Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas was an awesome event. The term we use for events where all of the field brings in a limit of solid fish is “catchfest”. It was not a slugfest with weight nearing 100 pounds by any stretch but the shear numbers of keeper bass in the lake was amazing. My body ached from catching so many fish on my crankbait!
Bait colors were key in this event and I even developed one during the event that worked well on Day 1 when I had my best bag. My travel partner Denny Brauer and I were at the Walmart early in the week buying paint to try and create something different from the rest of the field. Once we found one that worked best my buddy from Indiana custom painted several baits to the specs and over-nighted them to me. His website is www.phcustomlures.com.
These precious baits are one reason I put a lot of effort into my tackle storage system. Flambeau Outdoors makes a product called Zerust, which no other company has. Zerust prevents rusty hooks and split rigs on baits for up to 5 years inside a tackle box. I totaled up the value of one of my crankbait boxes and it was $1,100 – IN ONE BOX. I have over a dozen crankbait boxes. Using Flambeau Zerust is easy math for me.
So far through 3 Elite events I am in 15th place. My focus is on Douglas Lake at this point.
We have the Mark’s Outdoor event this weekend in Birmingham which is a lot of fun. The fishing on Lay Lake has always been good to me and this is a great fan event.
Tomorrow I am going turkey hunt for my 1 day of the year. How crazy is that? I guess I am too busy but at least I will have 1 day to use the Flambeau MAD calls and set the King Strut decoys out. Last year I had only 1 day and killed a big tom so maybe this year will be the same.