Travis FLW Tour

It was a pretty poor tournament for me – I thought I would do a lot better. I had several good jig bites in practice and a lot of good dropshot bites, but I only hooked one good fish in 2 days during the tournament and that one broke me off under a big metal dock.

I thought I was dialed in pretty good, but as it turned out I didn't have the fish to do much better than I did. It just goes to show you that sometimes things don't go the way you think they're going to.

On a new lake, it's easy to get fooled into thinking you're on a good pattern when you're really not. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably fish a jig a lot more in practice.

Lake Travis has got a lot of fish in it, but they're physically challenged – not very big. Looking at it, I think you'll need 25 pounds to make the Top 10 cut after 2 days, then another 25 pounds to win it.

It's one of those lakes we fish where everybody's getting lots of bites, but getting the 2 1/2- to 3 1/2-pound kicker would be huge. We're in Texas, though, and there are some 6- to 10-pound bass in here. Whoever gets one of those could be at a huge advantage. But it's a tough fishery as far as quality. And it's not like other lakes in Texas. There's no grass, not a lot of cover other than boat docks, and the water's clear.

Really, it's a canyon-type lake. It's almost 200 feet deep at the dam, with lots of steep, rocky banks, and very little in the way of shallow flats. It's sort of like a combination of Lake of the Ozarks and Texoma.

I'm going to be fishing slowly with worms and jigs. This time of year, I'm thinking the big fish will be mixed in with the little fish, so I'll just try to catch as many fish as I can, and hopefully get some big ones.

It's a finesse-type lake, but I'll throw the jig a lot more once I've got a decent limit.