Professional Bass Fishing - Chad Morgenthaler

WELCOME

Welcome to my 2008 tournament journal. Thanks to Jasper Engines and Transmissions, my title sponsor, you’ll be able to follow me as I compete throughout the country over the course of the year. The folks at Jasper have really stepped it up this year – we’re doing all we can to give you a front row seat on the tournament trail. Those efforts include this journal, but they’ll also include a new partnership with Mark Jeffreys and his team at BassZone.com, along with some great giveaways. So I hope you’ll stay tuned throughout the year.

With respect to my other sponsors, not too much has changed. One of my consistent professional goals is to find companies who make great products and share my values and stay with them for the long haul. Accordingly, I’m still closely aligned with Kistler Rods, Maxima line, Ranger Boats, Yamaha Outboards and Minn Kota.

The changes in my sponsor portfolio are the additions of Reaction Innovations lures and Lunker Lure/Hawg Caller. I’m really excited about Reaction Innovations. They make the best and most innovative plastics in the industry. Everybody uses them, whether they admit it or not! They’ll be represented on both my truck and boat wraps, too. As for Lunker Lure/Hawg Caller, we haven’t fully ironed out the details, but we’re working on some special projects that could be out later this year, and you’ll hear about them here first.

A few other housekeeping details before I get to my on-the-water experiences: In addition to the FLW Tour and the FLW Series (Eastern), I’ll be fishing the BASS Southern Opens this year. There are a few reasons for that. First, they have a great schedule, with the St. Johns River, Santee Cooper and Guntersville. Second, it gives me the chance to get back together with some of my old friends from my BASS days who I don’t get to see as much anymore. Additionally, the payouts are great and they’ll be all cash. Finally, should I place high enough in the overall standings, it could give me a chance to fish the Bassmaster Classic again, or qualify for the BASS Elite Tour. I’m not dissatisfied with anything that FLW Outdoors has done – on the contrary, they’ve been very good to me. But the lure of smaller fields and the opportunity to fish some great waters at ideal times does speak to me.

Like any athlete or competitor, I’m a goal oriented person, and I enter the season with certain specific achievements I’d like to reach. I’m certainly looking for a repeat berth in the FLW Championship, but another goal I’m really looking to achieve is a tour-level victory. I’m at the point in my career now where I’ve got enough experience so that if I’m close to victory I can afford to take a chance. It would be great for the fans who follow my career, and obviously it would be great for my career and for my sponsors. But it’s a balancing act – sometimes when you swing for the fences you miss and strike out, so I have to pick my opportunities carefully.

BASS Southern Open – St. Johns River,
Palatka, Florida

Prior to this year I had never fished the St. Johns, but it’s one of the storied waters of bass fishing history. The various lakes off of the main river, places like Lake George, are legendary and I was excited to get a chance to compete there. I had read a lot about the river system and seen some of the old TV shows, so I was ready to get the year started there. Unfortunately, it didn’t end up exactly the way I wanted.

The BASS Opens have no off-limits period, so I went down there a bit early and rode around for a day and a half with Glenn Browne. Glenn has done really well on the FLW Tour and he’s a top stick in Florida, so I was hoping he could clue me in on this place. It was critical to narrow down the strike zone because there was well over one hundred fifty miles of fishable water, up to places like Lake George, or all the way down to Dexter and Woodruff. If you weren’t careful, you could run yourself out of the money.

Terry Scroggins allowed me and a bunch of the other competitors to stay at his house during the tournament. For those of you who don’t know, “Big Show” is just about the best river rat on the St. Johns. There’s no telling how much money he and Preston Clark have won there. He gave me a heads up about what to look for, and that really helped, but he always has a legitimate shot to win there so I didn’t want to bug him too much.

In the end, I just couldn’t get comfortable fishing only main river stuff, and I knew the choice for me was whether to go south and flip heavy grass or go north and look for bedding fish. With all of the warm weather we had during practice, I could see fish starting to move up in the clearer areas of Lake George. There are three springs there – Salt Run, Juniper and Salt Springs – and they’re all clear and warm. I knew they’d get a lot of pressure, but I managed to find some deeper beds that I thought would be unmolested where I could catch them with a shakey head. If that didn’t work, I thought I might be able to catch a few on the main river with a Hawg Caller spinnerbait, but I was hoping that the bedding fish would hold up.

What I didn’t count on was the weather turning for the worse, and in Florida bad weather equals bad fishing. We got a major cold front coming through with nasty weather and wind, but I was still committed to making the long run to those spawners. That was a mistake. I made a long run to get there and could only get one of them to bite my shakey head Flirt worm. The rest of them had either abandoned their beds or I just couldn’t find them again. I thought I was saved when a huge group of fish started schooling all around me. I wasted a big part of the day trying to figure them out and I just couldn’t get them to bite. I stopped in my secondary area at the mouth of a river on the way back, but that didn’t work out too well either.

On Day 2, I made the long run back to Salt Run. Whatever bedders had remained after the first blast of cold air were definitely gone by that point. I lost one giant, but that was the only bit of excitement for the day. In many respects, it was a tournament to forget – you don’t like to dwell on a 119th place finish – but I think I learned some valuable lessons for when we go back. The locals dominated and in the end it was Florida veteran Peter Thliveros who came out on top. It’s common knowledge that when temperatures drop, Florida fish freak out. The fish that are up shallow are the least stable, and those were the ones I was depending on. If I had it to do over again, I’d focus more heavily on deep staging areas, those deeper eddies where the big girls live.

I wish I had gone to Dexter and Woodruff. I had told Terry before the tournament that I thought I could flip up about 8 to 10 pounds a day out of there, but come on, this is Florida, I didn’t think that would get me within sniffing distance of a check. In the end, it would have done just that. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 and I’ll chalk it up to a learning experience, but I can guarantee you that if we go back I won’t make the same mistakes again.

FLW Series – Lake Okeechobee
Clewiston, Florida

Lake Okeechobee has long been one of my favorite bodies of water in the country. It has a lot of fish and a lot of big fish, and historically I’ve done well there.

But the last two years, the Big O hasn’t been the lake that I knew in the past. As a result of low water conditions, it’s a whole new ballgame. Last year when we visited, the places I normally fish were high and dry, but now it’s even lower and they’re even drier. This makes the main lake difficult to run. When we were here last year, the airboat operators made a small fortune pulling bass boats off of the flats and more than one lower unit was sacrificed. It’s tough to concentrate and catch fish when you’re worried for your safety, and fearful that you won’t be able to get back to weigh-in. As a result of the difficult navigational conditions, I knew that a large percentage of the field would stay in the rim canal, where it’s easy and safe to run.

Last year, I found a few areas where the fish were spawning in the Kissimmee grass, but after the first day of competition those areas muddied up and they just didn’t bite. As I said after the St. Johns, the one constant law of Florida fishing is that fish don’t bite in muddy conditions. The only thing worse are COLD muddy conditions.

I spent a few days before the off limits with Glenn again. He showed me how to run safely on the main lake. There were some fish out there that were ready to spawn, but the wind blew for a few days and I knew they’d be toast.

It was looking like the rim ditch would be the best option and I’d be forced to fish in a crowd, but FLW had opened up the Kissimmee River to us and we could lock up two times. It would be a long run from Clewiston and would leave us with only about three or four hours of fishing time, but it was worth a shot. When Glenn and I got there, it seemed too good to be true. There definitely wasn’t much pressure and the fish were big and healthy. Most importantly, they seemed eager to bite. The big ones were staged up and some were just starting to get on the beds.

When I came back after the St. Johns, I couldn’t relocate the schools that I had found in pre-practice. But the next day I went further up the river and found an enormous concentration of big fish. Even with only a few hours to fish, I felt like I could catch 16 to 18 pounds a day.

I was feeling pretty good about my chances, and I also got a little feel-good boost during practice when Glenn and I played good Samaritans for a day. We were up the river in a canal, with me fishing one side and him fishing the other. We were fishing and talking when all of a sudden I saw a little Blue Tick puppy, about 5 months old, sitting under a tree. As I fished down the bank, he starting to follow me and whine. We finally got him in the boat and he was pretty messed up. Turns out he had been gored by a boar. Fortunately, he had a collar with the owner’s phone number on it, so we called the guy and he came to get the poor thing. He’d been in the area, training his dogs to run deer, and this one had gotten away and paid the price.

Back to fishing….I was committed to head back up to the river on tournament day, but we suffered a major fog delay. Sometimes I feel like I can’t win. If it’s not windy, it’s cold, and if that doesn’t happen the fog throws us a curveball. Glenn was boat number one but he elected not to head all the way up, but I was committed. Or maybe I should be committed! Anyway, I got up there and the fish had left the beds, so I pushed the panic button and got in a hurry. On the way back I stopped at a spot near Clewiston and got my biggest fish of the day, but all I had was 4 for 5 pounds.

I’d learned my lesson and I resolved to spend Day 2 in the rim ditch. We had a fog delay, but it didn’t hurt me much because I didn’t have to run far. The only problem with that plan is that when things are fishing small and crowded, if you haven’t established yourself in an area, you have to be cautious about where you go. It’s just a matter of good sportsmanship and I hope someone would treat me the same way. I just fished that Flirt worm all day on a shakey head and managed to scare up about 10 pounds. I lost my biggest bite when she wrapped me around the big motor.

On the third day I finally nailed a good fish, and that 6 pounder pushed me up to around 13 pounds, but all that did was bring me up to 105th place, still the dreaded triple digits. If you spend an entire tournament at Okeechobee fishing with a shakey head and a little worm, it just doesn’t feel like you’re giving yourself a chance to win. I like it better when I can flip that ounce-plus weight with a Sweet Beaver on braided line. That’s real Florida fishing.

It turned out to be a slugfest in the rim canal and I learned that sometimes you can’t fight the inevitable. You just have to get in there, find your hard bottom areas, rock piles and ledges, and bump boats all day.

At least I still have my lower unit!

FLW Tour – Lake Toho
Kissimmee, Florida

I've been down in Florida since the first part of January. After tournaments on the St. Johns River and Lake Okeechobee, Debbie and I vacationed on the state's west coast, but last week it was back to reality. I had to gear up for the first FLW Tour event of the season, held on Lake Toho.

We're towing a fifth wheel camper this year, so we stayed right there at Camp Mack. I had two mediocre days of practice on Toho itself and two good days of practice on Kissimmee. While we were there, there was a BFL going on and it wasn't full, so I jumped in and fished it.

I had my eye on the lower end of the lake for a while. For the past two or three months, Osceola Slough had been kicking out the best weights. It was obvious why: it has cleaner water, the right kind of bottom composition and the right kinds of vegetation. I didn't think it was going to be easy down there, but I knew the area had great potential. That reality hit home when I caught my personal best bass, a 10-02 female, flipping a mat during practice. I nailed the area – it's where Brett Hite eventually won the tournament – but I missed out on the best way to catch them.

Going into the event, there was no question it was do or die on Kissimmee, specifically in Osceola Slough. That was the right area with the good mats.

We had a monster cold front coming in. Why does that always happen whenever we go to Florida? No place else do the fish shut down as the result of unstable weather as much as they do in Florida. Still, I felt that if I could get two good bites flipping, I could finish out my limit with a shakey head. I drew out as boat number four on the first day, which meant a short day. I guess that made me a little jumpy because I fished too fast. Simply put, in Florida, when you think you're fishing slow enough, you need to slow down a little more, then slow down again.

I only got one fish on the big stick and that 3pm weigh-in was coming fast, so I started hunting those limit fish pretty early. I caught one on the shakey head in the first five minutes, then I never had another bite in an hour and a half. There were some guys who had boat trouble nearby, so with the day pretty much shot I gave them a ride back.

On the second day, I had a long day and I still felt like I could bang out 25 pounds. I headed down to Osceola and ground on it and ground on it. All the boat traffic didn't help matters. After a few passes, it was clear that it wasn't going to work out, so I locked up with an hour to go and flipped some mats, but by that point the wheels had pretty much spun out on me.

Congratulations to Brett Hite who had a record-setting margin of victory. What kills me is that he was fishing within a hundred yards of me with a chatterbait-type lure. I know the chatterbait is effective, but under those conditions it goes against everything we've ever been taught about Florida fishing. Even he didn't think he'd catch them like that – he told me that on the first day he just wanted to catch a fish so he didn't have to go in with empty livewells.

Looking back, I realize that as bad as I hate to put down the flipping stick, at times I just have to be more versatile. I should've looked harder at the trap bite, the spinnerbait bite and a chatterbait bite. It's always good to keep the mats honest, but you have to know when to say when. Brett got the fish to react to his bait and I didn't figure that out.

Still, it's gratifying that in the last two tournaments I've been close to the winning groups of fish. I haven't put all of the small details together, but it'll happen. In the meantime, I don't worry about sub par finishes. Last year I was sixth in the Angler of the Year race with two tournaments to go and I finished in the mid 100s in both of them to drop to 40th, but I still made the Forrest Wood Cup. I just have to keep my head screwed on straight, get five more good finishes, and everything will be just fine.

FLW Series
Wheeler Lake – Decatur, Alabama
114th Place

I've never done well on Wheeler and I'm not exactly sure why that's the case. Even when the grass has been up, I've struggled. It's odd, because I've had a number of good tournaments on other Tennessee River impoundments like Pickwick and Guntersville, but they didn't allow us to lock through in this tournament, so we were stuck on Wheeler.

Even though I didn't do particularly well, it was a neat tournament. Wheeler has never been known for numbers or size, but in practice the fish were everywhere. You could just pull up on a spot and catch them, and they were healthy. They were following the shad and they were on the feed. They pulled water all four days and the fish were positioned on specific spots on the main river or in short pockets.

I'm not joking when I say that I could have had over 22 pounds on three of the four days, and it wasn't limited to one bait or technique. You could catch them on a crankbait, a jerkbait or a jig.

I knew that if there was any change in conditions the schools of fish I was targeting would spread, and sure enough on the first day, we had two changes that affected the bite. Not only did the weather start to cloud up, but the current slowed and the lake began to fill up. My primary lure was a jerkbait and it was at least partly dependent on sunshine. Also, the fish just bite differently if there's no current – definitely less aggressive. I had my fifth fish on several times and just never could manage to fill out my limit.

On the second day, there was even more cloud cover, so I made some adjustments and found some additional groups of fish and my catch went up. On the third day, I hit a few new areas and I probably caught five limits of fish, but I just couldn't get the three or four pound bite I needed to move up. I still caught my fish on a jerkbait, but it was a Rogue instead of the Megabass I had used in practice. I also caught some key fish on a Lunker Lure jighead with a Reaction Innovations Flirt Worm and a half ounce Hawg Caller Sexy Shad spinnerbait.

It was a tournament of ounces. That's clear from the fact that it was won by a single ounce. I'd like to think that if I had it to do over again I'd make some changes, but to tell you the truth, the bite was so strong in practice that it would be hard to get away from it. I might move around a bit more to try to generate those quality bites.

FLW Tour
Lewis Smith Lake – Jasper, Alabama
47th Place

After Wheeler, we didn't have far to go. It's only about 80 miles from Decatur down to Jasper, but it's a very different fishery. Fortunately for me, the results have been quite different as well. I've done really well on Smith. Of the four tournaments I had fished there previously, I don't think I had finished any worse than 18th. That's the type of history that will get you excited about an upcoming tournament. I have no idea why I've done so well there, but I'm not going to tamper with whatever success I can enjoy.

To tell you the truth, I've noticed a pattern in my finishes over the past few years in which I've done really well in the deep, clear, rocky lakes we visit. They don't fluctuate as much as the river systems, maybe that has something to do with it.

I was pretty sure that the fish would be in or around the spawn, and that's a time when I excel. On top of that, Smith has a fantastic spotted bass fishery, another factor that plays in my favor. Finally, I knew that we'd probably have to finesse the finicky fish, and that's another one of my strong suits.

When I competed in the BASS Elite 50 on Smith a few years ago, I did well by sight fishing on the first day and using finesse tactics after that. But that was with a 50 boat field – on the FLW Tour we have 200 great anglers and their co-angler partners beating the water to a froth and sometimes that makes it hard to run a sight fishing pattern. I was concerned that even if I found some, I wouldn't be able to get to them on the first day. As always, I drew a really late number, which always seems to happen to me in the FLW Tour events, so I was right all along about that.

I knew that the shakey head worm would play a key role, both in my own efforts and in the tournament as a whole. I hit a number of areas in practice where I had experienced success before, mostly pre- and post-spawn areas where the spotted bass gang up and feed. On the last day of practice, I went to one area and had 12 bites and all of them were good spots, so I knew that if I could stay in there and grind it out I should be able to catch five that weighed 10 to 15 pounds, which I thought would make the cut. As it turns out I was right on that – 11 pounds a day made it in.

My fish were suspended and I thought I could catch them by doodling that shakey head on six pound test Maxima fluorocarbon, but once again the weather played its tricks on me. The wind blew pretty hard and it took me a while to adjust my jig to the proper weight and get dialed in on the presentation they wanted.

The good news on day one was that I caught a bonus three pound largemouth off of a bed by blind casting. The bad news was that as a result of having to use such light line, I lost three big fish. Still, I managed to weigh in 11 pounds, which put me right on track.

I was fishing a ledge where the water dropped from 15 to 80 feet. If you could subtly pull the bait off of the ledge and let it fall, they'd eat it on the drop. You wouldn't feel the bite, they'd just swim out to deep water. Every one of those fish was a good quality bass. But the ones that were on top of the ledge, they'd eat it to, but each of them was a short fish.

I had my chances in this one. I could blame it on the fact that day two was windier with more cloud cover, which usually causes the fish to roam, but I did manage six keeper bites and somehow I screwed up three of them. That cost me a Top 10 finish.

It wasn't a complete disaster. I was awfully close to where Michael Bennett was fishing and he won the tournament, but at this level you can't make any mistakes and expect to win. I was on the right fish and had the bites, but I just didn't get the job done. Still, this finish earned me $10,000 and moved me up in the points to where I have a very realistic shot at making the Championship with four events left. The boost was psychological, too. If after three events you don't get a single check, you start to question yourself, but this injected a shot of confidence.

If you look back at my tournament history, through BASS and FLW, I've always been a fisherman who will experience some swings in the course of the year. That's just how I am. I very rarely have a terrible finish, say below 150th, but occasionally I'll get a stinker or two. At 100th, you don't get paid, but you're still in the top half of the field in the FLW, so you have to take away from even the average finishes that you're doing something right. Let's just hope that my next FLW events swing back towards the top of the heap.

Soon we'll be leaving the state of Alabama for another great bass fishing locale – Texas! The PAA Toyota Texas Bass Classic will take place April 18-20 on Lake Fork. Last year my team did very well and this year I'm hoping to improve upon that good finish. It's my hope that the next time I add to this journal I'll have a team victory to report.

Professional Anglers Association – Toyota Texas Bass Classic
Lake Fork, Texas

As a member of the PAA Board of Directors, I was very excited to return to Lake Fork for the second annual Toyota Texas Bass Classic. My team finished 4th at the inaugural TTBC and I was hopeful that my new team would be able to do even better.

I knew that it was quite possible the fish would be in the same mode as last year, but I didn't want to commit to that until I knew for sure. I met with my teammates – Matt Reed, Stacey King and Brian Penso – the night before practice started and we agreed to try out some different techniques and different areas. We had to keep time management foremost in our minds because if you're not careful, the four hour TTBC sessions can fly by.

We also had to figure out which pairs of anglers would fish together, and then decide which pair would go out in the morning and which would take the afternoon. I didn't know Brian very well, but I knew that Matt liked to sight fish and that Stacey is one of the best offshore fishermen around. On the first day of practice, Matt and I both found a ton of bedding bass – so many that we thought we could easily each catch our five in four hours. If we had a bad day, it would give us 15 pounds apiece. If things went really well, it could be a lot more. Meanwhile, Stacey and Brian found a lot of pre- and post-spawn fish, so all of us were pretty confident. On the second practice day, the wind blew pretty hard, so we couldn't really sight fish and Matt and I tried to supplement what our teammates had found.

As often happens, a cold front blew in just in time for the first tournament day, so we couldn't be sure about the sight fishing and we agreed that it made sense to send out Brian and Stacey in the morning. They sacked over 20 pounds, which was a really good start. In the afternoon, Matt and I tried to sight fish for the first hour and a half, but the weather messed those fish up so we went to our secondary pattern and in two and a half hours we had 32 pounds. Both of our pairs caught the fish of the same stretch of the lake, the same place as last year. On the second day, we did manage to land a few sight fish, but they were the exception in our catch. The last afternoon, when both pairs got to fish, we all ended up in one little cove together and in the last 30 minutes we caught two over seven, a four pounder and a three pounder, and we were talking to each other the whole time we were fishing there.

Almost all of our fish were caught either dropshotting or with a shakey head in deep trees. I used the big Reaction Innovations Flirt Worm and my teammates used similar products from their sponsors, but all of them had to be green pumpkin. The Lake Fork trees aren't particularly conducive to finesse tackle and light line, so we used 17 pound fluorocarbon on our flipping sticks. With that tackle, Matt and I were able to be super-efficient. In fact, it was a tournament I'll remember for the rest of my life because Matt and I caught every fish that bit. We caught good sized fish but not the numbers that Stacey and Brian landed. If we could've capitalized and caught our limits or they would have landed a few bigger fish, we definitely would have challenged the leaders. In fact, had the tournament been a week and a half or two weeks later, we would have been downright dangerous.

I've had great teams both years and both events have been phenomenal, but I need to find a way to fill out a limit every session. Even if they're just two pounders, consistency is critical. Lake Fork is a fish factory, so the four to eight pounders will just come, but you have to get as close to ten fish per session as you can. I hope that we always have a tournament on Fork. I'd love for the PAA to have additional events elsewhere, but Lake Fork and the TTBC format are great for the sport.

FLW Tour – Lake Norman
Charlotte, North Carolina

The only downside to qualifying to fish the final day of the TTBC was that it severely cut into my practice time for the FLW Tour event on Lake Norman. Some guys chose to skip the TTBC, others flew in and fished out of their teammates' boats. Believe me, I looked at every possible angle on how to do it, but in the end I wanted to provide my sponsors every opportunity in the world to get exposure, particularly since the highlights will be broadcast on CBS. So the sensible thing for me to do was fish the event, then push the envelope and hightail it from Texas to Norman.

Sean Hoernke made the same decision and he won it with only two days of practice. Danny Correia, who caravanned with me, also did extremely well. It didn't work out quite so well for me, though. Danny and I drove until 10:30 Sunday night, got a room, got up at six and arrived about seven o'clock Monday night. It was exhausting. I probably only slept about 12 hours in three days.

I finished in the money at Norman last year, so I certainly wasn't unfamiliar with the lake, and friends had told me that fish were up on the bank everywhere. I knew it wouldn't be a problem to catch five on a Screwed Up Shakey Head jighead with a Flirt Worm. Looking for them, you could catch as many as you wanted – the issue was getting over 10 pounds and that required being in the right area of the lake. It's a big lake and I wanted to focus on the mid-lake section, where I did well last year, but it seemed like where there were largemouths last year, I could only find spots this year.

Once again, the weather threw me a curveball and when I took off the first morning my bed fish were gone. I started over and kept looking. I'm not sure how many limits I caught that day, but I just couldn't catch a good one. I kept moving towards mid-lake when I should have been heading up the river.

I weighed in 9-12 on Day 1 and knew I had some ground to make up so I went to completely new water the second day. I had been casting as I looked for fish the first day and three of the five fish I weighed in ended up being post-spawners from around docks, so I just fished a lot more, but something changed and they weren't positioned the right way and I just couldn't catch the numbers I had the first day. In hindsight, I should have kept looking. I had a good co-angler who wouldn't have complained, but I just didn't go that way. It leaves me with a big hole to dig out of to make the championship.

Beaver Lake is next. I've read on the Internet how high and dirty it is, so the bass should be shallower and further behind than they usually are this time of year. It probably means that the area around Prairie Creek and the bridge and the schooling fish in that area won't be as much of an issue as they usually are. The event is often won there. At the very least, it usually produces several of the Top 10. I made that Top 10 last year fishing deep clear water, but it probably won't fish that way this year, so I'll have to adjust.

FLW Tour – Beaver Lake
Rogers, Arkansas

I was very excited to fish the FLW Tour event on Beaver Lake – if you don't get excited to fish for two hundred grand you should probably be doing something else for a living – but also because I had finished 6th there last year at roughly the same time of year. But it wasn't anything like last year's event. Conditions were exactly the opposite. We normally expect to face clear water conditions when we go to that part of the country, but this time the water was ten feet high so the dominant water color was MUD. I'd say a good two-thirds of the water was so muddy that you couldn't see a bait two inches under the water.

I'll admit it, I got spooked by the muddy water. I tried to seek out high water areas like I look for at home, places where you can get to the bank so the fish can't get away from you. There was another factor resulting from the mud that threw me a curveball – it pushed the spawn back later than usual. There were some still spawning back under the muddy water where you couldn't see them, but in the clearer water they were done.

On the first practice day, it was raining and I hit the stained water and worked towards the clearer sections and I whacked them. I had probably 14 or 15 pounds of largemouths in the first two hours, and then I added a couple of good spotted bass, all in the three to five foot range. They were right on the front edge of the flooded brush, on the old water line.

The second practice day was also phenomenal, so on the third day I tried to expand it into the muddy water. It was a day when they just didn't bite well so I didn't go back. On the last practice day I went into the clear stuff and had a typical Beaver Lake limit, maybe eight or nine pounds.

When we blasted off on the first day, it was raining just like on that first practice day, so I went right back to the areas where they had bit so well, but something had happened to shut the bite down. I messed around there for four hours and all I had to show for it was one spotted bass, and it wasn't a big one.

I ran back to my back up place and caught my second keeper, but it was a skinny smallmouth. At this point it was noon, and I had to weigh in at 3:20. Something was wrong, so I went with my old standby, the jig, and in ten minutes I filled out my limit and even culled one. In practice, I had found that the baitfish were suspended in front of the trees and the bass would absolutely kill a half ounce Lunker Lure Rattling Shad, but now they were keyed in on the jig. It was too late to go back to my largemouth water and I ended the day with 7-03.

Obviously I had misjudged what it was going to take to do well in this tournament. The weights were higher than normal and it took about 12 pounds to be in the top 10.

The second day gave us completely different conditions, sunshine and no wind. Normally that's bad on Beaver, but I still had the jig on my mind and expected the weather to work in my favor. But the lack of wind led to a two hour fog delay, and I didn't make a cast until 8:30. I caught a keeper largemouth off my primary spot, but further into the brush than I had been fishing, so I started keying on that pattern. I tried to make it happen for three hours and it just didn't work.

At 11:30, I was faced with the same issue as on Day 1, so I packed up, went to my backup area, started casting that Rattling Shad and caught a limit almost instantly. I just couldn't get a big bite. In practice I was catching a mix of species but I never caught a big smallmouth or spot during the tournament. Even worse, I'm ashamed to admit that I never got on the flipping bite that some of the top finishers used so well. My 7-11 on day 2 got me a $5,000 check, but I really needed a better finish than 91st.

Now my work is cut out for me. Our next event is on Fort Loudoun in Knoxville. I don't think it'll be a big weight tournament, which is good because you can have a decent day and make a run at it. Last year I finished 18th there, but those were spawning and pre-spawn fish, so this will be a totally different ballgame.

Then we're on to Detroit, which has proven to be a challenge for me in past years. I always think you have to fish Erie to win there, but the weather can completely mess that up. Last year I ran 40 miles in 35 mph winds that created 10 footers. It wasn't fun – it was a matter of survival. I'm not ruling Erie out this year, but I'll definitely spend some time on St. Clair in case it gets nasty again.

FLW Tour – Ft. Loudoun/Tellico
Knoxville, Tennessee

I finished 119th in this tournament, which left me pretty far down in the standings. I don’t really know how to explain the poor finish. I really enjoyed fishing there -- I was catching a lot of fish, both shallow (off docks) and on key pieces of deep structure.

I kept on jumping back and forth from shallow to deep and it seemed to be working. I had two pretty good days in practice where my best five would have weighed around 14 pounds, and I wasn’t pounding on any one spot or area.

It seemed pretty obvious that the tournament was going to be won deep, and that’s how David Dudley claimed first place. The problem was that everyone else seemed to know that and I found myself fishing in crowds again. It didn’t hinder me too much the first day and I ended up culling through two limits of fish up to a final bag that weighed 9-11. I caught them all on a Carolina-rig off one little-bitty spot about the size of a truck’s hood.

Unfortunately, I had two dead fish and the resulting one pound penalty pushed me down about 20 places. Still, I wasn’t all that concerned because I felt like I could easily duplicate that catch and if I was fortunate enough to get a big bite or two, it wouldn’t be out of the question to make a big move up the standings ladder.

But the crowds hampered me. I wasn’t able to get on any of the key deep structure spots the second day. No matter what time it was or where I want, there was always someone sitting right on those fish. When you were on the right stuff, you knew it because you’d get bit instantly. I wasted a lot of time jumping around when I should’ve just gone fishing.

Finally, at 1pm I picked up a Lunker Lure finesse jig in the Cumberland Craw color and just went junk fishing. In the last hour and a half, I caught all three keepers that I weighed that day and lost a fourth.  The whole time I was thinking that they should be out deep and I never got fully focused on the task at hand, so instead of settling down, I had pushed the panic button. By the time I wanted to move back out, I’d worked myself out of my main area and didn’t have time to change. I salvaged some points, but it might have been a case of too little, too late.

We have one regular season event left on the FLW Tour, at the Detroit River, and with nothing to lose I’m going up there with the attitude that I’m going to just fish and have a great time. It’s a phenomenal fishery with lots of big smallmouths. If I fish the way I’m capable of fishing, I’m going to finish off the year with a bang and put a few dollars in my pocket, too. That’ll give me some peace of mind. It’s so easy to get into a disappointed mode in this sport and it has been a tough year for me on the water. On top of that, I’ve taken on a lot of responsibilities off the water. I’m not making excuses – on the contrary, I’m reinforcing how important it is to me to keep at it and turn things around.  I know a big turnaround is on in my immediate future.

Last year, I put all of my eggs into one basket (Lake Erie) up there and it wasn’t a great decision. You’re at the mercy of the wind and you know it’s going to blow at least one day, which makes Erie a serious roller coaster. So this year, I’m going to spend some practice time in Lake St. Clair. I’ve never been in St. Clair before and I’m really looking forward to it. No matter what, I’m going to have six days on a great fishery at a prime time, and that should get me rolling again.

FLW Tour – Detroit River
Trenton, Michigan

As I wrote last month, I was excited to head up to the Detroit River to pursue some of the monster smallmouths that live up there. I was planning to swing for the fences on Lake Erie and that’s exactly what I did. It didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted – I ended up 88th with just under 30 pounds for two days, which earned me a $5,000 check – but I’m still fairly satisfied with my performance.

As anyone who follows professional bass fishing knows, the one thing you always have to be concerned about on the Great Lakes system is the weather. Not only can a bad storm or heavy winds mess up your fishing, but it can quickly make it a life or death situation.

The Detroit River is connected to Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie and they’re both massive waterways. Erie is the bigger of the two, and it’s where I thought I had the best chance to win. The weather during practice was favorable, so I spent three long days of practice on the big lake.

I spent one day of practice on St. Clair, mostly as a backup, but I knew in my heart that I was going to gamble on Erie unless I couldn’t get out there safely. Fortunately, I found my fish on Erie closer than I ever have in the past, only about 20 to 25 miles away. They were the same size as the ones I thought I’d catch further away, so I locked myself into the Colchester area and spent my time finding every little feature there, every rock, every little depth change. I was amazed at what was there. I have to give a lot of the credit to my new Humminbird Side Imaging sonar. It was worth its weight in gold. I got it for this particular tournament and it really helped me find some things that I otherwise would not have known about.

On the first day of the tournament, the weather allowed me to run freely on Erie. I could move around and hit all of my spots and I gradually culled up to just an ounce less than 18 pounds, which is pretty much what I expected to catch. Every fish that day, and in fact every fish I caught during the tournament, came dropshotting a Berkley Gulp 4-inch minnow.

On the second day, the weather became more of an issue. I still headed out to Erie for better than half of the day, but those pesky four and five foot waves were rolling on me all day. It’s not that I couldn’t fish in them, it’s just that they’re aggravating and a nuisance. I dealt with a little bit of seasickness, but the thing that really made me sick was that I had trouble locating the right group of fish that day.

Part of the problem was that I wasn’t experienced enough to operate my drift sock perfectly to get my drifts exactly right. When the wind blows like that, the fish reposition themselves. When I finally relocated them, they only bit for about an hour and then I couldn’t get them going again. To add insult to injury, I lost a really big smallmouth, the only fish I lost throughout the tournament, and that cost me a ton of places. My limit weighed 11-10 and that included two 14 inchers. If I could have culled one of them out with that brute I would have had over 15 pounds. But in the end, I have no regrets. I followed through with my game plan and came close to making it work.

Now that the FLW Tour season is over, you might think that I’m going to sit on the couch the rest of the year. Well, I might try to sneak in a little bit of rest and relaxation over the next few days, but I’ll still be going full steam ahead the rest of the year. I have a few tournaments left and I’m up to my ears in work for the PAA, so that should keep me busy just about every waking moment. And I can’t forget my sponsors, like JASPER, who enable me to stay out here and do what I love for a living. I’ll be working with them on new products and new promotions and plan to take a step back, look at the big picture and come out ready to kick some butt in 2009!