The 2nd event of the season was going to be a lot of fun as the fish had been being caught both deep and shallow.  During pre-fish Zachary King and I found plenty of fish in the matted vegetation and also on make lake isolated weed patches and drops.  Frogs, jigs, and topwater proved to be the best lures in pre-fish.

 

I drew the local guru Billy Schoader and we ran main lake points, deep flats, and drop offs all day.  We ran all the way up into Barkley Lake boating a mixture of largemouth and smallmouth.  The smallies came on 4" Outlaw Baits tubes in Watermelon Red and the largemouth came on 3/4oz Skinny Bear Football head jigs in brown/green colors.  I was able to boat 4 fish for nearly 13lbs and finished the event in 3rd place.

 

Day 2 i drew Chad Griffin from Ezee Jigs.  After a 45 min boat ride south, we discovered the honey holes to be all muddied up.  We ran back north and found some clearer water where I boated two quick fish on jigs.  Then laters in the day, as the sun was high and hot, we punch matted vegetation with a 1.5oz Tru-Tungsten weight and ended up with 4 fish for nearly 12lbs.  I ended the day in 7th place going into the finals. 

 

Day 1 I drew Dustin Evan, a local pro.  He was on a shallow water swimbait bite that ended up not panning out this day.  I was able to catch fish from the back of the boat on the frog and the jig.  The frog fish was 4.5lbs which went a long way for me in this event seeing that I wasn't able to get a limit any of the three days.

 

 

With the 2009 Bassmasters Classic coming to the Red River, a lot of Elite Series pros made their way to this event.  It was great fishing with many of my heros in the sport.  My goal coming to this event was to learn how to navigate the river and learn what techniques and locations win tournaments here.  I was blessed to be able to accomplish these goals.  

Overall, I was content with 68th place seeing that I really didn't get to fish the first day because of the style of fishing my pro was using.  My final weight bested 130 co-anglers and 80 pros so with that I'm pretty confident that I can come back here next year on the pro side and do well.

 

I fished today with one of the best anglers I've ever fished with; 29 year old pro Zach King from AR (winner of many local tournaments).  After launching in the 5th flight, then running 65 miles of river at over 70 MPH, we landed in a small backwater cove filled with stumps and lilypads.  I landed one nice 3lber on a frog and we had a few fish on spinnerbaits get off in the AM.  I also caught a 4.5lber on a buzzbait. 

As the day ended I witnessed Zach put on a clinic as he culled 4 fish in the final 12 mins.  I learned a lot from Zach today and was very happy to have fished with him.

 

Pro angler Lonnie Dean and I launched in the 4th flight and ran 55 miles down river locking into Pool 4.  Lonnie focused on flipping isolated trees slowly and methodically.  Unfortunately this style of fishing left me with mostly used up water the entire day and only managed one bass off a bed that I saw.  It was a long tough day but that can be life in the back seat so I just tried to learn as much as I could and stay positive.  Lonnie did very well and ended the day with 13.5lbs.

 

After a long plane ride from Orange County, CA to Dallas TX and a 4 hour drive to Clark's Marine on the Red River, I finally got to see this massive body of flowing mud.  I launched in the AM next to Elite Series pros such as Rick Clunn, Randy Dearman, and Charlie Youngers.   I was pre-fishing today with a pro friend from Arkansas Joel Newman. 

We pulled into a few nice backwater oxblow lakes and found a nice schools of largemouth next to current breaks.