The Inside Line

When B.A.S.S. first released the 2018 Bassmaster Elite Series schedule, I saw plenty of opportunity. Most of the venues seemed perfectly suited to my style of fishing, and I was anxious to get things rolling.

Unfortunately, with each passing event that optimism faded. In the end, I was left with the worst season of my 30-plus-year career.

Every summer the Bassmaster Elite Series heads north, and that means big waves and big smallmouth. It is a fun way to fish but it also takes additional preparation to make sure my boat and the gear I use to tackle those big bronzebacks give me the best possible chance at success. Here are a few things I do to make sure all of my equipment is ready for the big water.

New lakes are always exciting, but they can be equally intimidating. I knew virtually nothing about Lake Oahe in South Dakota, other than it was huge and full of smallmouth bass … or so was the claim.

Entering this event, my expectations were high. The Upper Mississippi is thick with vegetation and other forms of shallow cover, perfect for my style and approach. In fact, my first trip to LaCrosse was particularly rewarding. The frog bite was off the hook, and I finished well within the money.

After a three-month postponement, BASS was finally able to hold the Sabine River event at Orange, Texas. The river was now back within its banks and conditions were stable after weeks of flooding.

Site selection for this year’s Texas BASSfest event was Lake Travis — a beautiful, deep and clear reservoir near the city of Austin.

The Endangered Species Act was enacted in 1973, and while there is still substantial dispute over its purpose, efficacy and interpretation, there is now a substantial body of caselaw concerning it.

The NBA All-Star Game will be played this Sunday in Charlotte, and you can be sure that both the arena and the television audience will be full of people who never laced up basketball shoes past junior high school. Their ranks may be outnumbered by fans who’ve never dribbled anything other than a beverage.

My wife Hanna is my favorite traveling companion, not only because she generally goes places I want to go and brings a good attitude, but also because she has her act together. I never have to worry about her being late or forgetting the passports or passing gas on a crowded commuter plane (for the record: she farts rainbows).

I have lots of reels from at least four different major manufacturers (plus one from the late US Reel company whose distinguishing feature was that it lacked a levelwind), and I’m just a weekend fisherman, not an engineer, so I’m not going to try to sell you on any particular brand or model.

On a trip to India this past December, my nieces spotted Aziz Ansari on vacation with his girlfriend. They approached him and he proved to be exceptionally gracious, engaging in conversation, taking pictures with them and writing each of them a short note.

I bought my first Megabass Vision 110 when they started to make a name for themselves at Table Rock and Beaver Lake, but were not yet known in many other places in the US. They certainly weren't available in tackle stores from coast to coast, and ardent acquirers were paying up to a hundred clams to get one in one of the "right" colors. 

There’s no question that a wacky-rigged Senko has produced more fish for me than any other over the past fifteen years or so, despite the fact that I was comparatively late adopter of the stubby, salt-laden stick of plastic. I had my chances, but even as friends touted its merits I still held out.

In November of 1997, I was a third-year associate at a law firm, spending ridiculous hours working on a financially substantial ratemaking matter before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The case was reaching a boiling point that fall, which was not a problem for my ledger of billable hours, but nevertheless caused me great angst because I had qualified to fish as a co-angler at the FLW Championship (before its name had been changed to the Forrest Wood Cup) on Lake Ferguson in Greenville, Mississippi.