BROOKELAND, Texas – The second season of the Invitationals will launch this week at Sam Rayburn Reservoir. Competition days are Friday through Sunday.
The tournament will feature a field of 150 anglers, including the Bass Pro Tour’s Kelly Jordon of Flint, Texas; Keith Carson of DeBary, Florida; Drew Gill of Mount Carmel, Illinois; and Keith Poche of Pike Road, Alabama. They’ll be joined by a stout field of competitors, including Bass Fishing Hall of Famers Paul Elias of Laurel, Mississippi and Shaw Grigsby of Gainesville, Florida, along with former Boston Red Sox player Mike Greenwell , a two-time Major League Baseball All-Star and 1988 American League MVP runner-up.
Some of the “normal” winter patterns at Rayburn could still be effective. Marshall Hughes, an Invitationals rookie who lives in nearby Hemphill, Texas, said his pre-practice period taught him a few new things and confirmed some old news.
“There is some good grass left in the water, but a lot of it is straight-walled, really thick and really tall,” Hughes explained. “Right now, you’re fishing the edge of the grass line, and it was two inches under the water. Some areas had some good stuff, but there could be more if the water comes up.”
That extremely tall grass is a product of low water. Prior to the water coming down, there was a lot of grass in Rayburn. In pre-practice, a lot of it was literally on the bank – it should look more normal now.
“You’re going to have to mix up the shallow bite and the offshore bite to be able to win it,” predicted Hughes. “This is the first time I’ve fished Rayburn this low, but I saw some fish in some areas that they should be. I was surprised almost to see them in certain places where it is shallower that are normally a lot deeper. But I did find some fish in areas where I’ve never caught them before.”
One thing that Hughes noted is that strictly combing open water with forward-facing sonar is unlikely to be a winning gameplan. For fans that like to see long casts or a little more targeted fishing, that could be good news if he’s right.
“I don’t want to say that it can be won straight ‘Scoping, because I don’t think it can be,” he said. “I ‘Scoped a lot in pre-practice, and I didn’t catch one that was over 3 pounds. But, if you’ve got five 3-pounders and you could catch a kicker every day, that’d be pretty damn good. I think you’re still going to need to do the traditional things – drag a jig, throw a Carolina rig and fish a lipless (crankbait).”
That doesn’t mean nobody will be looking at screens, but it’s likely that we’ll see forward-facing sonar enhance presentations as much or more than it defines patterns. So, a pro targeting a hard spot or a brush pile might judge the reaction of bass on their screen, but they may not find the fish with it. Or, you might get a scenario like Michael Neal’s 2022 win, when he caught a lot of fish on a jerkbait that he beamed up around main-lake drains – simply using an efficient technique and modern sonar to exploit a pattern that has been present since Big Sam was flooded in 1965.
Anglers will launch at 7 a.m. CT each day from the Umphrey Family Pavilion, located at 5438 Sam Rayburn Parkway in Brookeland. Weigh-ins will also be held at the pavilion and will begin at 3 p.m.
