Tox,
I'm a bank beater as well as being a tide-runner. I got so accustomed to running the tide at most places I fished in VA, that it just became my mode of operation over the years. I would check tide charts and map out my game plan before a tournament. Run to my first spot, fish fish fish, crank it up, run to the next spot, etc... all day long. Sometimes, I just knew where the fish would hold and mapped out my game plan that way, but it was often based on the tide too.
I've never been really consistent on lakes - even when I lived in VA. Occasionally, everything would come together and I'd win a tournament on Gaston, Kerr or Roanoke Rapids, but most of the time those locations gave me fits. I'd take a tidal river over the lake 9 times out of 10.
In the one tournament that I thought I had "really caught onto something" on Falcon, I was fishing as a co-angler in the back of someones boat. We found a ditch going through a cove and I wanted to fish it. I immediately started catching fish on a shakey-head rig, just drawing it down the edges of the ditch. I caught a couple fish that were barely below the legal length, but wanted to fish it out some more to see if there were any larger to be found. Instead, my boater pulled out to deep water, tied on a DD22, and started chunking and winding to who-knows-what structure. We did that for a long time - with no results. He didn't want to go back to the ditch we found, as it was too shallow for his tastes. If I were in my boat, I would have milked it a bit longer to see what I could catch. At least it would have been something in the boat, even if it was barely over the length limit. I don't recall, but I think I went to the weigh-in empty handed, and I don't recall him having fish either.
I have only fished Amistad twice - both times as a non-boater in club tournaments. The lake level was VERY high, and we were fishing areas that the GPS showed as us being way up on land. The water was crystal clear in the places we fished, and we weren't getting any bites. My boaters were bank-beaters too, but you could plainly see everything from the surface down to about 15 feet of water. We didn't catch anything on one trip, and on the other I caught a bunch of small ones on a topwater lure that I was casting into some pockets in topped out grass. Weird part of both of those trips - going through the border patrol check point on the way home. :lol: And no... I'm not joking about that.
I am not giving up. I know the fish are there. I just have to completely reprogram 14 years of tidal fishing into the techniques that will pay off here. Bank beating can (and will) work. I just haven't figured it out completely yet. It's way more luck than skill for me at this point. It's like I've started over. Frustrating. I'll get it though.
All the best,
Glenn
