Lake D’Arbonne, 03/18/23

[J.W.]

Boated my son and his partner this morning for the TBF Junior Louisiana Championship tournament at D'Arbonne.

Only 17 teams registered. I think there were about 70 last year, I'm not sure why the huge drop-off, but since TBF only lets the top 10% move on, it meant only first place would advance from the Louisiana Championship this year. I was hoping they'd round 1.7 (10% of 17) up to two teams, but no dice.

Water temp was 57-59 F. Water clarity varied all over the lake, but where we ran to the water was clean but stained. As much trouble as we had pre fishing yesterday, it surprisingly didn't take us long to put a pattern together this morning and the boys had a limit of five in the livewell by 9:35 AM. My son lost two good ones after that.

By 11:00 or so the wind picked up from a slight ripple to whitecaps, and related or not, the bite absolutely dropped off and we couldn't buy a bite after that. We really needed to cull at least one fish, preferably two, but never could make it happen.

We went to weigh-in with a limit, but a light one. Didn't quite go 10 lb, but it turned out to be enough in the end. They ended up winning, and another Benton team, all great guys that we fish other tournaments with, ended up in second for a Benton Middle School 1-2. I think they might've been the only two teams with a limit today.

I was pretty shocked that our weight was enough, but the boys and I are stoked about moving on to the World Championship at the end of July, wherever TBF decides to hold it. We've never really fished much outside the ArkLaTex area, so this'll be something completely new for us. We should know the fishery in a month or so.

Win or no win, I couldn't be prouder of the boys for keeping their heads down on an unfamiliar lake, including pre fishing through some nasty weather that would make anyone want to go back home. They stuck with it, and I'm glad they saw some results for their work.

[BassmanRudy]

Awesome!! Way to go!! Congrats to your both Benton teams!

[J.W.]

Thanks, we're still in a state of disbelief 
My son says he loves D'Arbonne now and wants to go back. There was a lot of water we didn't get to see, so we may go back and fish it some after his school tournaments are over.

[BassmanRudy]

Def an unique lake. 2 major creek arms with tons of -shallow/deep/timber/rock/grass/docks to fish. Worth fishing for sure.

[Donald Garner]

J.W.
Congratulations to your son and his team mate     Keep us posted on the next event location.  You did a great job of putting them on the fish also 

Tks for sharing the trip and event with us also    Do they just fish in Louisiana or will they get to fish in East Texas for the Championship?

[Smallie_Stalker]

Congrats! Great job of putting them on the winning fish.

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

[J.W.]

J.W.
Congratulations to your son and his team mate     Keep us posted on the next event location.  You did a great job of putting them on the fish also 

Tks for sharing the trip and event with us also    Do they just fish in Louisiana or will they get to fish in East Texas for the Championship?

Thanks. It could be any bass fishery in the US, and they change it every year. I'm guessing since it's going to be at the end of July it'll probably be a highland reservoir somewhere that's not a billion degrees like it gets down here in July/August, but that's just a guess.

[Bigbass201]

Tough day.  Way to go getting some bites.

[J.W.]

Just an update on this.
Most of the states that qualify teams have been posting their state champs on their websites. Here's the one they posted on the boys:
https://louisianabassfederation.com/

Also, this afternoon TBF released the location of the Junior World Championship. It'll be on Sooner Lake near Ponca City, Oklahoma. It's a deep power plant lake. Looks like lots of offshore structure, but hard to tell much about it from satellite images.

Oh, and it looks like we'll be fishing against Edwin Evers and his son:
http://okbass.org/

Ought to be fun. I think we're gonna try to get a pre-fishing trip in before off-limits starts.

[Donald Garner]

J.W. best wishes to your son and his team mate on the upcoming Championship Round.  Safe travels to and from the site.  Hope y'all stick'm good 

Tight Lines
Don

[J.W.]

Thanks Don, much appreciated!