Ray Hanselman is a full-time guide at Lake Amistad and was thrilled about the opportunity to fish last week’s FLW Tour Open at Sam Rayburn Reservoir, another Texas lake known for its big-fish potential.
While he didn’t collide with any giants, he recovered from a sluggish first day that saw him come in with a limit for 8-07, which put him in 62nd place. He changed the sequence of his fishing spots on day 2 and his stringer nearly doubled to 16-09, helping him to climb 45 spots to 17th place. He jumped another seven slots on day 3 with 12-07 and wound up finishing 10th in his first tour-level tournament with 46-05.
“I’m happy,” he said. “I wish they’d have these Opens more. I can compete with these guys. I’ve fished the EverStarts and some B.A.S.S. Opens when I can. I wish I could fish more, but I can’t take off that much time from my business because if I leave my customers hanging, they’re going to go fish with somebody else.”
The first 3 days of the tournament, he picked up a good bite throwing an oversized topwater bait over shallow water. He’d then focus the bulk of his fishing time around the outside edges of grass mats. He had a productive 100-yard stretch where the bottom dropped sharply from 6 feet under the mat to 9 or 10 feet. He flipped a beaver-style bait in there and roped close to 50 fish during the tournament.
“There were some other guys fishing it, but they were fishing more of the edge and the fish seemed to be more back in it a little bit,” he said. “I don’t know if it was due to the pressure of the boats. They weren’t holding to the edge. They were back in it a ways. I did that the first day. My timing was bad. I left the area too early and tried to do some other things and ended up with what I had. I caught a lot of fish, but the big ones weren’t there.
“It seemed like they moved in or turned on in the afternoon the first 3 days. The last day, with the weather change, they were active and moving around all day. I’m happy. I wish I’d done a few things different. I’d found some deep stuff, but it’s hard to leave fish that are biting to go do that. I went out there on the last day and caught an upgrade, but then went back to the grass.”
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