Many of the Bassmaster Elite fishermen that weren’t already in town started arriving Sunday for the tournament that will begin Thursday and run through Sunday. They will get to practice Monday-Wednesday and try to figure out what the Sabine River and surrounding Texas waters will offer them as they battle for $100,000 in the Sabine River Challenge.
A handful of Elites showed up Sunday at a “Meet the Pros” event at Rambo Outdoors. Ish Monroe held class with a group of LCM High School bass fishermen talking about the different techniques and how sometimes the slightest tweak of a bait when fish aren’t biting, can make all the difference.
The Elites have been here twice, in 2013 and 2015 and they know what we all know, that fishing for limits can be tough. Only a handful of guys have brought home checks both times and Monroe is one of those fishermen.
Monroe, 44, from California, has won four Elite Tournaments in his career and finished in the top ten 31 times. He would love to win number five here in Orange.
“I like the Sabine,” he told KOGT. “Mainly because I don’t have to worry about fishing deep! I can leave those rods in the box and get to ‘froggin and flippin’.”
Unlike the first two times when the event was held in the spring, this weekends event is in June when it’s usually hot, sticky and still.
“Yeh it will be a little different because we’ll be limited with the water level, but I think it’s going to fish bigger than most people think because now the main river channel is in play which gives us more options,” Monroe said. “Before the fish were stuffed into pockets trying to spawn.”
The Elites will be able to fish the Louisiana side of the Sabine River, but everything else on the Louisiana side is off limits. Back in August 2017, B.A.S.S. Tournament Director Trip Weldon announced, “Due to the grey areas in the Louisiana Delta/Tidal waters that could create an uneven playing field, the 2018 Elite event in Orange will be restricted to Texas waters only.”
In Louisiana, landowners who hold property on both sides of a channel, even in tidal sections, often can claim the channel as private water, and they do not have to clearly post signage alerting anglers. In previous tournaments, sections of prime fishing water were open in early rounds of competition but closed later in the week.
In April, A bill (HB 391) that would have restored anglers’ rights to access public waters in Louisiana was voted down in the state legislature by a vote of 37-59.
“It sucks we can’t fish in Louisiana because I know there’s good fishing over there,” Monroe said. “But we’re all in the same situation so it is what it is. I worry that it’s going to stack us up and I don’t like fishing behind anyone. But if I have to I’ll fish slower and use smaller baits.”
Anglers will launch from the Orange Boat Ramp daily at 6:30am and weigh-in begins at 3pm.
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