Last week, Justin McClelland introduced himself to BassFans as he and father Mike kicked off a summer tournament odyssey that will see them travel the country together while competing in the Bassmaster Central and Northern Opens. It’s Justin’s first taste of national-level tournament competition from the front of the boat while Mike is hoping he can provide guidance and maybe learn a few things himself along the way.

The first stop on the trek was the Arkansas River Central Open out of Muskogee, Okla. There was no storybook ending with father-son finishing atop the standings, but something pretty cool did happen even though both experienced their share of struggles – they finished with the same total weight, a tie! Officially, Mike finished 96th while Justin was 97th, but both tried to take away the positives from the experience.

In the latest Open Road Journal below, both Justin and Mike offer up some post-Arkansas River reflections:

Justin’s View

Throughout the season, I plan on trying to be at the different venues at least five days before the event starts. For this event, I applied the same logic.

I practiced for the event for six days. I really felt that I had a real good grasp on things leading up to the event – I had a decent practice. I felt like I had three areas in the pool that we took off from that I could catch some fish. I also felt that I had three or four areas in the Afton pool where I could catch some. I even had two different areas in the Claremore pool that I felt would be areas I could catch some.

In a perfect world, I would have been able to fish in the main pool and catch enough to make the Top 12, then risk it all and go to the Claremore pool for the final day. Of course, things never work that way. It seemed like every day that I put the boat into the water there was something different going on.

All through practice I got a fair number of quality bites on wood. In the tournament, I never caught one on a piece of wood. I found out real quick the first day of the event that, again, I was going to have to adapt to a different river due to it changing every day. Every fish that I weighed in I caught on some sort of grass.

Playing It Safe

The number one mistake that I made in this event was being conservative with my decisions. I chose to stay close on day 1 of the event, instead of going where I had located the fish I felt like I could win with.

The reason I felt the need to stay somewhat close or not lock on the first day was due to what time I was due in – 2:15. Where this came back to bite me was on the morning of day 2 when I was sitting in the lock to enter the Afton pool and I called the Newtt Gramm lock. At that time, I found out that even on day 2 I was not going to get to lock up to the fish I had found in the Claremore pool, due to barge traffic.

Dad and I

The best part of the event was getting to spend time with and work with my dad to try to help locate the fish that we could both have good finishes with.

Throughout practice we would each enter an area or creek and he would fish one side and I would fish down the other to try to narrow down where the fish were quicker. This worked really well because we were able to cover twice as much water as a guy trying to figure it out on his own. After we would fish through an area we would then meet up and compare what happened or where we got bites.

Different Approach

Oneida Lake (first Northern Open) will be a totally different animal and I understand that. I feel that I should have a little better understanding on it than I did on the river for sure. The one thing that I plan on doing different is not playing it as safe as I did at the Arkansas River. Being that it was my first event I was a little bit nervous. I feel that I have got all the nervous jitters out of the way now and am ready to move on.

A Tie!

It definitely was pretty crazy that dad and me tied in the event. I don’t think that either one of us even saw that coming nor even predicted that for an outcome. Hopefully, at the next event if we tie it will be for 1st place instead of middle of the pack.

Open Mike

The event went by really fast, but it was great to have the opportunity to hang out with Justin and his wife, Laura. Kevin Short and his wife stayed next to us so we had a good, enjoyable time while we were there.

On the water, we were both on them better than what our results showed. I felt like I had maybe one of the worst two-day periods of fishing performance in some time in terms of putting fish in the boat. I just didn’t capitalize on opportunities and I’d occasionally get carried away with a spinnerbait. On day 1, my first bite was a 4- to 5-pounder and I was just too quick to react and took the bait away from the fish. I threw a buzzbait for three days in practice and didn’t jerk once with a hook cover on. I recovered, though, and went down the bank and put the next one in the boat, then lost the next three that bit me.

Working Together

The thing about the Arkansas River, especially the section we chose to focus on, is it has a lot of old oxbows off the river that don’t have flow in them. They are truly backwater areas without flow. There is a couple you can’t run in or out of. We went into the backwaters and one of us would take a side. We covered as much as we could and I felt like we did a god job. We narrowed it down to a couple areas with good fish in them.

The interesting part was Justin covered more water than I probably did. He chose to fish different baits than I did. Occasionally, we’d both pick something up and flip, but we were able to narrow the color choices down to a couple options – black neon and smoke silver with black/blue.

Regrouping

It was pretty frustrated conversation (after day 1) due to the fact that we’d both had opportunities to come out with a pretty good day and didn’t capitalize on them. Justin weighed in first so I knew what he had. My wife was like, “Justin kicked your butt today.”

I chose to lock twice on day 1 and that limited my fishing time – I spent two hours locking and another hour running, but that was my decision. I figured the five to seven bites I could get were better quality than I’d get in other parts of the river.

The Takeaway

The biggest thing he probably learned from this one is simply the fact that these 8-hour fishing days aren’t any different than what he’s used to in the regional events back home. Once you get over the shock and awe of whom you’re competing against and realize everybody puts their pants on the same way as he does, you get those first tournament jitters out of your system. I don’t think that affected his mentality on the water.

I saw him on day 2 and he didn’t have one yet, but he was calm and collected. There was no panic. He settled in. I saw him again an hour later and he had two and I had one. He opted to go a different way than I did.

I’m encouraged that I see no panic at all. He’s very confident in his decisions. As a young angler, if you have the opportunity to work with a sibling or parent or a travel partner, if you’re struggling you tend to go with they’re doing. I never saw that with Justin. He’s going to do it his way and that’s very encouraging. I’ve seen it at times in my career where guys are too reliant on what others are doing and saying. He wasn’t that way at all.

After it was over, he said, “Well pop, I guess it was just meant to be.” Justin and I are both very God-believing and faith-driven men and we didn’t leave there with one feeling like one kicked the other’s butt. It was more like, “Let’s go on to the next one.”

Check back after the Oneida Lake Northern Open (June 30-July 2) for the next entry in the McClelland's Open Road Journal.