By David Xiong
Sam Rayburn Reservoir is no stranger to Shaine Campbell. Being a guide on the lake, Shaine spends a good amount of time on its waters. His experience helped determine what areas he and his partner, Wyatt Franckens, would be fishing during the third Bass Champs event of the year.
Shaine would focus on similar areas he fished in the first Bass Champs stop on Rayburn, looking for offshore transition areas and targeting fish that were going in and out of spawning areas. This time around, this approach would pay off.
With the increased fishing pressure that Sam Rayburn receives especially in the early part of the year, the goal was to target the bigger bites that come in the morning. Staying no more than 10 to 15 minutes at each spot, they would catch one or two fish before leaving. The use of forward facing sonar definitely helped in finding the most cooperative fish.
By the time 8:30 am rolled around, Shaine and Wyatt had caught 35 pounds primarily fishing a jighead-minnow combination. The initial plan was casting a skirted jig and throwing crank baits on baitcast gear but they found out really quick that the fish keyed in on a finesse baitfish presentation. This technique caught all of the fished weighed in that day. Shaine preferred to use a Queens Tackle jighead while Wyatt used one from 6th Sense. The 1/4 oz was the key size.
Knowing that the morning bite was starting to fizzle out and unsure that they had the win sealed, the only option left was hopefully stumbling across a really big fish. With the trolling motor on high and looking for timber, they went to a “secret” spot that Shaine only recently found. Around 1:30 pm, Wyatt would cast out to a suspended fish he saw on the graph.
Thinking it was a catfish, the bass jumped out of the water close to the boat. Shaine knew it was a 10 pounder and corraled the beast in the net.
Once Wyatt caught what would be the big fish of the tournament, the two of them decided to head back to weigh in even though check in was at 3:30 pm. When Shaine took a look at their catch, he marveled at how comfortably 39.5 pounds of largemouth bass fit in the FXR20 livewells. On one side was a 6, 7 and 9 pounder while another 6 and the 10 swam in the other.
“It’s always a good day when you can’t see the bottom of the livewells. The Skeeter livewells kept them alive all day.”
One thing that Shaine does with his livewells in the early part of the season is to put in the overflow plugs and occasionally cycling new water throughout the day. Using a livewell treatment helped ensure that Shaine and Wyatt were able to bring all of their fish alive to the weigh-in stage, feeling pretty good about their chances of winning.
Once the scales closed, Shaine and Wyatt would end up gapping the field by 8 pounds. Besides the big fish and first place trophy, the team also finished as the highest team registered with Skeeter Real Money, which netted them an extra $10,000 in this event. An awesome day with big fish, a big trophy and big checks.
