If you haven't been on Rayburn recently the fishing has been pretty good, and in some places great. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I found one of those great places the Sunday before Labor Day. In the span of about 3 hours I probably boated 40 fish up to about four and a quarter. Although I knew I couldn't catch the 31 lbs that Clayton and Albert caught a few weeks earlier, I also knew something in the high teens with a chance to get lucky with a big fish or two and get into the 20's was worth an entry fee. My fish were north and if you haven't been up there recently the awfully invasive giant salvinia (its scientific name is better, Molesta Salvinia) has covered up vast shoreline and bays all the way down below the 147 bridge. I happened to be on the phone with Albert on Thursday and he knew the area I was fishing, and he gave what can only be described as an evil chuckle. When I pressed him as to the chuckle he warned me to be careful depending on that area as he had witnessed the Corp spraying the area trying to kill the salvinia on Wednesday. Unfortunately I was familiar with what happens when defoliant gets sprayed on the area you are fishing as it happened to me in a Bass Champs championship on the Red River several years ago. Even more unfortunately I was only able to find one other small group of fish on Friday, so with one 3 lber in the bag after a pass on the fish I found Friday I went up there and spent almost 3 hours trying to coax those fish into biting. What was really strange is there were still numbers of small fish in the area, but alas only one over the 3 lb mark landed on my carpet. Add a 4 1/2 on a frog off the other fish late in the day and that's how one gets their butts kicked at Rayburn in September. Can anyone say skake bitten in 2016?   

I always carry my GoPro and Nikon on the water because you never know when, well when a Bigfoot may run across a cove in front of you or fall out of a tree or whatever they do on a daily basis. So the other morning on Rayburn I'm watching a beautiful sunrise when into the picture fishes Steve "Moonpie" Evans and I realize I don't have my camera with me, so I shoot this with my iPhone....and you know what, that actually may be a Bigfoot in a Triton.

Speaking of Bigfoot, I'm fishing in the 1215 area of Toledo earlier this year which has a series of islands through it. Two years ago, my favorite TV show Finding Bigfoot (which is very much like the Scooby Doo TV show with BoBo as Scooby and Ranae as Velma only without the Mystery Wagon) filmed an episode near Zwolle LA, which is maybe 10 miles from the 1215 area I'm fishing. About 9 that morning I hear a guy..or a Bigfoot, doing the really loud yell like they do on the TV show. I chuckle to myself and keep fishing. 10 minutes later he does another only this one is closer, another 10 minutes and he does another and it sounds like he's only a couple of hundred yards from me. Then all of the sudden on the backside of the island I'm fishing I hear something come crashing through the brush and into the water and I can hear it swimming. Now I know in my heart of hearts that it's deer this guy has spooked....but I'm just enough of a 12 years old, with cameras on board, that I crank up and run around there just to make sure, well to make sure I'm not missing the chance of a lifetime to film a Bigfoot...2 does and a fawn, i sat there for 5 minutes laughing at myself...but I'm ready when he shows himself and when I'm famous from the footage I shoot I'm buying a van painted as the Mystery Wagon to pull my Ranger with.

First big congrats to my friend Ricky Guy on a spectacular tournament, and also to friends Chris McCall and Cory Rambo on giving him a good chase. About a year ago I left Rayburn in a well documented pretty bad mood (see Rayovac Lessons learned article). This year, although I finished poorly, I think overall I made good decisions and I fished an almost flawless tournament as far as landing what bit. Actually might be kind of interesting to see what my fellow fisherman think, so here goes my week, what I thought, what I saw, and the decisions I made. You guys and girls tell me if you would have done differently. First we spend Friday and Saturday on Toledo fishing the Texas Team Trail, I can honestly say I have never thrown back a 15 lb limit knowing we would not get a check, but we did there. I left there realizing that the fish had moved up and in a big way, even though I went shallow for a few minutes Friday afternoon and saw some fish cruising and setting up on bed, guys catching mid 20's off the nest blew my mind, BUT it made me watch the water levels and weather forecasts for the following week really closely. If you a don't recall we had a full moon on Monday with unbelievably warm weather forecast until the day before the tournament when we were to see first wind, then rain, then mid 30's nighttime temps.

So my first day on Rayburn was Sunday and my buddy Steve "Moonpie" Evan joined me for a day of fishing. We spent the day fishing for fish that the cold weather would push back out into the drains, we knew (continued)