ALL NEWS IS OLD NEWS

Regardless of how quickly you hear or read any fishing report it is

still old news.That is not to say that gathering any information that

will give you a head start should not be an integral part of your

planning, but conditions can change overnight and you have to be able to

adapt.

I had a very good partner when I initially started fishing team

tournaments for money back in the early 70’s and until we learned that

lesson we struggled. In addition to that mistake, we were notorious for

abandoning our own pattern at the very last minute to fish another that

sounded even better than ours.

Our initial thinking was that we couldn’t win with the fish that we had

been catching followed by the belief that our bass would be there should

the untried pattern fail to produce.

We were five tournaments into our first year when one of the best pros

on the circuit changed our fortunes with a single statement.“You will

never win until you do what you do best!”

I think any bass fisherman, pro or recreational, will quickly tell you

that it is hard to catch another man’s fish.Regardless of how trusting

you are of the tip, he is usually doing some small thing that makes all

the difference in the world.

In other words, never hang your hat on rushing to a single spot and

fishing one particular bait in hopes of having a big day.That might

happen, but the odds of you landing a great white shark are about the

same.Keep that hot tip in your back pocket and fish your fish first.

Just prior to the weekend downpour, I received a call from two friends

from Crowley that were working a job in the area and were going to fish

Friday afternoon.“If I didn’t have much time,” I told them,” I would tie

on a Whacky worm or a small spinner bait and fish the clearest water you

can find in Black’s or Cow Bayou.”

At eight o’clock that night they called to see if I could join them for

supper as a reward for the hot tip.“We caught eleven redfish up to nine

pounds and a pile of small bass fishing just where you suggested.We

fished a Lil John Whacky worm style and never tried anything else.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I would have never rigged a

Lil John that way, but the ultimate kicker was the fact that they made a

wrong turn and weren’t even fishing in either bayou.I can’t wait to give

it a try, but it is old news now!

It is unfortunate for local bass fishermen that some of the best river

fishermen in the area fish their tournaments every Tuesday afternoon as

the deadline for my column is prior to their weigh-ins.They are not in a

hurry to draw you a map on the back of your hand, but they will tell you

when the bite was good and the final weights give you some idea as to

how solid the fish were.Consider a color or particular bait a bonus!

Obviously the bite will have changed by Tuesday’s tournament, but the

previous tournament yielded some pretty good catches.Mike Chargois and

Jim Foster won it with 9.11 pounds anchored with a very nice 5.23 pound

fish.Zane Gunter and Gavin Deshotel cashed the second place check with a

5.38 pound catch and Colby Cross and Adam Jacobs finished third.Twenty

nine teams fished the weekly event.

Calvin Hobbs and David Leis reported that the water on the south

revetment wall looked a little better last Thursday and they finished an

afternoon trip with twelve small Texas keeper trout and five

redfish.David said they also caught a lot of undersized trout.They

caught all of their fish in six to eight feet of water on Texas chicken

Diedappers.

I got only couple of reports off T-Bend this week and they could not

have been more opposite as far as patterns go.Dane Breaux caught his

first bass over nine pounds and he and his cousin caught nineteen bass

in Buck Creek swimming a watermelon jig and craw worm combination.

Tal Bergeron said that he wore out bass in the two to four pound class

fishing bedding fish with a six inch curl tail worm.They were swimming

it unweighted.Tal also said they saw a couple of really good bass near

beds, but were unable to get them to bite. The spawn is all but over at

this point.