The dates for the event this year are April 18-20. Trace Adkins will be performing, fresh off of his runner-up effort on Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice.
Last year the Toyota Texas Big Bass Classic was nice. There was lots of food and things to buy and plenty of booths to visit. This year they are charging $20 a head to walk in the gate so you can pay $4 for a hotdog, $2 for a coke or drink a $3 beer inside the roped off area.
I think this event will be a flop compared to last year due to the cover charge. The promoter has apparently lost touch with how to make an event a hit so that the sponsors and vendors do well and come back years later. This event was very well done last year, look back in the archives and you will see where I said that, but to charge people $20 to walk in the door means that a typical family will be out $200 by the time they pay for parking, some refreshments and a few trinkets from the vendors.
I’m glad I am not one of the vendors who agreed to pay a premium price for a booth only to find out later that the promoter has gotten greedy and is charging fans $20 to walk in the door. Between the sponsors’ contributions to the event and the amount they sell the TV rights for, there is plenty of money to be made without charging $20 at the door. The promoters are trying to get rich here and I suspect they will be dealt a dose of reality by East Texas fishing fans.

Here’s a little change of pace. I am visiting friends in Florida and we went out and got on some nice Spanish Mackerel. We had a great time, caught some fish and made it through some pretty rough water. These Mackerel are real fighters.
Thanks to my good friend Alan Hamilton for having me over to do some fishing. He promises to make a trip to Lake Fork to catch some bass soon.
We’re heading back out tomorrow for more. We are headed southwest to Bull Bay, near Boca Grande in search of more and bigger fish. Details to come.

Caution: This video contains “R-rated” words.

It was too nice to stay home today, so I grabbed Judi and we headed for the lake. Inspired by the comments to this post, I had to go fishing.
We got out around 3 and headed to Birch Creek. There were a good many boats out today. We got one fish in a cove just north of the 515 bridge on the west fork. Not a serious fishing trip, but a nice time on the water and one decent fish as you see in the video below.
Surface temps are rising on Lake Fork. The Spring bite will soon be ON!

To bigbasscountry.com

In your youtube videos i see you throwing hard lures a lot. I am coming down to lake fork for the second year in a row now. Last time we were there we didn’t have much luck throwing soft plastic and spinner baits. We are coming again this year the 19th though the 22nd . If you could give us any advice we could use it we want to catch a good lake fork bass!

Well the last tourny of the year has passed for me. This one was quite the ride, literally. The first day we headed out to our first spot bouncing from wave to wave. That was a treat. I never heard my motor come out of the water before.

Once we got there, we took about 15 minutes to tie up to a tree to fish. Another wet ride as we were facing the wind head on. Then after the waves stopped coming over the bow we got to fishing. A couple of small ones and we headed to a protected part of the lake. Day one passed without catching much of anything.

Day two; my partner decided he would sleep in a bit since the sun didn’t come up for another hour. I’m more the type to get out there, and it paid off. At 6:30 I started fishing, and at 6:45 had a nice fish in the well. By nice I mean a money fish, but not big money. I caught the thing on a Jig. This was on the first cast with a lure I never fish, and by never I mean I only use them when sight fishing in the spring. But anyways, he comes out around 7:oo and I had already caught 2 more. He didn’t believe me until I told him we needed to get to the weigh in to be in the first hour. Then he said “Not again”. {I’ve done this to him before.}

We spent the day chasing schooling fish in different areas, but nothing else eventful happened. All in all we had a good time.

 Little Berkley Jig = $3.99

Trailer = $3.99

Cup of coffee to wake up = $1.07

Telling your buddy you caught a money fish while he was sleeping = Priceless

I went to visit my friend Jim Dax and we fished his private pond.
Jim has 90 acres just outside of Winnsboro, Texas with a 5 acre pond on it. He has it stocked with Florida Bass. They aren’t huge, but they are plentiful. We caught dozens of fish in a 2 1/2 hour period of time on this Thursday morning.
There are bigger bass in this pond in the 5 to 7 pound range. We didn’t find them on this trip, but we had a blast catching the feisty bass we caught. At one time towards the end, I was catching a fish on almost every cast with a 1/4 oz. chrome and blue Rattle Trap.
Thanks Jim! This was a lot of fun.

Okay, so I’ve started looking for deeper spots on the lake to fish but several fishing reports suggest using jigging spoons, tail spinners, and assorted swim baits. The closest things I have used in the past were slabs for striper fishing, Little George baits for sand bass, and swim baits for crappie. Are these the same as what the fishing reports are talking about? It’s the jigging spoons that intrigue me the most. What are they exactly talking about? Is there a brand of color I should be looking for? Any help would be appreciated.