The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

There is not a day that I share a body of water with other fishermen that I don’t believe that someone else is catching fish regardless of whether I am or not. Perhaps that is a mind-set cultivated through too many years of tournament fishing, but more often than not it proves to be an accurate assumption.

I point that out only because it supports my flimsy rationale for standing in waist deep water on a raw February day endlessly casting to nothing more than the next white cap. You constantly tell yourself that the fish will turn on for an hour or so at some point, but more often than I would care to admit….that never happens!

There is a distinct possibility that the average winter trout fisherman may simply set his or her expectations too high. At the same time that they are married to grinding away with a slow moving Corky in hopes of duping the trout of a life time, another angler with less ambitious pursuits may well be wearing out keeper trout and redfish with smaller lures from the comfort of a boat.

A perfect example of this occurred last Saturday in the Gulf Coast Trout Series Tournament. The Pro Cure team of Adam Jaynes and Aaron Hommel wheeled into the Daley’s Hunt N Fish parking lot at two o’clock, unhooked their boat, loaded their aerated cooler into the back of the pickup and raced off on the initial leg of a five hour round trip to the weigh in.

They had no choice but to look for big trout in this instance as they could only weigh in three fish. Mother Nature had been anything but kind and with the wind steadily pumping the water out of the marshes it had been a challenge to locate the kind of fish that they needed to win.

As they wheeled out of the parking lot, Aaron’s last comment was, “This is a long way to drive with only nine or ten pound of trout.”Thirty minutes later they were back at Daley’s to pick up their boat.“We called the weigh-in site to see what had already been weighed in and decided to turn around and at least save some gas money,” said a worn out Jaynes.

Before you mistakenly agree that they really suffered through a miserable day you might want to examine their outing a little closer. Had you shared their boat all day on a guided trip you would have come away with a totally different perspective of what they both purported to be another one of those “win some-lose some” kind of days.

Adam even said as much while they were hooking the trailer back up.“If I would have had a guide party today I would be cleaning fish right now and more than pleased with our trip. We caught redfish and smaller keeper specks all day long and I would have had some happy clients instead of this head ache”

If you want to improve your odds of doing more catching than casting over the next month or so, try to fish just prior to a front and plan on covering more water with smaller lures than the wader does. Not only will you generally catch more fish, but you still have the possibility of catching the trout of a life time as well!”

I know it is starting to play like a broken record, but I guarantee you that Cory Rambo and Rusty Clark are enjoying this same song second verse scenario. For the second time this month the red hot West Ltd. team cashed yet another nice check on Sam Rayburn.

The duo weighed in an impressive three bass limit that totaled 19.38 pounds and earned a second place check worth $5000 in Bass Champs February event.James Campise and Blake Istre, also of Orange, cashed a $1000 check with 12.71 pounds. The Nacogdoches team of John Garrie and Wayne Triana nudged Rambo and Clark by .37 ounces to earn their second win in a row on the Bass Champs circuit. Their early season back to back wins have already netted them $30,000!

Rambo said Saturday may well have been the best day that he and Clark have ever enjoyed on a tournament day and that is saying something based on their track record.“We caught eight bass over six pounds which would have given us 30-plus pounds in the usual five fish limit tournaments.”He added that they caught their big bass on a River 2 Sea Rattle Vibe and that the bass were taking it so aggressively that every fish they caught had it sucked down in the back of their throat.

The River 2 Sea Tungsten Vibe is a lipless crankbait similar to the Trap that is available in a wide array of realistic color patterns. We have done very well with it in the river and Sabine Lake. The redfish just love it and we have caught some good trout on it as well. I don’t know which size Cory and Rusty were fishing, but we have been using the 3/8ths ounce model in saltwater.