Left Home for the Harris Chain

I am so excited to get this elite season underway. I am feeling really good about where I am right now, and am really excited to fish this year. This Harris Chain event is definitely going to be tough, and honestly the whole schedule looks like it is going to be tough. But, I am excited about that. I feel like I have a better opportunity to rise to the top when the fishing is tougher than normal. I have had some success here at the Harris Chain in the past, but the conditions were quite a bit different than what we are facing this year. In my first practice day I found some fish, but most of them were short, and the keepers I have found aren't the kind that I will need. I wish I had more practice time down here because there is so much fishable water in this place, but I believe that I will be able to eliminate enough water to whittle my options down to something that will work come tournament time.

I have to say that it was a relief just getting here. The driving part of this job never gets any easier, it takes two and a half days to get from Lake Quivira down to here. And with gas prices as high as they are, I am really hoping to do well down here to make the venture profitable!

As different as this fishery may be from the New Orleans Delta, I have found some similarities. On the Delta, the majority of us did quite a bit of driving to get to our spots. Here at the Harris Chain, we will also have to do quite a bit of driving. This year we are launching at a new facility that is two canals (or two 30 minute idle only zones)away from Lake Harris, where we have launched in the past. There are so many canals and rivers here that are No Wake Zones that almost the entire fields' driving time will be consumed by travelling at idle speed. While the running distance is not comparable to what we endured on the Delta, there will be more time behind the wheel here than at an ordinary elite series event. But, it is what it is. And you have to make the most of it. The other similarity is that the fish here seem to like my Tightlines UV baits about as much as the fish on the Delta did. It gives me confidence to know that I am throwing something that the fish want, and that means a lot on a body of water that is as infamously fickle as this one is.