SHREVEPORT, La. — When Gene Jensen signed up for the Bassmaster Kayak Series event at Caddo Lake/Lake Bistineau, he had every intention of fishing Caddo Lake on the Texas/Louisiana border, so much so that he booked an Airbnb as close to the lake as he could.
Right after he booked the house, Jensen realized he had overlooked something. He thought initially only Caddo Lake was legal fishing waters, but soon discovered Bistineau was fishable water for the tournament as well.
“Honestly, it didn’t click that Bistineau was even one of the places we could fish. I read it, but it never registered in my brain,” Jensen explained.
So, when tournament week rolled around, Jensen found himself making an 80-mile one-way trek to Lake Bistineau every day, which turned out to be the winning move for the YouTuber known as “Flukemaster.”
With a total of 198.5 inches, Jensen claimed the top spot at the final Kayak Series event of the season, earned $11,000 in prize money and a trip to the 2025 Bassmaster Kayak Series Championship. The Georgia angler caught 98.25 inches on Day 1 before landing 100.25 inches on the final day to edge out Texas angler Matthew Scotch by 1/2 inch and Day 1 leader Abby Abbondanza by 1.5 inches.
“This wasn’t even my goal,” Jensen said. “My goal was a Top 5 because I knew I didn’t want to fish Lake Hartwell for the Georgia B.A.S.S. Nation State Championship. Hartwell and I never get along. But I told my travel partner before the tournament started that I knew what was going on on the lake. When I know what is going on all over the lake, I am deadly. That doesn’t happen very often. I can think of two other times that has happened, and I won both of those tournaments. It was pretty neat to feel that again.”
While he has fished the lakes several times, the shallow-water nature of the fisheries does not set up for his offshore style of fishing. But when Jensen realized he could go to Lake Bistineau, he was excited for one main reason: Each year, the lake is drawn down several feet in an attempt to combat the invasive giant salvinia that have infiltrated the lake.
The drawdown concentrates the bass in more predictable places, Jensen said, which helped him find his primary area.
Jensen spent six days of practice on Bistineau, only spending one day on Caddo to check some of the areas he fished during an August scouting trip. Each day on Bistineau, he landed over 90 inches while his lone day at the latter produced only 70 inches.
“I was catching 90 inches just searching. I went to Caddo and hit what I knew and caught 70 inches and said, ‘Nope.’ I made the decision that night to commit to Bistineau no matter what,” he said.
His best area was at the back of a long drain where the bass were funneling in and out. The middle of the drain was as deep as 4 feet, but many of the bass were up in 2 to 3 feet of water around cypress trees, laydowns and stumps. He also saw what looked like bluegill beds on his Lowrance SideScan, but those turned out to be little depressions he believes the bass were making to find hard bottom for relief from the current.
“I’m guessing 5,000-plus acres of that lake drains down into this (area) when they draw it down,” he said. “So, all of the bass in those acres pulled down into this deeper ditch. I found it on Monday, and when I went to check it again on Wednesday, they had moved a little deeper because the lake had dropped about an inch.”
A Nichols Lures Pulsator spinnerbait with white willowleaf blades caught all of his bass. Jensen only had one in his kayak during practice, but luckily a friend was traveling to the tournament a few days later and was able to pick a couple up on his way into town.
“I caught 40 or 50 on one of those spinnerbaits before it broke,” he said. “White on white in dirty water just shows up a lot better whether it is sunny or cloudy.”
On Day 1, Jensen landed six bass in six casts to open Day 1 and left the area alone after that. Late in the day, he landed a key 20-incher, a bass that broke his spinnerbait as Jensen was netting it.
He returned to his primary on Day 2 and caught around 20 bass, but his tournament-defining catch came with 15 minutes to go before lines in. As he made his way out of the ditch, Jensen pitched his spinnerbait to a nearby stump and hooked up with a 20.5-inch largemouth that lifted him to the 100-inch mark.
“They weren’t biting right today,” Jensen said. “You had to bump what they were on, and you couldn’t kill the bait right at the log. You had to reel it two or three more times and then kill it, and then the bass would hit it on the way down.”
Scotch, meanwhile, landed 96 inches on Day 1 before landing 102 inches on Day 2, the biggest bag of the final day. He also used a spinnerbait, which he paired with an XCite Baits ShadNasty Swimbait trailer. In the afternoons, he would switch to a bluegill-colored spinnerbait when the bass buried themselves in the shade.
He opened the tournament fishing the same area as Jensen, but with not nearly the same amount of success. With one bass at 12:30 p.m., Scotch made a long run to an area he has fished in the past and filled out a limit.
“I went 9 miles. I just had to get down to that area,” he said. “As soon as I got down there, I started putting them in the boat. It was an awesome three hours of fishing.”
On Day 2, Scotch started in that same area and caught better quality bass. Each bass in his limit measured over 20 inches.
“Today I didn’t mess around. I went straight there and started hammering on them,” he said.
After leading Day 1 with a staggering 102.75 inches, Abbondanza caught 94.25 inches on Day 2 to finish in third place. The Pennsylvania angler lost two key bass in the morning hours of the final day but finished the day with two key culls to jump back into the Top 3.
Abbondanza caught all of his bass in one main area of Caddo Lake using a Bama craw-colored Z-Man Tungsten ChatterBait Elite EVO.
“It was one of those areas that just kept reloading,” he said. “It's a great lake.”
Along with a fourth-place finish, West Virginia’s Jody Queen caught the $500 Big Bass of the Tournament, a 22.75-inch largemouth on Day 1.
