If Kevin Van Dam says fishing from the Sabine River is going to be a challenge, you can bet that even though the best bass fishermen are in town for the Sabine River Challenge, catching solid limits will be tough.
Van Dam, the sports most decorated fishermen with seven Angler of the Year titles, four Classic Championships, and this year he picked up his 25th tournament win of his career when he won at Grand Lake in Oklahoma.
“Even though we’ve been here twice, this is a new animal,” he said. “A different time of year and new boundaries. The last two times (2013 and 2015) I made long runs east and caught my fish in Louisiana like a lot of us did. Now that it’s Texas only it presents a new challenge.”
“If the water stays as clear as it’s been with little rain, it will give us more bait options,” he said. “And the fish are going to be in different locations. Before it was trying to find protected canals, dead end areas and shallow flats. And now the fish will be looking for places with higher oxygen levels, still in the vegetation, but there will be a lot more fish on the main river.” And that’s why the practice time from Monday to Wednesday is so important because you don’t have time to figure it out once the tournament starts. You have two days to out fish half of the other 100 anglers. If you’re not fishing Saturday, you’re not going home with a check.
Most of the anglers haven’t fished our area since they were here in 2015. And the original tournament was scheduled for April but the dangers with the rising water postponed it to this weekend. “My schedule didn’t allow me to come down here after fishing Lake Travis (May 17-20) and of course I didn’t plan on coming in the spring after it got flooded,” said Van Dam. “So I’ll put together my best game plan and see what happens. You know, logistically, the challenge here is that there are vast areas to cover but the fish are not everywhere, they’re just grouped in small areas.”
This is a critical tournament for the anglers as they’re at the halfway point of the season. The Sabine River Challenge will be a make or break tournament for many anglers in the hunt for Angler of the Year honors. Van Dam is currently 14th.
He added, “If you can have a good tournament here, you’re setting yourself up for the stretch run. We’ve got four events left in the regular season including the Sabine. It’s critical for all of the guys in contention so there’s some added stress on this one.”
-Gary Stelly, KOGT-
Current top 20 in the Toyota Angler of the Year standings
Rank Name PTS
1 Brent Chapman 382
2 Cliff Pace 350
3 Josh Bertrand 346
4 Jared Lintner 339
5 Bradley Roy 320
6 Greg Vinson 317
7 Skeet Reese 314
8 Aaron Martens 312
9 Greg Hackney 312
10 A Montgomery 311
11 Brett Hite 310
12 Jacob Wheeler 308
13 Justin Lucas 304
14 Kevin VanDam 300
15 J Powroznik 300
16 Jason Christie 297
17 Adrian Avena 297
18 Bobby Lane Jr. 295
19 Takahiro Omori 294
20 Mark Daniels Jr. 291
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