Up and Adam Adventures

Today I got to check off the bucket list item. The Bassmaster Classic has been held on Lake Ray Roberts in Texas several times and is the site of the upcoming 2025 Classic. I’ve wanted to fish this lake since I heard about it during the 2021 Classic. I happened to be working in the Dallas area this week so this evening when I was done with work for the day, I headed up to the lake to get in an hour or so of fishing. I found a rocky point near one of the boat ramps and started slinging a shaky head. Using a Zoom trick worm in green pumpkin blue on Whack’Um 1/4 oz. shaky head, I was able to get a few bites from small fish hanging out on the point. Nothing big, but I got to scratch the itch and catch a Lake Ray Roberts bass. 

 This year, the regional championship for the Mississippi division of the BFL’s was held on Wright Patman Lake near Texarkana, TX. I had a really rough season in the Mississippi division so I wasn’t planning to make the championship but as it turned out, I ended up ranked number 43 and the top 45 anglers from each division go to the championship. I had no experience on the lake and outside of YouTube videos from NPFL anglers who had fished there several times, there wasn’t a lot of information available online. My plan was to treat it like any lake in the fall and just go fishing. My first day of practice was decent enough. I caught a few fish, but nothing of any real size. It was typical fall junk fishing and there was no consistent depth or pattern to where I was catching fish. This is more or less what I expected so I went into day, two of practice, hoping to expand and find some new areas to fish About 8:30 on day two I hit a stump with the lower unit of my outboard. I initiall...

After a whole week of slow hunting, it all came together in the last 15 minutes of shooting light Friday night. This bull woke up ready to fight, and in the rush of trading bugles with him and running in for a last minute chance at success, I made a bad shot. With very little blood and daylight running out in Grizzly country, I backed out and waited until morning, praying a grizz or wolf didn’t bump him and that a rain shower didn’t wash away what little blood trail I had. It took a while Saturday morning, half blood-trailing, half grid-searching but about 500 yards from where I shot there he lay.  I’ve hunted this particular unit in Wyoming for about 11 years off and on, had more “almosts” than anywhere else, but never have been able to close the deal. It feels good to finally notch that tag.

  Tagged out in Illinois! I passed on this buck this morning and as soon as he got by me I instantly began to regret it. I told Wayne Nations as we were headed to our stands this evening that if I saw him again I wasn’t going to let him go again. Well, he slipped up and retraced his steps this evening.

Over the last few years one of my favorite hunts has become a bonus whitetail hunt that I get to do in Wyoming. It’s a special Type 3 tag that runs through the peak of the whitetail rut in November, and in addition to this Any Whitetail tag I usually pick up a doe tag or two as well.  I hunt for these tasty critters on checkerboarded state land around agriculture, and this type of hunt usually involves a lot of waiting until the deer wander off of a neighboring ranch onto public land. Then it’s a matter of getting into range and set up for a shot before the deer bust you or keep moving onto another ranch.  I’ve been fortunate to tag several whitetail on the same section of state land 3 years in a row. This year my dad had a doe tag as well so he got to tag along, and in addition to a doe, I killed the biggest whitetail buck I’ve killed in Wyoming. He put me through the wringer waiting for him to stand up so I could take a shot over the y’all grass he was bedded in, t...

This year I fished the WONBass US Open on Lake Mead in Nevada for the first time. This has been a bucket list tournament for me for as long as I’ve known about it. The Open is a huge derby and draws some of the top anglers from not only the West but nationwide. This year’s field included anglers from the BASS Elite Series, Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour and FLW Tour, in addition to WONBass’s own roster of talented Western hammers. The Open uses a unique Pro-Am format that combines the weight of the boater and non-boater (called a AAA) each day. The next day new partners are drawn and that pair again shares their weight for the day. This format is featured in the US Open and the Arizona and California Opens, which are also WONBass events.  Earlier this year I decided to take the leap and sign up as a AAA, or non-boater. I wanted to get my feet wet without getting in over my head with a field this big. As the summer went on, I connected with some of the guys I fished agai...

I am very excited to announce that I have started my own YouTube channel ! This is something I’ve been toying with for years, and I’ve been sitting on a lot of footage of my hunting trips with no real plan on what to do with it. I decided there is no time like the present to get the ball rolling.  My first video is about fishing for smallmouth on my home lake. I’m not ready to make any promises about the type of content I’m going to put out, other than it will be outdoor lifestyle related. As I get more familiar with my cameras and editing software I hope to figure out what type of video I do best, but until then this is all one big experiment. Please check out my first video and let me know what you think. If it’s your cup of tea, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel . Then look for more content coming soon!