Today I fished with a new partner, Chris "Bass Stache" Escobar on the Texas Bassholes trail. It was a "pop up" tournament not part of the 2023 season. The typical Texas weather did not match up to the forecast at all. As we say in Texas, "if you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes".

So this was my first tournament for me since mid 2022 due to some medical issues that kept me off the water for about 6 months.

I also treated myself to upgrading the tools on my boat with a new Minn Kota Target Lock. My boat is a 2019 Nitro Z20 with a Mercury 225 V8. It is equipped with two 10-foot Talons, Humminbird 10 SI+ on the console, Humminbird 15 and 9 on the bow along with the Humminbird 360 and Mega Live with Target Lock.

I am still fighting the issues that others encounter with Humminbirds, reliability! Once I installed the TargetLock, I started seeing the interference rings from the 360, something I had never had encountered before. I am still working that out.

So back to the day. Lake Worth is currently down 2.75 feet! It is already a very shallow lake with a little bit on the lake only having a max depth of about 20 feet!. This grass and rocky shorelined lake sits next to a military installation that tests jet engines all day!

We tried fishing the deepest parts of the lake first since the bass were always showing up at the bottom of the no matter where we found them and since it's still considered winter here, we thought that's the best place to start.

The weather forecast called for 7 mph out of the south until about 12 when it would pick up to 17+ mph. Well it stayed calm up until around 2:30 pm. It is foggy until around 10 and heavy overcast all day. We only saw the sun around 2:30. The temps rose to 75 degrees in the mid afternoon.

Chris managed to catch a small one mid morning, but it was less than 14" in length. Finally around noon, I caught one that measured exactly to the 14" mark using one of my own hand-painted flat-sided Squarebill 2.75 in the Bronze Bomber paint scheme. These were our only fish for the day!

We saw others who were using all types of baits to catch fish, just as Chris and I tried all types of baits and colors.

But all in all, it was great to get on the water in 2023. Stay tuned.