Lake Texoma Elite Series (BASSFest)

Brent Chapman – Competition Wrapup
Friday, June 10, 2016

> Day 1: 5, 8-05
> Day 2: 4, 7-02
> Total = 9, 15-07 (94th place)

It's amazing what I continue to learn after doing this for this long. After a finish like this you try to analyze everything and all that, but I was here a month ago and caught just a couple fish that I think put me on the wrong path.

I caught some deep-cranking back then, and then I caught a couple more doing that during practice. The whole practice was tough for me, but getting those few bites at least gave me something to have confidence in. As much as I love to flip and pitch, I should've been flipping and pitching and I should've throw more topwaters – that's how some of the better fish are being caught.

It's really not good to fish a place 5 weeks out from the tournament. I got just enough bites to steer me in the wrong direction.

I'm really disappointed to have done what I've done after having such a phenomenal start to the season. I hope that start was enough that, if I have three good tournaments in a row, I can get into the (AOY Championship) and still salvage the year. I just have to fish my way through this and it'll eventually turn back around.

Brent Chapman – Practice Recap
Tuesday, June 7, 2016

I got just enough bites over the last few days to feel good about it. It's hard to tell, but at least it's something to build on. It was an extremely tough practice and I'm going to do a lot of hoping and praying and keeping my fingers crossed. I'm on a little deal and if I can keep one bait in my hand, hopefully I'll do okay.

It's definitely a grind, but even so, I'm not about to guess what it's going to take to do well. I've just been telling people that if you catch 20 pounds a day, you'll do okay.

In practice it seemed like everybody was pretty spread out, but I was talking to Alton Jones and he said wait until tomorrow when everybody goes to where they caught fish. It seems like it's fishing fairly big, but who knows.

I guess the good thing is the weather is nice – it's sunny and hot. I can't imagine what it'd be like if it had continued to rain. They may not have been able to pull this one off.

I'm hoping tomorrow is the day when I can start to turn this season back around.

Brent Chapman – Day 1 Practice
Sunday, June 5, 2016

The water's like 9 feet high or something and from what I can tell, it's still coming up. I was here a month ago and the water was dropping – it wasn't quite this high and it was dropping like 6 inches a day. Maybe it'll start dropping now, or at least they'll get a handle on it to stop it from coming up. The good news is the rain is finally gone and hopefully things will get better.

I heard a report from up the lake a little ways that the water was just that red chocolate mud, and if they open the gates up it could pull that all the way down. If that stuff gets sucked all the way to the dam it'll make it fish even smaller.

I didn't have many bites today – maybe three or four keepers. I caught my first keeper right off the bat and when I lifted it into the boat, it came off and I got a treble hook in my hand. That put a little delay into the start of the day.

I do think I eliminated some water – I have an area I want to focus on and I never made it there today. When I get there maybe things will play out a little better.

It's just nice to finally be drying out.