It's tournament time around these parts

The water was so clear it was easy to see the bass stacked up like cord wood in the narrow canal off Hog Bayou that I was fishing several years ago. The tide in the marsh had just started falling and the hungry fish were poised to do some serious damage to anything that wiggled, swam or sputtered by.
Stepping on the troll motor pedal, it was a matter of getting the boat in the right position to make a cast upstream of them and let nature take its course.
Sure enough, on the first cast, a little two-pounder beat several others to my Carolina rigged plastic worm.
No sooner had I set the hook, my cell phone rang.
Keeping the tip of my rod up, I grabbed the communication device, cocked my head sideways holding the phone between ear and shoulder and tried to talk to my lovely wife and land the fish at the same time.
“You still fishing?” Christine asked.
“Yes, baby, I am. They just started biting,” I replied, somewhat annoyed.
There I was, in the middle of a bass feeding frenzy, with one on the line and others more than willing to bite trying to explain why I would be a little longer than I initially said I would be.
“How much longer?” she responded.
All fishermen know sometimes as quick as it starts, it can be over just as fast. Trying to explain why I’m still fishing and how much longer I’d be was like reading tea leaves.
Suddenly, the hooked bass got off the line. There’d be no reading of tea leaves. This was what Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist and psychotherapist in the 1920s theorized as synchronicity.
In other words, what was the chance of me hooking a bass and in the same instance getting a call from my wife?
Jung would say the event had cause and effect or were meaningfully related, but perhaps not casually related. Hmmm …
By contrast, my spouse theorized I simply had a common disease around these parts known as, “the bass bug.”
She was right, of course, which has kept me from being a tournament bass angler all of these years.
That, and, to be quite honest, I’m really not that good at catching the dang things.
The conditions have to be right for me, and March and April are typically the months when they are.
Bass Pro Shops Pro Staffer Tommy Smith says what makes March and April so good is there is an increase in bass activity with the change of season.
Smith said, “Boats are starting to get uncovered and bass clubs and tournaments are starting up usually this time of year. Louisiana is called the sportsman paradise for a reason. The hunters have put their guns up for the year, and the water is starting to warm up. The fish are beginning to move up in the shallows and start feeding and getting ready to move on beds to start spawning. When this occurs, the female bass come into the shallows from their deeper haunts. And, when they are shallow, this gives the anglers an edge and makes them easier to catch. Most bass anglers’ primary thoughts are to catch bigger bass or trophy bass. In the Atchafalaya Basin, the spillway and coastal marshes, March and April are the best months to do that.”
Unlike myself, the better bass anglers around these parts who regularly compete know a few things tactically that help them put five fish stringers on scale with regularity.
Bass Pro Shops Pro Staffer Ricky Naquin shared a few of his tactics. “On warmer windy days, I’ll use ¼- or 3/8-oz. spinner baits and buzz baits,” Naquin said. “For colors, I like to use chartreuse and white and black spinning baits with a silver Colorado blade on top and gold willow on the bottom. I’ll throw these baits as close to the bank as possible and work slowly back to the boat trying to follow the contour of the bottom and keeping it six inches to a foot from the bottom. On clear days, I’ll use the white and chartreuse combination, and on cloudy days, use the black. Of course, my spinner of choice is a Bass Pro Shops Lazer Eye Spinnerbait and my buzz bait is Bass Pro Shops Lazer Eye Pro Series Buzz Bait.”
For colder, calmer days, Naquin says he uses Bass Pro Shops 5-inch Stik O’s in a green pumpkin or watermelon red with a 3/0 to 4/0 hook. He also uses Floating Lizards that he generally fishes weightless.
The Pro Staff angler also mentions the basin fishes a little different, where he’ll add an orange trailer on the mentioned baits and fish buzz baits parallel to the bank whenever possible. Other lures he uses include the Bass Pro Shops Enticer Pro Series Rattling Jig or Swimming Jig.
“As for how to fish either of these jigs,” Naquin said, “I generally fish them slow and fast depending on the available structure, hitting as many targets as possible. But, I like to throw them on the bank and slowly drag them into the water. I’ll work them very slow or as slow as my patience will let me if the fish are on the beds and faster if the fish are staging.”
Whether you’re a local fishing club angler or pro with aspirations of perhaps one day fishing B.A.S.S. Elite Series, there is typically a driving force behind fishing tournaments. For some, it’s the money, whether that payout is $100 or $100,000.
Many of these guys fish for a paycheck.
For others, whether club or larger event, it’s the pride and prestige that simply goes with competing and winning that’s priceless.
Still, amongst all of these anglers, there are lots of guys like me that simply have caught the bass bug of which there is no cure.
What’s more, it always seems to flare up around March and April.
If you wish to make a comment or have an anecdote, recipe or story you wish to share, you can contact John K. Flores at 985-395-5586 or gowiththeflo@cox.net or visit his website at www.gowiththeflooutdoors.com.