St. Johns River, expects some big bags at Grand Lake no matter what the weather brings. B.A.S.S. photo.

In one sense, a month can't pass quickly enough for the 53 angler who will compete in the 2013 Bassmaster Classic. In another, every moment between now and the event -- or at least between now and when various competitors begin leaving home -- must seem precious. The Classic is an all-or-nothing championship event, and it calls for careful planning and serious preparation of tackle.

Day 1 of this year's Classic, which will be held on Oklahoma's Grand Lake of the Cherokees and run out of Tulsa, is one month from today, so competitors and fans alike have officially entered final month countdown mode. The event is close enough that weather patterns could impact what happens during the competition, so several competitors no doubt have a local forecast bookmarked and are tracking temps and rainfall daily (23 degrees in Tulsa right now), along with looking at things like water levels and online reports from local tournaments.

Of course, that varies a lot according to an angler's personality and how he likes to approach a tournament. Some like to know as much as possible about what has been happening and to have a feel for the flow of things upon arrival. Others find that more confusing than helpful and far prefer to arrive with a clean mind.

Pre-practice mindsets are similarly different among various pros. Some fish as much as possible when they visit a venue ahead of time, wanting to get a feel for how the lake fishes and how its fish tend to behave. Others spend all their time looking with their own eyes and with electronics, believing that the fish's behavior in November has little bearing on how they act in February and simply wanting to study structure and cover and to learn as much as possible about the lake's character.

The perspective on the whole event also varies so much from one competitor to the next, as they bring such a wide range of experiences to the event. Still, when the 2013 Bassmaster Classic actually starts on month from today, collegiate qualifier Matt Lee, who is 23 years old, and Kevin VanDam who will be fishing his 23rd consecutive Classic, will have the exact same number of minutes ahead to fish the same waters in search of the winning bag.

Side Note: Bassmaster.com has put together a great slide show that looks at all of the 2013 Bassmaster Classic contenders.

A Whole Lot of Catchin' Going On

For starter, I probably ought to ackowledge that I'm not talking about myself. If you happened to read yesterday's blog you know that my 2013 fish tally catipulted from zero to a whopping two yesterday afternoon. Fish story deadlines, rain and family plans have pretty well kept me off the water for the first few weeks of the year. That will change soon, but that's a different subject.

Today's social media madness makes it pretty easy to see when folks are catching fish, and the bass fishermen really have started to light up the boards. Lots of pictures of big largmouths, smallmouths and spots from bass waters all over the place. Like the Oklahoma tournament catch that's believed to hae been the biggest ever brought to the scales in that state; the school of giants Timmy Horton found while filming Timmy Horton Outdoors on Lake Seminole; a bunch of big bass being caught from stops along the Alabama Bass Trail...

I've been sharing many of these on the Jeff Samsel Fishing Facebook page, so be sure to visit and to like the page!

Some of this is attributable cabin fever. The first sunny weekends of the new year draw a lot of fishermen to the lakes, and simple math says that more fishermen fishing typically leads to more fish being caught. I think it's more than that, though. Those same first sunny days trigger a bit of movement among the biggest bass in the lakes, and they get into a mode of trying to store up calories for the spawn. The fish and their forage are still winter-slowed and won't be out chasing food everywhere, but if you can put the right bait in the right place, it's a fine time to catch a very big bass.