I just got back from fishing the Oklahoma Kayak Nation event on Pine Creek lake(8 hour round trip) in eastern Ok for a chance and a Bassmaster Classic invite unfortunately they were only taking the top 3 and I tied in 7th missing the cut fast forward to this past week as I traveled down to O.H. Ivie for the 1st time this past thur for the Texas B.A.S.S. Nation event.

This was my 4th and final tournament that I needed to fish to qualify for their championship in November. I worked all night 11p-7am wed into thur morning and left straight from work heading down there driving 4hours one way. I camped at Concho Park and Marina in the RV area as I needed electricity to charge the batteries since I was going to be there for a few days.

When I arrived, I checked in at the store, got camp set up and launched there at Concho. I'm not going to lie the lake was a little overwhelming with its size and attempting to navigate through all the stick ups. The ladies at the store said it rose about 7ft after all the rain the week prior and having traveled upriver and seeing the chocolate milk and debris I darn sure believed it. I fished from noon to almost dark and found 2 bass on a Strike King Thunder Cricket about 20ft apart on the same bank after hours of fishing but that was the only 2 bites all day.

On Friday, I launched at Elm Creek boat ramp and fished my way towards it but had zero strikes. I threw buzz baits, choppo, chatterbaits, glides, flipped and pitched and got snagged about 1000 times. I fished until noon(5 hours without a bite) I knew I needed to do something but was getting frustrated as I couldn't really find any shallow banks to fish due to all the stick ups blocking almost every square inch of bank, with the high water I thought how could they not be super shallow. I could hear fish jumping literally every few seconds and just thought the carp were all fired up in the shallows. The wind was blowing from the bank across the lake into the thick stick ups, but I had no idea how to fish them due to there being so much of it but with the "wind is your friend" thought I knew I needed to try something.

I traveled across to the adjacent "shoreline" and started throwing a Strike King wake crankbait just trying to get a reaction strike and caught two small keepers that were busting bait fish. As I was fishing the "tree line", I could see pockets open up way in the back and plowed through all the stickups to get back to a small opening. Thats where I stumbled upon a start to a pattern, I found fish in this clearing in flooded bushes and trees but all those "carp" I thought were jumping were actually bass eating dragon flies. I started pitching a green pumpkin Berkley Pit Boss and fish were hitting it, but I just let them swim with it without setting the hook since the tournament was the next day.

This was a small area, and I knew I needed to duplicate this in other areas as I was just hoping to put a 5fish limit together. I put the motor on high and started scouting the banks looking for openings. As I was scouting I found a point with the stick ups on it but the wind was hitting it just right and I wanted to throw that wake crank on it, as I was going down casting I saw what I thought was a 14-16" bass come out of the water and casted over to it. As my lure was in the air, I saw that it was a gizzard shad getting blasted out of the water by a big bass! When my lure hit the water, I immediately started cranking and boom a 20.50" bass nailed it, I got her landed and after a few pics I let her go but this fish led me into a cove where I stumbled upon something special.

The stickups were about 25-30ft thick but cleared behind them leaving flood bushes and grass and I found a 50yrd stretch in 1-3ft that was LOADED!!! I could see bass swimming everywhere and 3-5lbers were going airborne for dragon flies. Again, I would pitch the pit boss out and let them just swim with it without setting the hook, the only problem I had was I had only one single bag of these baits.

After the practice I had a good feeling that I would get a solid limit and place hopefully top 20 and with the anglers that fish this trail I would take that any day of the week. I stopped by Elm Creek Marina and bought a few items, but they didn't have any pit bosses, but I grabbed a few things in that color just in case.

Tournament morning, I would say over half the field put in at Elm Creek and take off was at 6am with first cast at 630. I went straight to my spot and had it all by myself until 11am. I had my limit by 830 and started culling from there. The bite never really slowed down, as I was alternating with the pit boss which I ran out of and replaced it with Strike King Rage Bug and a green pumking Strike King Ocho but I just wasn't upgrading much after 10am. When a bass would bust a dragon fly, I would throw the weightless ocho over there and it was almost an automatic fish in the boat. I kept checking the leaderboard and was leading all day but knew the signal was bad and anglers wouldn't really submit till later in the day, but I was on a high and just was confident in what I was doing.

I decided to make a long run almost to that opening I found the day before and spend the last 1.5hours there. At this point I was sitting in 2nd place with .50" behind the leader who is an absolute beast on the water(Phillip Wyatt). I went back to this opening and started throwing the weightless stick bait around and missed a few fish on the hookset. With about 30mins I was back tracking through what I had just fished and went to a tree where a bass busted a dragon fly, but I missed it on the hookset. I pitched it in there and boom pure chaos ensued! My line was over a limb, and it was such tight quarters I could not get the kayak over to it. I was using my net to grab hold of the tree that this fish was hanging on to in midair trying to get closer and I was layed all the way over across my kayak(Im a big guy) while doing so my leg cramped so bad I thought I was going to pop my hamstring! After struggling a bit I was finally able to land the 17" and get it submitted which was my kicker fish to put me over the top!

I ended in 1st place with an awesome trophy and a nice payday to boot! Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to share my adventures with yall!

Congratulations on the win. Nice report and thank you for sharing.....

Good report

Awesome.... you had me there.. when you mentioned the wind blowing just right through the thick stuff, I was thinking 5 inch swimbait on 5/0 owner flashy swimmer..

I was throwing swims and glides and nothing! I couldn’t believe it! I had all the hopes that it was going to be a swimbait bite there.

Great post, thanks for sharing!

Solid post and fish!! Thanks for sharing!!

Great post and pics.