Boyd Duckett – Tough Lake + Late Boat Draw = Conservative Approach

Sometimes a plan works. Or at least it almost works. I’d like to have had a few more pounds than the 9 pounds, 9 ounces I caught today on the Sabine River.

But it’s the first day of the Elite Series season, and I’m tied for 30^th place out of 113 anglers, so I’ll take it.

I felt like I had to take a conservative approach today.

I knew it was going to be a tough day. First of all, the Sabine’s a really hard place to catch a limit of fish. You can look at our leader board and see some great anglers that either zeroed or caught just one fish all day. That’s all you need to know about the conditions.

The second thing is that I had a really tough boat draw. I went out 97^th. So I decided that the smartest thing was to stay pretty close to the launch area in a couple of places where I thought I could get a limit.

I went to a place where I know there were a bunch of bedders, but I could never get on them. It was about an eight-acre lake, and I counted 15 of our Elite Series guys in there.

Fifteen anglers on eight acres makes it tough to catch a fish.

I’ll have a better draw tomorrow, but I don’t think I’m going to make any big changes. I’m pretty sure that tomorrow I’ll start fishing close to the launch again. That’s a conservative approach, and I’ll take it. I want to catch five pounds, because I think five pounds will lock me into the 50 cut, which means I’ll fish again on Saturday.

I hope it doesn’t take all day.

After I catch five pounds, if I have time I’ll make a run looking for bigger fish.

Then, if I do what I hope I’m going to do and advance to Saturday, I’ll roll the dice and go after a big bag. That means I’ll make a long run into Louisiana to the Calcasieu basin. Maybe I can catch some big fish. And maybe not.

But overall, today was a good day.

I didn’t catch anything for a long time, but the dry spell never bothered me.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.