Bassmaster Team Championship - Degray Lake Report

Jason and I are in the middle of our 30 hour ride home from Degray lake Arkansas. The trip hasn't seemed that bad since we have all our buddies calling about the Team Championship. This was by far the best tournament experience Jay and I have had. It was a grueling no-sleep, tough bite SOB of an event, but still the best experience either of us have had.

Since BASS was only going to allow a day an a half of prefish before the event, we decided to go down before the off limits and get a feel for the lake. The week before Thanksgiving, me and the "Big Smooth", Mike Chandler, drove my truck down to Arkansas, picked up a loaner boat from a Phoenix dealership, grabbed Jason from the airport, and practiced for three days in a monsoon. It was a good practice, where we felt had two or three areas holding bigger fish. In the first 3 hours of practice, we had caught a fish over 5, and couple 3's. This was a bonus, since all of our prefish research was grimm, and without an A-Rig, those fish were uncatchable.

Official practice before the event told us the fish were changing. We could catch them cranking, throwing a jig, and using a shakey head (miserable technique) in the pre-practice, fishing shallow pockets next to deep water or channel swings. By the time we returned, the fish had started moving away from the pockets and into brush on the steep breaks. This was a real pisser, since the state pastime for an Arkansas resident is planting brush by the truck load. We never spent time looking for brush in the pre-practice, cause we couldn't get bit in the brush we found and there was so much of it, it seemed futile.

By tournament time, we had scrapped a bunch of ideas and decided to, as Jay would say, "Pin our ears back" and go for the throat. I really don't know what that means, but in general, we're going to flail around until we figure something out. Long story short, we fished every deep drop we could find with a jerkbait, jig and a dropshot until we found productive brush and worked those spots over like a rented mule. We burned 25-30 gallons of gas a day on a small lake, where our longest run was probably 7 miles.

We had found one key area where we could catch spots in a pinch in pre-practice. It was a beaver hut, right on a channel swing with 25 feet of water at the bottom. On Day 2 we didn't have a fish at 9am, and we ran over to that spot trying to get something started. Up until this move, I had dropped all cranking gear and took up the miserable task of drop-shotting the brush piles in a painfully slow manner. It sucked, but we weighed half of our fish on the dropshot, which entailed, casting to brushpile, getting hung up, breaking off, retying, bitching about how dumb a dropshot is..... repeat. If I had to do that again, I would quit the sport. Anyways, my mindset was the fish were beat up, and this was what we needed to do for a bite. We pulled into that beaver hut and Jason grabbed a dropshot with me, made a cast, and immediately reeled it in. I didn't pay attention cause I was trying to avoid the urge to "quit the sport" while slowing dragging this drop-shot around. Jason dug around in the rod locker, grabbed a 1/2 oz jig, flipped it in the hut and busted a 4lber. It was really clutch, cause the conditions and fishing pressure wouldn't immediately prescribe that move. 15 minutes and 3 casts later (read: soaking bait until mind is numb) I caught a 3lber on the DS and another short. We moved around the rest of the day in that area, caught a 2lb spot on the brush pile (broke off three times, threw a fit) and fished out our limit on a clutch jerkbait bite from Jay.

Long story short, while being interviewed by three writers about what it would mean to fish for the Classic berth, against each other, we got bumped out of the top three. The reality of what was going on hadn't hit us yet, as we were both worn out and overwhelmed about fishing another day on that lake. We weighed a limit both days, but never culled. Eitherway, it was still the best experience we'd ever had.

We have to say thanks the Gary Stiles and Northwest Bass for this opportunity. It was worth all the work. The guys that showed up for this event were "hammers." But we know that Northwest Bass anglers are not slouches, and this experience has solidified that belief 100%.

Also we have to thanks Aaron Mize of Horizon Marine in Clarksville Arkansas. I made one call to Phoenix in need of a boat, and they said no problem. 15 minutes later, I was on the phone with Aaron who's offering me a boat truck and whatever I'd need. We're very grateful.

Jay and I know we're blessed, and that this trip was a gift. Hopefully next year, Gary will be able to send multiple teams.