As with most years, we’re starting the Bassmaster Elite Series season off in Florida. Up first is Lake Okeechobee, which is about as quintessentially Florida as you can get, and then we move onto Lake Seminole, which is similar.
Florida should be my type of fishing, but for some reason I always seem to start off digging myself a hole down there. I don’t necessarily bomb, and I’ve had a few good events, but more often than not I don’t kick off the year with the type of finish you need to compete for the Bassmaster Angler of the Year title.
I’ve just spent a week fishing in Florida on nontournament water. Some of the time, I was producing content for sponsors, and some of it I was trying to learn more about what to expect and how to approach these upcoming events. To tell you the truth, sometimes the more I try the more I just get confused. What’s particularly frustrating about it is there doesn’t seem to be any real correlation between how much I prepare or the quality of my practices and my eventual finishes.
I’ve had some great practices that led to terrible tournaments and some terrible practices that led to Top 10s. A lot of it is because Florida bass are so finicky. In 2021 at the St. Johns I had an excellent practice under three days of clouds and windy conditions, but when it slicked off for my two tournament days it all evaporated. I finished 63rd.
I’ve been fortunate to win tour level events in a number of states across the country, on widely variable fisheries, but that Florida trophy continues to evade me. I just don’t feel as competitive down there. If you look at the winning weights, they’re often 80 pounds or more, and my winning sweet spot seems to be 60 or 70 pounds. Maybe that’s it.
Or maybe it’s just those weird Florida fish. I’ve thought about it a lot. Usually in order to fish well down there, especially during the spawn, you need to fish slowly and you need to be able to fish in a crowd. I’m confident that I can fish as slowly as I need to, as long as I’m super-confident in my area.
If I know or strongly suspect that the winning catch is in an area the size of three football fields, I can put on blinders, slow down and get the job done. It’s the same thing with crowds. On the occasions when I’ve done well in Florida, I’ve usually been looking at other boats the whole time. I’m sure people don’t want to see me around them just like I don’t want to see them, but it’s just part of the game.
Someday I’m going to figure it out, and it will be sweet. Remember, the first three times I went to the Sabine I failed to get a check, but on my fourth trip I won the blue trophy. I found the right area, and I can do that here too.
In the meantime, there’s a fine line between surviving, thriving and failure. I want to win. I want to escape these first two events with a couple of top 25s. At the very least, I have to take great precautions to make sure that as we hit the heart of the schedule the hole is not as deep as usual.
