This wasn’t Josh Douglas’ first rodeo. The Mound, Minn., native has experienced the ups and down of high-stakes tournaments before, but the Lake Travis FLW Tour was a special kind of roller-coaster ride.
He zeroed on day 1 at Lake Guntersville, caught one fish the second day and wound up 156th in his Tour debut. His struggles continued on day 1 at Travis as he weighed just three for 2-12, which had him in 154th. His rally on day 2 was something to behold. He sacked 18-15 (the third-heaviest stringer of the day) and moved up 127 – 127! – places to 27th and earn a $10,000 payday.
“I’ve fished the (Bassmaster) Opens the last four years so I’m no stranger to having good and bad tournaments,” Douglas said. “I liked Travis. I liked that I could fish with spinning rods. It reminded me of a spot fishery, but that hurt me.”
Practice was a challenge as he found fish doing different things under frontal conditions. He had success on bluff ends and rocky points near spawning coves.
“I also saw fish in some trees in the mouths of pockets, but finding a quality bite was almost impossible,” he said. “I was trying to weed through 30 fish to come up with 11 pounds.”
Poor execution hurt him on day 1 of the tournament when he targeted fish relating to trees with a dropshot.
“Day 1 was post front,” he said. “I didn’t fish clean. I lost a 3 1/2-pounder in a schooling spot on a dropshot. I broke off another good one. I’d get over them in the trees and could catch them like clockwork. I was determined I’d get a big bite eventually. I scraped together those three fish for 3 pounds. If I get those other two in, it’s a different story.”
Speaking of different stories, he changed areas and baits, opting to focus on an area near where the Pedernales and Colorado rivers converged.
“There was a lot of 20-, 30- and 50-foot water up there and lots of brush and bushes,” he said. “The wind was perfect. I could catch little ones dropshotting, then my co-angler broke off a 3 1/2-pounder that we both saw.”
After that, he started flipping a green-pumpkin jig (with a green-pumpkin purple flake trailer) into bushes and his first two flips immediately drew fish out from the cover, but he failed to connect with either. Eventually, his execution improved and he caught two 4-pounders and a 6 1/2 in an hour to fuel his rally.
“The fish had moved in and were ready to rock and roll,” he said. “The water was up to 64 (degrees) and it was one of those coves with plenty of rock in there so the sun had beating down on them. If I would’ve been able to spend another hour in there, I could’ve caught a really big bag. The smallest fish were out in the trees, but the big ones were on the bank. There was still six feet of water on the bank.
“It was a heckuva jump,” he added. “I didn’t think I’d jump that high.”
The Sunline Strong Performer, which focuses on the angler who makes the most significant single-day move in the standings at each tour-level event, is brought to you by the great people at Sunline.
