PROFESSIONAL BASS FISHING - CHAD MORGENTHALER

NHRA Racing • WV Late Model • Professional Bass Fishing • JASPER Hot Air Balloon Team • The JASPER Themed V-8 Trike

PAA Tournament Series – January 15 to 17, 2009 - Lake Toho, Florida

To say that practice was tough is an understatement and the chatter among the anglers was fairly consistent – “Where is the big bite?”   This time of year Toho should be a flipping or sight fishing slug fest.  Not this year.  With warm weather and a full moon, the giants should be on the beds or staging up for the spawn, but they were nowhere in sight.  To make conditions even tougher, a cold front settled over Florida bringing in 40-year lows.  Florida bass are very sensitive to cold weather and tend to shutdown and not bite.

Just like the majority of anglers, I did not have a stellar practice and could not lock down a big bite pattern.  The fish were roaming in deeper water and were extreamly hard to locate and depend on.  I had one small area that I knew would produce 8 to 11-pounds a day, but that was not going to win the tournament.  To win, I needed several kicker fish to add to my total weight.  

On Day One, my luck held out, and I was able produce a good sack along with an 8.3-pound Toho giant.  This one took a plunge into my livewell with just minutes to spare.  Believe me; I was ecstatic to have her.  I caught most of my bass fishing my comfort zone, flipping mats and heavy vegetation using a Reaction Innovations Beaver or Berkley’s Chigger Craw.  The piece of information that I held really tight during the tournament was the bait I used to catch the majority of my fish - Lunker Lure ½-ounce black and blue Grass Monster Jig.   At the end of the day with an 18.98-pound stringer I was in 4th place going into Day Two.

I had an early launch on Day Two and was able to make it to my sweet spot first thing.  I secured the majority of my weight in about three hours then headed back to Toho to try and catch another giant.  I had a major disappointment when the only big bite I had on that day made it about 6-inches from my hand before disappearing.  That one still stings.  Overall for the day, the bite was tough and the majority of anglers struggled.  The weights definitely reflected it.  With the addition of 10.93-pounds, to my surprise I only dropped one place and qualified for the Day Three cut.

Going into Day Three I knew my “sweet spot” would not produce the size of fish I needed.      I chose to go for the win, stay on Lake Toho and grind on the areas that I felt confident were the only places I could secure a large stringer.  In typical high drama fashion, by early morning I had caught two fish for about 7-pounds and then hit a very long dry spell.  Fortunately for me, in the last 45 minutes I found the “Mother Load” and capitalized on it.   My 15.5-pound stringer was not good enough to take over the lead, but it did retain my 5th place finish and I was very proud to have it.  

As Vice President of the PAA, the Tournament Series was my pet project, and one that I have devoted an enormous amount of time to in the last 8 months.  I am very proud of what we have accomplished in such a short period of time, the support from our members, and the new partnerships that we have forged.  We have some fine tuning and tweaking to do, but overall the Toho event was a huge success and an overwhelming milestone for the PAA.   Right now, members are fired up and looking forward to future events.

All of the Carrot Stix PAA Tournament Series events presented by Phoenix Boats will be televised.

The January 12-17 PAA Tournament on Lake Toho will be broadcast on the Versus Netork on the following dates and times:

March 2 -- 10:30 am
March 4 -- 7:00 am
March 5 -- 9:30 am
March 11 -- 7:00 am

The Lake Toho event has also been cleared to run on the LoneStar Network which is a Texas based network reaching 6 million households during the following time slots and on the dates below.

March 14 -- 7:00 pm
March 15 -- 9:00 am
March 19 -- 4:30 pm

 

PAA Series
Lake Toho – Kissimmee, Florida - Expanded Report
5th Place

Ever since Matt Herren and I won on Toho back in November, I’ve been excited to come back -- not just because we won but also because this was going to be the first “regular season” event put on by the PAA, for whom I serve as the Vice President. My term is coming to an end, and I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I’m proud of all that we’ve accomplished, but on the other hand it has been a crazy couple of years and I need a bit of a break.

My goal entering this year as I near the end of my term on the Board, is to fish relaxed. I don’t fish well when I’m uptight or panicked. That’s something I’ve learned as I’ve become a bit more seasoned. I’m going to have some good tournaments; I’m going to have some bad tournaments. I just have to do everything I can to keep the bad ones at a minimum. For this event, I managed to keep myself relaxed and my fishing reflected it. Even though I didn’t practice the last two days, I located a group of fish and I was at ease all three competition days.

That sense of relaxation and satisfaction came despite the fact that I had a bunch of different feelings swirling around inside of my head. First of all, it was an honor to fish against the finest field of anglers ever assembled. Second, I was proud to know that I had a hand in making this event occur. And to be honest I was a little bit nervous, too. I was heavily involved in the operational side of the event, and that kept me running around like crazy. Finally, I realized that I was back among all of my friends again, from BOTH major tours. It was like I was home for the holidays.

Despite skipping those last two days of practice, I was able to rely upon what Matt and I had accomplished in November. Sure, I had to adjust for the time of year, but I was able to focus on the same areas with great results. I knew there would be a lipless crankbait bite, but I’m a flipper at heart so I stayed with my strength. Luckily, there weren’t too many fish on the beds, and those that started there didn’t stay on them long. I tied on a three-inch Berkley Chigger Craw, a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver and a Lunker Lure jig and got to work.

In Florida, the vegetation is critical, and my fish were relating to gator vine and hydrilla. The gator vine was deeper and a bit isolated, so that helped me out. The problem with the hydrilla is that it was being sprayed, so it was changing very rapidly. You had to find the right clumps, the ones that weren’t decaying and formed mats. They also had to be close to the main channel. The bass hadn’t moved into the mats back in the spawning areas yet.

I had some water down in the south end of Kissimmee where I felt like I could catch a quick limit each day and then go up to Toho for a kicker. I knew the area in Kissimmee would be pounded, so I milked it for all it was worth the first two days. The first day I left when I’d culled up to 13 pounds, went up to Toho and nailed an 8 ½ pounder, en route to 18.68 pounds. The second day I left with 10 pounds and never got a big bite.

That big fish helped me commit to Toho for the third day. I was just going to put my head down and fish for eight hours. You don’t get the chance to fish for the win very often, so when you do, you have to make the most of it. I stayed there all day but really didn’t get into the fish until the last 30 minutes. When that’s your game plan, it’s really a hunting game. I probably rolled over that school three or four times during the day and they didn’t become active until it got later in the day. I managed a 6 pounder, which like the first day big fish I caught on a Sweet Beaver, but 15.46 wasn’t enough to put me in the winner’s circle. But I’ll take that 5th place finish all day long – it’s finishes like that that’ll get me to the Toyota Texas Bass Classic on Lake Conroe this fall.

BASS Southern Open
Harris Chain of Lakes – Tavares, Florida
100th Place

I decided to fish two divisions of the BASS Opens this year in order to add some variety to my schedule. The comparatively low entry fees, the opportunity for additional exposure and the way they worked into my tour schedule all made the extra events feasible and logical. On top of that, I’d love to fish another Bassmaster Classic. I’ve been fortunate to keep key sponsors like Jasper Engines & Transmissions and Lunker Lure, but I know that the current economic climate is tough and I have to do what I can to continue to market my personal brand and reward my sponsors for the faith they have shown in me.

My history on the Harris Chain is sporadic at best. I’ve had some of my worst finishes there, along with some decent finishes, but I’ve never had a phenomenal tournament there. I know the areas that are normally productive and I know how the fish are most likely to be caught, but you can’t dictate Mother Nature, and she ALWAYS seems to play a major role with those finicky Florida bass.

A cold front during practice dropped the water temperatures for four consecutive days, all the way down into the 50s, and practice was very discouraging. I kept on looking for a group of fish, but I was only getting one or two bites a day. So for the second tournament in a row, I voluntarily sat out part of the practice period. This time, I spent the final day working on my tackle and catching up on business. We had four straight 80 degree days coming and I knew what I was going to do. If I got a good boat number, I was going to head to the spring-fed canals to bag a few bedding fish. If I didn’t, I was going to start on one of four or five areas of lily pads that seemed to be holding fish, but it wouldn’t be a sight fishing deal.

As it turned out, I drew out boat number 11, and headed to the canals to pluck out a few of those bedding bass before the pressure got too intense. I might as well have spent the first two hours of the day sitting at the boat ramp. I was the first boat in the canal, but there were 15 more right behind me. To make matters worse, the three or four big fish I’d found on beds were gone.

I left, went to my lily pad areas and caught four, but I lost my limit fish several times. Some of the pads were isolated patches, others were in large areas, but the common denominator was that you had to fish s-l-o-w. I pitched a Reaction Innovations Flirt Worm (junebug) with a very light weight and waited and waited and waited and occasionally got a bite. It just takes so much time and when you get a bite or two, you have to go back over that area with a fine-tooth comb.

Even with just four fish, I had over 10 pounds, which put me just outside the top 30 cut, and I felt like I was locked in to what I needed to do on day two. That meant making a long run to Lake Griffin, where I knew I had the potential to catch a big string. I made it through the lock and at that point I had some mechanical complications beyond my control and was stuck right there. All I could do was put my trolling motor down and fish my way back. I had one bite all day, a pound and a half bass. Combined with my first day’s catch, I fell back to an even 100th place.

It definitely wasn’t the way I wanted to start my Bassmaster Open campaign. It sets the tone for the whole season – you can’t overcome a lost day. The same thing happened in 2005 and it’s just heartbreaking.

Fortunately, there’s another season-opener right around the corner – the FLW Tour’s first event is on famed Lake Guntersville in northeast Alabama and it’s going to be a big weight tournament. You’ll see some major movement in this one, but it will take consistency to win, and we know it’s going to be won on the standard lipless crank, spinnerbait or jerkbait early spring bite, but you’d better find a school you can work on for multiple days if you want to taste victory.

FLW Tour
Lake Guntersville, Alabama
February 2009

62nd Place
Day 1: 5 fish, 16-00
Day 2: 5 fish, 12-15

The FLW Tour season started off last week at Lake Guntersville in Alabama, an absolutely unbelievable fishery that generally produces big catches, and this year was no different. From the very first day of practice, I knew it would be a slugfest. As always happens there this time of year, there was a great bite on lipless crankbaits, as well as some jerkbait fish. It’s always just a matter of finding the right group of fish – preferably a group that you’ll have to yourself.

During practice I got on a good swimbait bite up the river. Specifically, I was throwing a 5-inch Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper and generating 30 to 50 strikes a day. The only things that could mess up that bite were bad weather and falling water – the fish were so shallow that they were likely to leave or get lock jaw if anything adverse happened. Still, the lipless crankbait bite was there as a backup, so I swung for the fences early.

I had a long day with a late check-in on day one so I set up a milk run of my areas, starting with the ones furthest up the river and then gradually working my way back. It was sunny with no wind, and it hadn’t gotten all that cold overnight, but something was off. The fish were just harder to catch. But I gradually worked my way back down lake and by the time I got down to some of the community holes, most of the others had to be back to weigh in, so I had some room to work with the lipless crank.

I ended up catching my better fish closer to the ramp, but I was never able to get the big fish bites I needed. I had 16 pounds, a decent weight, but I needed to be in the twenties to make the top ten. It was colder that night and the water dropped. I knew that would hurt the shallow bite, so with a 3 o’clock weigh in I committed to my crankbait fish. I stayed with them until about 11 am, but I had to fish in a crowd. I had a limit almost immediately, but every time you’d catch one, someone would make a bee line for you and they weren’t shy about getting close – sometimes I could have cast my lure and hit them without straining to do so. I fished clean, catching the ones that bit, but I fell short of the kind of weight I needed to keep going. I ended up missing a check by less than a pound.

Fortunately, I managed to do well enough to get some valuable points. There are five more Tour events to go and I fully expect to be in the championship in Pittsburgh this summer.

A few other notes from this event: I was fishing my swimbait and my crankbait on 7’3” medium-heavy E21 Carrot Stix rods, both on 30 lb. test Stren Super Braid. As mentioned above, my swimbait of choice was the Skinny Dipper. My lipless crank was something a little different – it’s a new lure made by Koppers, and for fish that had seen a million of the same old lures, that made a difference. Those bass at Guntersville in the communal hotspots have seen a million black and red lures and I was able to trigger strikes with a shad-colored bait. I’m glad that I figured out that I needed to change up a bit, but I wish that I had a few more areas to fish the crankbait, preferably some with fewer boats in them.

One Crazy Jet Ride With the Blue Angels  

View pictures from Chad's ride with the Blue Angels.

I will admit that I have a pretty cool job.  My office is a 21-foot bass boat normally launched on some of the best fisheries in the nation.  Like any other profession, in order to be successful, I work extremely hard and days off are few and far between.  Recently I was afforded an opportunity that was too good to pass up, and I was more than happy to sacrifice a few of my precious days off.

Along with having a pretty cool job I’ve also been able to take advantage of some pretty rewarding perks.  Last October during the PAA Corporate Cup in Florence, Alabama, JASPER was approached by a lady inquiring if I would be interested in a VIP flight with the Naval Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels. I knew this was an opportunity of a lifetime afforded to very few. I was honored just to be considered, but I did have a few butterflies about the thought of going supersonic in an F/A- 18 Hornet.

Once approved by the pilots, and cleared by my physician, I received an official invitation to meet the squadron the last week in February during their winter training at El Centro Naval Facility in California. It’s here in the Imperial Valley where the 4 diamond pilots and the two solo pilots perfect the maneuvers that thousands enjoy during show season. We were fortunate enough to receive front row seats during their practices runs, and I really came to appreciate the Team’s intense training.

Before arriving at the facility, I thought that the highlight of my trip would be the hair raising 45-minute ride with Lieutenant Ben Walborn in the #7 jet. I soon realized that the VIP ride was really just icing on the cake.

I have always had regrets about not joining the military, so I was excited about viewing a glimpse of military life and touring the Naval Facility. For me, professional bass fishing is a recent profession.  In my prior careers, I served as an EMT, volunteer firefighter, and 13 years as a professional firefighter and arson investigator with the City of Carbondale, IL.  I have always had a desire to serve and help other people. So to say that I was impressed by the dedication, hard work, and sacrifices that these fine young men and women make everyday defending our country, is truly an understatement.

The Blue Angels are a piece of American Naval history that spans 63 years. They were formed after World War II to aid recruitment and to retain interest in Naval Aviation.   They’ve been through a few changes over the years, but today they are the face of the Navy, goodwill ambassadors, and representative of our fine Sailors and Marines.  

I had complete confidence that I was in very capable hands by the time my scheduled flight rolled around.  These pilots are like well oiled machines, and the jets are inspected after every flight and continually subjected to maintenance checks. I was not concerned at all about the possibility of taking a “bonus ride” via the ejection seat. I was, however, concerned about my body withstanding the rigors of G-Force and not passing out during my ride, or worse yet, getting sick.   

After being briefed about the maneuver to counteract the effects of G-Force, strapped into the 12-point harness, shown where the “comfort bags” were, and where to place them “in case” I had to fill one, it was time for my pilot and me to take to the sky. I was defiantly pumped for the flight.

I still to this day have a very hard time describing and wrapping my head around the flight. It was an amazing experience zipping through canyons, flying upside-down, sideways, into loops, and experiencing a 7.2 G-Force without passing out, or getting sick. It was by far the wildest rollercoaster ride that I will ever experience and one that took me a few hours to recuperate from. After the flight, the thought of the Blue Angels practicing and perfecting their shows two and sometimes three times a day six days a week during winter training, is a testament to their dedication and fine military training. As an American, this makes me very proud.

I had the distinct privilege of being able to share the experience with one of my good friends, Bob Richardson. Bob flew right after me with Lieutenant Ben Walborn in the same #7 jet. 
Bob will air our flight and visit to El Centro Naval Facility during a spring episode of Outdoors in the Heartland. Please make sure to check my web site www.chadmorgenthaler.com, or Bob’s www.oith.com  for station and airing schedule.  I’m sure it will be a heck of a good show!     

 

FLW Tour
Table Rock Lake
Branson, Missouri
9th Place

I’ve had fair success on Table Rock in the past, so my confidence was high heading into this tournament and the conditions during practice kept it at a high level. We had warming, windy weather, which is always good on that lake. It makes some of the clearer water stained and sends the fish on a feeding frenzy.

So practice turned out to be pretty easy – the fish showed themselves and they were pretty predictable. There was a jerkbait bite going on, but as the water warmed up that was going away and the fish were biting a jig and a crankbait better and better every day.

I spent the entire first day of practice in a creek where I’d made the cut in the last BASS Tour event I’d fished on Table Rock and the fishing was phenomenal. Not only could I catch fish where the textbook said they’d be, but the quality was right, too. I knew I’d spend some time there during the tournament – probably a lot of time – the only question was what the weather was going to do. So I spent the next three days bouncing around, trying out a lot of different things. That included spending one day up the river, but I never found anything nearly as good as that first creek.

On Wednesday, our off day, it got really cold. That didn’t concern me because I knew those fish weren’t going anywhere. In the worst case scenario I’d have to change up a little, but with only three basic baits in play I had the bite narrowed down. There was a concern in the back of my mind that the fish would move to the timber and suspend, which would make them difficult to catch, but I hoped that wouldn’t happen.

On the first competition day, I had a short day to work with. I had to be in at 3pm, so when things didn’t start off fast and furious, I got a little rattled. It didn’t help that the cold temperatures had dropped the water temperature six degrees. My co-angler caught a keeper on a jerkbait on his third cast, so that got my mind working and I started jerking, but all I could catch were shorts. I left the creek and did eventually manage to land a 3 ½ pound smallmouth on a Lunker Lure finesse jig, but it was on a spot that I knew would just hold one fish, not a school of them, so I moved on.

At 1 o’clock I still only had that lonely smallmouth in my livewell, and with an early weigh-in it was time to get serious. I knew the fish would bite better in the afternoon, so I figured it made sense to head back into my starting area. Within 30 minutes I’d cranked up four more keepers on an out-of-production Wiggle Wart crankbait to work my way up to 17 pounds. Things just went my way that day – five keeper bites and I landed them all. I give a lot of credit to my Trilene Professional Grade Fluorocarbon line – 8 lb. for the crankbait and 12 lb. for the jig – I would never be able to go that light with any other manufacturer’s product.

Prior to the second tournament day, it got cold at night once again, but the water only dropped another degree. I felt that I was dialed in on the particular area of the creek that the fish were using since my four crankbait fish the prior day had come from a combined space, so I started there and committed to the area for the entirety of the day. And it was going to be a long day – I had until 4:30 to fish.

At 9:30 I caught a 3 pound largemouth from the corner of a dock on the Missouri Craw Lunker Lure Finesse jig. By a little bit after noon I’d added four more crankbait fish, just like the day before. Not only did I have the area dialed in, but I was starting to understand their depth range as well. They were suspended at the 8 foot break mark – when the bait would clear that break, they’d eat it.

I ground out those five bites in that one creek, but with only 20 minutes left I had a 2 pound spot I needed to get rid of. I ran around the corner to a little pocket and with just 8 minutes left before check-in I caught a 3 pound largemouth on the jerkbait. I think I would have made the top ten cut anyway, but that fish gave me some breathing room.

Unfortunately, for the last two days the wind laid down and the water started clearing up so my fish just didn’t bite. I jerked, I jigged and I cranked until my arms nearly fell off, but all I could manage was a single spotted bass on day three and a lone keeper smallmouth on day four. I did lose a giant near the end of the day on Sunday, but that’s fishing. Maybe I should have run up the river to the dirtier water – the fish might not have been spooked so much up there, but hindsight is 20/20. Despite the tough fishing, I feel good that I stayed in an area that held a lot of fish to give myself my best chance.

Most importantly, with two of six tour events under our belt, I’m in 20th place in the standings. This event shot my confidence through the roof, to the point that I’m not just thinking about making the Championship, I’m also expecting to put myself in position to make a run at Angler of the Year. That’s very feasible. I feel like I did two years ago when I was in 6th place overall with just two tournaments left to go. I’m spending a lot of hours practicing, making good decisions and I really feel that the schedule plays to my strengths.

 

CHAD MORGENTHALER BECOMES FIRST TOUR-LEVEL ANGLER TO SIGN WITH PHOENIX BOATS

Chad Morgenthaler & Gary Clouse in front of the Phoenix Boat factory

Chad Morgenthaler's new rig

Coulterville, Ill. – When the second event of the 2009 Carrot Stix Professional Anglers Association (PAA) Tournament Series blasts off next week on Alabama’s Lake Neely Henry, Chad Morgenthaler will make history as the first tour-level pro to run a Phoenix Bass Boat in competition. He recently aligned with the Tullahoma, Tennessee, boat manufacturer and his 21-foot 721 ProXP will sport the familiar Jasper Engines and Transmissions emblems on the front panels and a Phoenix Logo on the rear quarter-panel.

Phoenix Boats signed on as the official boat sponsor of the PAA tournament trail in early January, 2009.

“My efforts for the PAA have taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears and a tremendous number of hours,” said Morgenthaler, the PAA Vice President. “I believe in the cause and once we established our plans for 2010 and beyond, it was important for me personally to do business with the companies who believed in our dream. I need to do my part to support the people who support us. I have to lead by example.”

Morgenthaler cited the positive values of Phoenix President Gary Clouse, a 30 year veteran of the bass boat industry and one of the segment’s most consistent innovators, as a driving force behind his decision to sign with the relatively new company: “He’s an outstanding person with a unique business plan to deal with these difficult economic times. He has great values and I’m honored that he has allowed me to get in on the ground floor level.”

Of the company’s decision to sign Morgenthaler, Clouse said, “Chad is a quality individual and will be a great asset in our marketing efforts.  The exposure that he brings to the table for Phoenix in a year’s time as he travels and promotes will be huge.  And in addition to being a great promoter, Chad is always near the top of the leader board and that certainly helps the total exposure package.”

But personalities alone were not enough for Morgenthaler to agree to make the switch from his prior boat company, about whom he has nothing but positive things to say. It was the opportunity to run a top-flight product with some elements of his personal stamp that convinced him that now was the right time to move.

“Any time you make a major change, it’s a difficult decision,” Morgenthaler said. “I left a lot of FLW contingency money on the table, but as JASPER drove home to me three years ago, branding yourself with the right match of partners is critical. When Gary shared with me his experience and all of the thought that went into the development of Phoenix boats, that’s what sold me. The new features, like the rotating tackle storage, livewells with backup systems and a dash that will accommodate the largest electronics are all innovative, but he also gave me the opportunity for a lot of input. The President of the company was asking me for my thoughts and that’s an opportunity I’d never had before.”

Both men encouraged any bass anglers who spot Morgenthaler at the lake to ask him to demonstrate the boat’s unique fishing features and total performance.

“I would encourage all PAA members as well as weekend anglers who are in the market for a new boat to give us a look before you make your decision,” Clouse stated. “We are producing a boat that stacks up with those made by anyone in the industry, and at an affordable price.”

Phoenix Boats is a Tennessee corporation headquartered in Tullahoma, TN, and housed in a modern 50,000 square foot facility on 10 acres.

For more information about Phoenix Boats, visit www.phoenixbassboats.com.
For more information about Chad Morgenthaler, visit www.chadmorgenthaler.com.
For more information about Jasper Engines & Transmissions, visit www.jasperengines.com.

Contact:

Chad Morgenthaler
chad@chadmorgenthaler.com
Phone: 618-713-2796

Gary Clouse
Phoenix Boats
gclouse@phoenixbassboats.com
Phone: 931-455-2014
Fax: 931-455-2086

 

PAA Tournament #2
Lake Neely Henry
Gadsden, Alabama
47th Place – 10 fish/22.48 lbs.

I had never been to Neely Henry before this tournament, but I was excited for it to start. After a tournament season that didn’t live up to my own personal standards last year, I want to qualify for both the FLW Cup and the Toyota Texas Bass Classic in 2009. Fortunately, right now I’m on the road to accomplishing most of those goals. But nothing comes without a struggle in this sport – as a result of my position as a PAA board member, my time during the week was overcommitted and I had more than my share of distractions. No excuses – I chose to take on the responsibility because I believe in the cause – but it means that every minute is accounted for.

I had a feeling that this would end up being a tight tournament and I wasn’t disappointed. Neely Henry has good populations of both largemouth and spotted bass, and the difference between first place and 47th place was less than 9 pounds. There were a lot of us bunched up with cookie cutter limits.

During practice, I located a good population of largemouths down lake and in the mid-lake region. Then I spent a day and a half up the river searching for those mean spotted bass and got pretty well locked in on them, too. It was just a matter of getting a good bite or two each day to vault up through the standings.

I knew after practice that if the water was running hard I’d go up river. It pretty much ripped for all three days of practice, so I was counting on that, and as boat number one I’d have my choice of prime areas. But sure enough, when I launched my boat on tournament day, it was just about dead still. I had a short day so I decided to run up first anyway, but when the clock hit 12:30 and I only had one little 13-inch spotted bass in the livewell, I knew I’d made the wrong choice, so I abandoned that area for my largemouth places. I quickly caught a 4 ½ pounder on a Hawg Caller Sexy Shad spinnerbait, then lost another one the same size, then finished out my limit in short order. I was only about a 10 minute ride from my starting spot, so I went back up to see if it was happening, but couldn’t get bit. With 30 minutes left to go, I ran back down and culled twice.

Maybe it was foolish to rely so heavily on those areas in the river, but I felt like the largemouth bite was an afternoon phenomenon. If I had gone there in the morning, I might not have caught any. With the exception of that one good one I lost, I fished clean, so I was satisfied with a little over 11 ½ pounds.

On Day Two, bad weather started to roll in and the board elected to postpone the tournament. At 6:30 we called the tournament director and told him to hold the boats, then an hour later we made the final decision. It may not have been awful at that time, but there was just too much bad stuff coming. It was going to be a trailered weigh-in, and a lot of boats would have to sit there bobbing around with no shelter at exactly the time the nasty weather was supposed to roll in – in the end I think we made the right call. At just before 5pm, hail, heavy winds and tornado warnings blanketed the area. It’s never worth it to put everybody in harm’s way. The result was that the full field would get to fish the final day.

Since I’d been the first boat out on Day One, I was dead last on the final day, but that’s not all bad – it gave me the longest possible time to fish, and I wanted to get every minute I could. Of course, I had made up my mind that I was going to fish for largemouths, but when we launched, the current was moving again so that got me thinking about the river. There was one spot up there where I’d really whacked them in practice and I didn’t want to pass that up. I felt like the area could give up a limit that weighed in the teens and that’s what I needed to move up the ladder.

I got there and caught a few, then relocated the group about 20 yards away. I proceeded to just crush them with a Lunker Lure Ballhead Finesse Jig. I’m not sure how many I caught, but it was a bunch. The only bad part was that I couldn’t get much over 10 pounds. I hate to leave biting fish, so I never went down. I did try some largemouth spots in the river in the afternoon, but I never got a bite.

In the end, I’m satisfied with where I stand right now. I’m 20th in the points race on the FLW Tour and 13th in the PAA standings. Next up is Lake Norman in North Carolina.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on my newest partner, Phoenix Boats. As you may have seen in the trade press, I feel it’s important to support the companies who support our trails, and Phoenix has stepped up to the plate to help out the PAA in a big way. I’m their first tour-level pro-staffer, but things are moving very quickly. Gary Clouse and his crew managed to get my JASPER-wrapped boat ready in record time and the boat delivered – 2 tournament days, 2 limits and a check. I haven’t found anything to dislike about it yet. It rides great, has unparalleled storage and it’s blazing fast. It’s an absolute machine and I look forward to a long relationship with Phoenix, just like I have with Jasper Engines and Transmissions.

 

Lake Norman
Charlotte, North Carolina
99th Place
10 fish, 15-03

We’ve visited Lake Norman a few times over the past several years, always at a similar time in the spring, so I pretty much knew what to expect with this tournament. There are lots of fish to be caught, both largemouths and spots, but it usually boils down to ounces. Find one or two kickers each day and you can rocket way up in the standings.

Despite my expectations, the tournament set up a little bit differently than in years past. The fish were up spawning, but not in the numbers I’ve seen them doing before. That particularly applied to the largemouths. On top of that, the water was a little higher and a little dirtier than I’ve seen it in the past, so it was harder to see those fish that were spawning. Still, I knew that we were coming into a new moon, so I was going to spend some time looking in practice.

In practice, I got on the spotted bass pretty quickly and pretty easily, but a limit of spots would typically only get you around 7 or 8 pounds, so my curiosity got the better of me and I spent a lot of time looking for largemouths. I guess that hurt me in the end, but I also know that if I’d found them, one or two good largemouths could’ve boosted me up into the money or even into the cut – it was that close. Unfortunately, conditions conspired against me. Tuesday night and Wednesday (the off day) were cold and the water started dropping, so even the fish that I could locate before were getting scarcer and scarcer.

On Day 1, temptation got the better of me and I started off in an area where I’d seen 6 or 8 bedders, but they were all gone. So I went back to my docks where the spots were located….and they were gone too. I was struggling just to get a bite. Making the situation worse, it was one of those once in a blue moon deals where my body decided it had forgotten how to cast. It was a struggle all day to hit the right spots on the docks, often taking up to ten casts. I really struggled to get to my limit, and even then they only weighed 6-01.

On a later pass, my co-angler did manage to catch a spot around 3 pounds. That convinced me that there were some quality fish in the area, but it wasn’t until the end of the day that I truly realized that the fish were suspended. I’d be fishing in 12-15 feet of water but they were only 6 or 8 feet down. That led me to downsize my Lunker Lure shakey head on the second day. I tipped it with a Reaction Innovations Flirt worm, and when I downsized to a 1/16 oz. head on Day 2, I got bit much better – to the tune of at least 50 or 60 keepers.

Even though my limit was light that first day and I was way down in the standings, there really wasn’t much of a gap between my position and the money, or even the cut weight. I knew with a good day I could make a major move. I don’t know if it just wasn’t my time, or if I should have left those fish, but it’s hard to leave when you’re catching so many.

I started on my spotted bass, and this time everything went right. I located them right away and my casting stroke was back, so I had a limit of about 8 pounds by 9:30. At 10:30, the sun was up pretty good, so I went to the pockets and looked for largemouths, but I never ran into a good one. I culled up one time to my final weight of 9-02.

All in all, it was a typical Norman tournament. It’s aggravating, especially because our next tournament, at Beaver Lake, is going to be a similar situation. I fell a bit in the points, but that doesn’t really worry me. I’m still inside the championship cut, and there’s a buffer because several of the guys ahead of me have already qualified. But I don’t want to have to depend on anyone else, so look for me to come out swinging in the next event.

 

FLW Tour – Beaver Lake
Rogers, Arkansas
56th Place

The fourth stop on the FLW Tour this year was Beaver Lake, a familiar body of water to those of us who’ve fished FLW for a while. But even though we’ve been there a number of times, it always sets up a little bit differently. Last year, the water was ultra-high for the first time since we started going there. This year it was high again, but with a twist – the water was clear every place but up in the river.

I spent some time in practice up in the dingier water and I caught a lot of fish there, but never stumbled onto a meaningful number of quality fish. So I reverted to my old familiar places where I’ve caught them well over the years - in the lower section of the lake. I got on a pretty good smallmouth bite, and while I know they’re not entirely dependable, I knew that if I could have one or two of those big smallies in my bag each day, it would go a long way. The weights are always tight at this event, and a few ounces either way can mean a swing of ten places, so it’s important to catch a kicker every day – and by kicker I could just mean a 2 ½ or 3 pounder.

On the first day of competition, I decided to rotate through the normal areas I depend upon, and one of those creeks had a decent number of largemouths, including a 2 ½ pounder that boosted my catch up to 9-04. There was nothing fancy about how I caught them – just a Lunker Lure finesse jig and a shakey head – those are always my two main deals at Beaver Lake. I figured that weight would have me up pretty high, but everyone else caught them pretty well, too, so I was in 47th place, still well within range to make the top ten if I could just get another good largemouth or two into the boat.

The second day was a longer day and I needed just about every minute of it. I went back to what I thought was my reliable largemouth area and I just couldn’t get bit. I stayed there as long as I could but finally broke down and decided to hit a few places where I felt like I could catch a smallmouth or a big spot. It never happened. With a 4:15 weigh-in, I put my fifth fish in the livewell at 3:50 and they totaled a whopping 6-12, for a two-day total of 16 pounds even. I was disappointed because I fell down to 56th place, one spot out of the money.

I suppose there isn’t much I’d do differently if given another chance, but I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had I gutted it out in the largemouth area. My friend Glenn Browne stayed there the whole time and made the top ten. He said that they didn’t start biting until the last three hours and he managed to get the right bites. I only caught two there that second day.

Most years 16 pounds will get you a pretty good check at Beaver Lake, but it wasn’t the case this time. Maybe it’s improving, or maybe the field is improving. While I didn’t come away with a check, believe it or not, my finish moved me up one place in the Angler of the Year standings, so I’m still on track to make the championship, with two tournaments left to go. Next up is Kentucky Lake, and actually I’m here in Kentucky as I’m writing this, pre-fishing for that tournament. I really want to bounce back with a top finish.

A couple of other notes I might as well mention while I have your attention – first is that my term as Vice President of the PAA has ended. It was announced yesterday that John Crews will be the new President. I’ll remain on the board and I know that we’re all excited about what we’ve accomplished so far as well as what will happen in the future. I’ll still work hard, but I won’t have the day-to-day grind of the VP job and to be quite honest, I need to recharge my batteries. I can already tell a difference in my stamina and my fishing. The other update is that it didn’t take long for me to get comfortable in my new Phoenix boat – I’ve had no problems whatsoever and I’ve quickly become enamored of the way it fishes and particularly with how it handles rough water. We’ve got two big water tournaments coming up and I’m confident that I can run along side anyone with complete confidence in my boat to get me there and back safely.

 

FLW Tour -- Kentucky Lake
Murray, Kentucky
115th Place

I probably put more time and effort into this tournament than any other event this year. It doesn’t necessarily show, but I don’t think it hurt me, either. I went down to pre-fish for 5 days before the lake went off-limits in order to reacquaint myself – there’s a lot fishable water down there and we hadn’t had a tournament there in a few years, so I felt it would be time well-spent.

During that pre-practice, the water was still high, but there were numbers of smaller fish on the ledges. Pre-fishing that early, though, you’re not looking for what the fish are doing, but rather what they will be doing down the road. I spent a couple of days out deeper and then on the third day I went shallow and I absolutely mauled them. In fact, I mauled them up there for 2 ½ days. That got me to thinking about a lot of different things, but when I got back for the official practice period, after hearing that the Elite Series guys had killed them out deeper, I committed to the ledge bite.

My biggest mistake in this event was that I didn’t go far enough south. Between the Triton Owners Tournament and the Elite Series, I figured those fish had been beaten beyond reason, but obviously it didn’t make a whole lot of difference. Not only did Keith Williams, the winner, fish down there, but so did a few others from the top ten.

I just never had a good feeling throughout pre-practice, the official practice or during the tournament – part of that is I never caught a fish over 4 pounds. I was catching 200 a day, but they weren’t going to do me any good in a tournament where it was going to take 20 pounds a day to show up at the top of the leader board. I knew I was using the right baits – a crankbait, a jig, a spoon – but I needed to get on the right spots, and that never happened.

So much of this sport is timing. If you’re on a flipping bite and you end up following Andy Morgan or Greg Hackney down a row of bushes, you’re in trouble. Same thing on the ledge bite – if you hit your spots in the wrong order, when they aren’t pulling current or when the fish are off the feed, you can have all the right tools and a world of experience and you still won’t catch them. I just never got it right and I foolishly refused to make the 100 mile run south and I paid the price.

I spent the first tournament day in Barkley and just wore out the small fish with a crankbait. For the first hour of the day and the last hour of the day, I literally caught a fish on every cast, but I still only weighed in 4 for 8-04. I had four or five groups of fish like that and I thought the deep diving crankbait would be better for the bigger fish, but I couldn’t tempt a giant.

On the second day I started on the fish in Barkley but I only managed two or three small fish and bailed pretty quickly for what I hoped would be better quality in Kentucky Lake. In the last hour, I caught my three heaviest fish – the same way I had caught my two heaviest in the last hour the prior day – but even those solid 3 to 3 ½ pounders were just check-quality fish.

When the current slowed down and the pressure reached its zenith, I got out the Carolina Rig (something I hadn’t caught them on in practice) and that’s what worked. In fact, after catching a medley of trash fish the last day – including drum, sauger and a snapping turtle – when my last fish bit, I assumed it was another drum. My Carolina-rigged trick worm came down the ledge and the fish hit it going away from me and ended up hooked on the outside of the gill plate. The way it fought, I figured it was another drum and didn’t ask my partner for any help. I got the fish in the boat, but never caught my fifth – I ended up with 4 for 11-00 that day. I guess I was just out of sync the entire time.

I’m in 58th place in the standings right now and with one event to go I figure I need to move up 8 to 10 places to qualify for the cup. Once again, Chaplain will be one of those “flip a coin” deals – do you make the long run to Ticonderoga to fish for largemouths or stay close and try to win with smallmouths? Hopefully, this time I’ll make the right decision.

 

Lake Champlain
Plattsburgh, New York
87th Place
10 fish, 26-00

At this point in my career I’ve been to Lake Champlain a number of times, so there aren’t many surprises. I generally know where the largemouth are and how to catch them and I know where the smallmouth are and how to catch them. My problem often lies in the fact that whichever way I elect to go it ends up being the wrong way.

Nine out of ten times I end up getting tied up in the smallmouth bite – I’ll catch a few four pounders during practice and that tends to sway how I fish the tournament. This tournament was the same deal….I never really put my heart into looking for largemouths. It’s really a flip of the coin anyway. It seems like five of the top ten finishers are always on smallmouths and the other five are on largemouths, but no matter which way you end up looking, you had better be focused if you want to catch the big weights it takes on the “sixth Great Lake.”

This year I spent part of practice on each species, but stayed up north the whole time. I never ventured down to Ticonderoga, where a lot of big largemouths live. It’s a long run down there and if the wind blows like it did the second day it’ll beat you up, if you get there at all.

The problem with my practice strategy is that I never realized how far behind the fish were this year. In practice, we had wind, rain and clouds the whole time and I could catch 40 or 50 smallmouths a day, many or most of them over 3 pounds. But, of course, once the tournament started, conditions changed completely. The first day of the event was the first slick-calm and sunny day in three weeks. Absolutely no wind. That might’ve helped a largemouth bite, positioning them predictably, but it made the smallmouths scatter out.

With three hours left to go in the day, I had only 9 or 10 pounds and I was sick to my stomach about it. I finally got shallow and saw a 3 ½ pounder on a bed. At that point, it hit me like a light bulb and I realized that that the big ones were still up there. I stayed up there the rest of the day and culled out my initial limit, but I could only get up to around 12 pounds. Once you’re behind on this pond, you simply can’t make up much weight.

Fortunately, the second day was to be my longest day on the water and I felt like if I looked for bedding fish I could come up with 18-plus pounds, which would put me in the Forrest Wood Cup. Of course, that day the wind decided to blow again and with the beds relatively deep (10 to 12 feet) I couldn’t see them. I started throwing a Wally G crankbait I’d had some success on in practice, and in the first 10 minutes I caught a 4 ½ and a 3 ½. I figured it was on, but that was it – I never got another quality bite the rest of the day. As the sun got higher, the crankbait bite died off. I ended up weighing in over 14 pounds and I jumped a bunch of spots in the standings, but not quite enough.

It seems like every year I learn another critical piece of information about where the larger largemouths and smallmouths live up there and how to catch them. Fortunately, there’s a BASS Northern Open here in a few weeks and I’ve paid the entry fee so we’ll stay here the whole time to get some serious exploring done. There’s no off-limits, so I’ll get to explore some less familiar areas like Ticonderoga. It’s so rare that we get to spend any serious amount of time on a single body of water, particularly a massive one like Champlain, and especially as the fish change over from the spawn to post-spawn, so I want to make the most of it.

The Hibdons have been here, too, and we’ve been having mini team tournaments every day. The other day Dion had 22 pounds of smallmouths and Lawson and I had 16, so I’m putting everything I learned into my bag of tricks. I really want to make the fish pay for the agony they’ve caused me. Since I missed the first Northern Open, I have no pressure in this event. I don’t have to fish defensively, as I often find myself doing at the end of the season, and my best guess right now is that I’ll end up running south if the weather allows it.

One other nice thing about all this time on the water is that I’ve gotten to put my Phoenix boat through its paces in every kind of water condition imaginable. It rides like a dream and it’s super-responsive on the throttle. I couldn’t be happier.

One other thing to be happy about: Last week I flew to Orlando for 3 ½ days for ICAST. I went with the folks from Outdoor Identities, makers of Fishouflage, fisherman-identifying camo. We signed a multi-year partnership and I’m going to incorporate them into a big portion of my marketing efforts. I’m absolutely flattered to be with them and I have no doubt that they are going to be exceptionally successful.

 

BASS Northern Open – Lake Champlain
Plattsburgh, New York
13th Place

I missed the first Northern Open of the year, on the Chesapeake Bay, so points weren’t a concern heading into this event. I was able to practice and fish for the win and that’s something I don’t get to do very often these days.

Another thing that made this tournament unique is that we stayed in New York after the FLW Tour event here. It’s nice to be able to fish at your leisure, and when the weather allows, instead of having to go out and fight the conditions. Debbie and I vacationed a bit, did some sightseeing, but I still got to spend 12 or 14 days on the lake. That enabled me to check out some new areas – like Ticonderoga – and allowed me to fish for roaming populations of largemouths and smallmouths. I could follow their movements from day to day and that really helped once the tournament began.

I was also able to figure out a way to catch some of the bigger fish. In a tournament where places are often separated by ounces, and a 3 pound average makes you an also-ran, those big bites are key. I learned that I had to put down the dropshot and instead stick with a Lunker Lure Finesse Jig and a Hawg Caller spinnerbait. They didn’t produce quite as many bites, but they were typically the right bites.

The area that ended up producing best for me was a part of the lake that I fished a few times over the years, but I wasn’t terribly familiar with it. Once I determined that it had the right quality fish, I dedicated myself to it and wiped everything else off the slate. That’s what you can do when the win is all that matters. Never once during the tournament did I feel any pressure. My confidence level was high.

I knew that if the smallmouth moved a long distance or didn’t cooperate I’d be in big trouble. Luckily they didn’t do that until the last day. For the most part, I was still able to track them down in huge numbers, but the four-pounders that I needed just about disappeared. I culled through just as many fish as I had the first two days, but the size wasn’t there. Still, I ended up with over 50 pounds of bass for the three days and that’s a good feeling.

After a few tough events this season, it’s nice to have one where things went so well. I fished exceptionally clean. The only fish that I lost that might’ve helped me was one that bit at the end of a long cast. I couldn’t turn her and she pulled off. I never saw her, so there’s no guarantee that it would’ve helped me.

My only regret was that I couldn’t get some bigger largemouth to bite the last day. I was around the right fish to win - that’s for sure. After all, Dave Wolak was up there with me and he had a mixed bag that weighed 22-02 on the second day. It was all a matter of getting those two or three big green fish every day.

So after a month in New York and a great tournament to conclude our stay, we’ve made our way home and now I’m preparing for our fourth annual Special Olympics Tournament. It’s a great cause and I’m really proud of what we’ve done with this event and I’m proud of my sponsors like Jasper Engines & Transmissions. Pretty much all of them have stepped up with support and many will actually be there. In these tough economic times, when non-profits are hurting, that means a lot.

 

BASS Northern Open – Lake Erie
Sandusky, Ohio
17th Place

Every time I’ve fished Lake Erie in the past, I’ve targeted smallmouths. In particular, I enjoy fishing the Canadian portion of the lake, around Pelee Island, and launching out of Sandusky for the first time would give me easy access to that area.

Prior to arriving, I’d heard that the smallmouth fishing was off. That was an understatement, to say the least. It wasn’t just off, it was non-existent. I was catching 2 to 3 smallies a day. They were the right caliber, but it seemed unlikely that I’d be able to catch 5 in a day, particularly if the water was rough.

I had heard that there were some decent largemouths to be caught in the bay and in the harbors, so with 6 or 7 hours of daylight left on the final practice day I decided to check out some of those types of areas. Really, my intention was just to look in case it got too rough to run, but pretty quickly I found a 50 acre mat of milfoil and it was absolutely loaded with largemouths. I only fished it for about 20 minutes, but I crushed them there. Nothing big, just solid two pound plus fish. There was also a lily pad field nearby and I pretty quickly got 9 bites on a Secret Lures Chubby Frog.

The first day started off a little bit rough, and I was concerned about making a long run in open water, so with a long day ahead of me I decided to fish for largemouths first. I figured that I’d work my way up to 12 pounds or so and that if I could do that three days in a row, I might not win, but I’d probably get a check. In the end, I stayed there all day and much to my surprise I weighed in 16-02. I was catching them flipping a Berkley Chigger Craw with a big weight and I probably caught a hundred – it was so good that if I went 10 minutes without a bite, I figured something was wrong. The largemouths are hard to gauge, so I didn’t know I had 16 pounds, and I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in 18th place.

Day Two was cancelled. Thirty mile per hour winds out of the east had 10 to 12 footers rolling. That gave me time to recharge physically and to make sure everything on my boat was ready in case I decided to make the run out into the big water. Sure enough, when day three dawned it was still pretty rough out there. Once it gets big, it doesn’t just stop because the wind stops blowing.

We fished a full field that last day and I was boat number four. It was cloudy and rainy, not optimal conditions for the flipping bite, but I had rested those largemouths for a day and I elected to start on them. Fortunately, they were biting from the get-go and as soon as I had five in the livewell I buckled everything up and headed for a group of smallmouths I’d located out around Pelee. There were no guarantees, but I knew that if I could catch one or two it would help in a big way. It worked out that way. Drifting and dragging across the area with a dropshot rig, I added a 5-pounder and a 3-pounder. I lost one other, but who knows, it might have been a sheepshead. But I only had three hours there before I had to come in, not quite enough time to cull out all of my largemouths.

My 17th place finish, combined with a 13th at Champlain, put me in 33rd place overall in the points, so in hindsight I really regret that I didn’t fish the first Northern Open on the Upper Chesapeake Bay. By skipping that tournament I missed out on a legitimate shot at the Bassmaster Classic. Still, I had a blast fishing the Opens. I learned a lot and I got to see some different areas of Erie that I’m sure will pay off for me in the future. Now it’s off to Texas for a few weeks and then hopefully some much-needed rest – I’ve only been home about a month total this year.

 

PAA Tournament Series
Toledo Bend Reservoir
Hemphill, Texas
40th place
10 fish, 20.34 lbs.

This was the third and final event of the PAA regular season and I had a lot riding on it. My primary goal was to make sure that I qualified for the Toyota Texas Bass Classic the following week on Lake Conroe, but it’s hard just to fish for points – I want to win every event I enter.

I hadn’t been to Toledo Bend in quite some time, so I went down before the lake went off-limits. I have a friend who lives down there so I went down for four days around Labor Day and we just rode around and looked. I knew that a lot would change in the month or so until the tournament, so we really didn’t fish, just checked out the grass situation.

Heading into the official practice period, I knew that I was going to target Toledo Bend’s productive grass bite, but I had no clue whether that meant going shallow or deep. As it turned out, I did both. I had a deep area where I could catch them on a one-ounce Lunker Lure jig fished along the edges. There was a pretty good school there and I felt like they gave me a chance to do very well in the tournament. I’d also found some areas where I could flip shallow grass and catch a few, so the weather was going to dictate what I did. If the wind blew, as it always seems to do, it makes it tough to catch them deep. If you get even a foot or so off the edge of the grass line, it can mean the difference between blanking and loading the boat.

The first day I started on those deep fish and I had five decent keepers in about an hour. Of course it was calm then. They weren’t big, but that gave me the freedom to try other things and to back off when the wind picked up early in the day. At that point I had to go up shallow and punch grass with a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver and a one-ounce weight. It wasn’t quite as fast and furious, but I did manage to cull up twice. Fortunately, the heavy wind really hurt a lot of other guys so my small limit had me in decent position to make a move on the leader board.

When the second day started, it was calm, but the cold front was moving through. I started on my deep fish again and things didn’t go as smoothly as on Day One. I managed to put one bass in the livewell early, but I lost three, and two of them felt really big. Then by nine o’clock, the winds picked up again, and I was blown off my deep grass line for the second straight day. I scrambled up shallow and managed to box five, but they weren’t enough. I missed the cut by less than a pound. To say that I was sickened by the fish I lost that day would be an understatement. Normally, we go down to 40th to fish day three, but in this event we’d made the decision only to go down to 36th, and that change bit me in the butt.

Without making the cut, I couldn’t make a run at the Angler of the Year title (won by Steve Kennedy), but I ended up 12th in the points, with a huge cushion for getting into the TTBC.

With only a short drive to the west to get to Conroe, now I could turn my attention to the $250,000 top prize that would be given out the following week.

 

Toyota Texas Bass Classic
Lake Conroe
Montgomery, Texas
7th place
15 fish, 41-00

Heading into the 3rd annual Toyota Texas Bass Classic, I’d never been to Lake Conroe before. I hadn’t done much research, so I really had no preconceived notions of how the lake would fish – but you couldn’t help overhearing some of the dock talk, and it was all about brushpiles, brushpiles, brushpiles.

Despite that “conventional wisdom,” when I got there, all I could wonder was, whether everyone had been kidding me. The lake is wall-to-wall boat docks, and that’s one form of cover I love to fish. But disregarding my instincts I spent the first day and a half of practice out deep, using my Humminbird Side Imaging electronics to locate some beautiful brush. The only problem was that I couldn’t get a bite on it. I fished a jig, big worms and a crankbait, but it wasn’t just slow, it was non-existent.

Halfway through the second practice day I headed over to some of the docks that had called to me, broke out my Lunker Lure finesse jig, and went to work. It was cloudy and windy, which may be what prevented the deep fish from biting, but it also had an effect on those shallow fish. Under those conditions they get loose and run the seawalls. I used a Zara Spook and a Pop-R to find them, realizing all along that when the weather cleared off, they’d get sucked back into the docks.

I was totally at ease with the techniques involved, but I didn’t feel like I had a great area on which to start. The first day it definitely didn’t work right out of the gate. It was still cloudy, and it started slowly, but eventually I started catching a few fish on the outside dock posts. I ended up with about 9 or 10 keepers and a decent sack of over 13 pounds.

On the second day, it was even colder. The water temperature had dropped 8 degrees. I started in a completely different area, and by nine o’clock I had two bites that really keyed me in to what the fish were doing. They had moved, not far, not even off the docks, but they’d repositioned on those docks to the shallowest places they could get. Typically that meant under the walkways. I could make two casts to each dock, one to each side of the shallowest part of the walkway, and that was it. I’d move on. That allowed me to cover a lot of water, which was critical. The other key element was timing. I hit a good stretch during a one and a half hour period when they were really snapping, and because I was so dialed in, I was able to make the most of it.

Heading into the final day of the tournament, I was in 4th place, within reach of leader (and eventual winner) Dave Lefebre and I stayed dialed in. In fact, I caught fish until I was sick of catching them. I just never got a good bite. That day, timing may have been my downfall. I was sharing water with some other anglers in the top ten, including Aaron Martens, and I was always worried about whether I was following him or whether he was behind me. As it turned out, I caught three limits of fish, but Aaron got the good bites. It just wasn’t meant to be.

With the bite getting tougher for most of us who remained, I knew I just needed one big bite or a couple of decent bites, but it didn’t happen and I was disappointed. Still, I ended the year on a good note, both in terms of the points race and the championship as well. I hope that gives me some momentum heading into 2010.

 

BASS Southern Open - January 14-16, 2010
Lake Okeechobee
25th Place
6 fish, 16-15

Welcome back to my tour journal. This year’s entries will be familiar in that I intend to chronicle my tournament efforts, but it’ll also be a little bit different. The difference will be about my attitude. I’ve had some success in my career, qualifying for multiple Bassmaster Classics and an FLW Championship, even a Stren points championship, but frankly I’m a little bit disappointed – I figured by this time I’d have some tour-level wins and either a championship victory or an Angler of the Year title. So I headed into 2010 with a renewed focus on taking some chances to pick up my first major win.

Okeechobee was a good place to test out the new approach. Historically I’ve done well in Florida. The drive down there gave me a lot of time to think and I knew the type of fishing I’d have to do to win. The important thing was to commit to those winning ways. Then it’s a matter of finding the right area of the lake. The fact that a huge cold front was moving through didn’t bother me at all. It would take so many guys out of the running it wouldn’t even be funny. They’d be lost during practice and remain lost until it was time to head home.

I arrived at the lake Thursday evening and hired a plane to fly the lake Friday. I hadn’t been there in three years and those Florida bass are so particular about clear water, I knew that would be the quickest way to break things down, and as it turned out when I was up in the air I identified the general area that I ended up concentrating on. I went out for a few hours that afternoon just to confirm what I saw from the air.

Saturday I didn’t even launch the boat. It was really nasty and I knew that time on the water would be more damaging than helpful. The time away also built up anticipation, so even though Sunday wasn’t much nicer, I did go out and ride around for a few hours. I never took out a rod – again, that’s about the commitment to win. On a big lake like Okeechobee it’s possible to waste hours and hours on the wrong stuff.

Monday I started fishing a bit, keying on my past history. I knew that flipping the decaying mats that generate heat is one definite way to win and I tried to find areas where they’d move to and from the beds. I only had about three bites, which was fine. Things were changing so fast that any more than that and I might’ve gotten locked into something that was declining rather than improving. I did that for two more days, burning a lot of gas. I’d look around a lot and fish a little.

On Wednesday afternoon I went offshore for a while, fishing some eelgrass beds. That’s different than I’ve ever fished Okeechobee before, and even though I got a few bites, they were small and my heart wasn’t in it. I honestly think I could’ve caught a few fish that way, but they wouldn’t be first place caliber bites. There were a lot of other boats in there, too, so we would’ve been splitting them up.

When the tournament started, the water temperature was 45 degrees. In Florida, those atypical temperatures require that you fish S-L-O-W. Sometimes I was leaving my bait in a spot for up to a minute before making the next pitch, and that next pitch would only be a foot or two feet away. Not a good way to cover water, but an absolute necessity. I’ve never been as patient as I’ve needed to be in that respect, but again, my attitude was changing and I was going to force myself to do whatever it took to win, or at least go down swinging.

I had a little area in Eagle Bay with six or eight key spots, right in front of a spawning bay. I was the first one there, but Kyle Fox pulled in ahead of me and on his third flip he caught a ten-plus. Bobby Lane, who finished second overall to his brother Chris, started to the right of me and had about 12 ½ pounds. Their catches convinced me I was doing the right thing, but the fish in their livewells didn’t help me a bit. I stayed with it until around 11 o’clock and then ran down to an area adjacent to the Monkey Box. In about 10 minutes, I had one about 5 pounds and one about 7. I knew that if I could get one or two more like that, I’d be in great shape. I stayed there all day, grinding it out, but I never had another bite.

Those two fish had me in eighth place after the first day, well within striking distance, and I had a huge area to fish, so on the second day I stayed in there all day. I had two or three little fish that I wrestled to the top of the mat and they came off. I wanted to expand my area a bit, but the bite was so painfully slow that I really had to gut it out. I caught one a little over two pounds and then it was time to leave. Those three fish over two days had me in something like 19th place, well inside the cut. Better yet, I knew that there was a 30 pound bag in there somewhere and with the field reduced there’d be a lot of boats out of the way.

I started Saturday in my big fish area and spent two or three hours there, but I ended up with nothing to show for it. I’d had one 14-incher that I got to the top of the mat before it got off, but that was it. The water clarity had changed in there and it was warming up. With the water into the 50s, those fish really wanted to move up, and I wasn’t going to die out there without exploring everything that I knew of. I hit all sorts of isolated stuff but it just wasn’t happening. Right before I came in, I went back into my starting area, but instead of hitting the mats I went in where they’d spawn and started throwing a Senko and a Skinny Dipper. I caught bunches of short fish, and even saw some on the beds, but all I managed were three small keepers.

In the end, I have no regrets at all. The window of opportunity on that flipping bite was so short that you had to commit to it if you were going to have a chance and that’s what I did. Get the right few bites and you’d take home the big trophy. Also, it’s nice to get the first tournament jitters out of the way. Most importantly, however, I got the chance to practice something I’m not good at – exercising a lot of patience. Next up is the FLW Tour opener on the Red River and I’m going to take some of what I forced myself to do in Florida (slow down!) and use it there. Historically, I haven’t gotten along very well with river systems, but we learned a lot about how the river will fish as a result of last year’s Bassmaster Classic. I have faith in where I am right now, and because it’s early in the season, I’m ready to gamble a bit and go for broke.

 

Chad Morgenthaler Signs with El Grande Lures

February 2, 2010

 
Coulterville, IL – Today El Grande Lures of Linton, Indiana announced that Chad Morgenthaler, an FLW Tour pro from Coulterville, Illinois, has joined
the company’s pro-staff.

The timing couldn’t be better. With FLW Tour season about to commence on Louisiana’s Red River, Morgenthaler is on the hunt for monster bass.
Fortunately, El Grande’s products should give him the edge he needs. The company’s lures are most frequently used on the big bass factories of Texas
and Louisiana, but they’ll work anywhere that trophy bass swim.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity to work with a great soft plastics company like El Grande Lures,” Morgenthaler said. “I hope to play an
instrumental part in helping to brand and market their products as they broaden and expand their business plan. It is always an honor to be included
in the design process while a company ‘tweaks’ their products to maximize their effectiveness.”

El Grande’s owner, Jay Schurz, said the following: “We are excited about this partnership as Chad will be instrumental in working directly with me in
product design. Chad fully understands our niche in the market, which is creating big soft plastics with industry leading color schemes. We look
forward to many years of working with Chad and hope to be an integral part of helping Chad achieve his goals."

El Grande Lures currently has three products in its lineup:

The Gila Monster, an 8 ¾ inch lizard that can be Carolina rigged or Texas rigged

The El Grande Tube, a flipping tube meant to handle the toughest cover and fish around

El Grande Sapo, a soft plastic toad that churns the water like a buzzbait.

All three lures are available in standard colors as well as some patterns unique to El Grande.

 

FLW Tour - March 3-6, 2010
Table Rock Lake
39th place
7 fish, 18-01

The first FLW Tour event of 2010, scheduled for February on the Red River, was canceled due to conditions that the tournament director determined to be unsafe. The result is that each of the other five regular season events counts even more – bomb in one and your chances of making Angler of the Year, or even the championship, are pretty much done. So even though my goal for the year is to make some bold moves and shoot for a major league tour win, I know it’s important to guard against a complete disaster.

We headed back to Table Rock Lake in Missouri, a past tour stop, but one that we’ve never fished this early or when it was this cold. The water was still in the 30s. I entered practice not knowing what to expect, but I knew I had to keep an open mind. Only having three days of practice is something I’m still getting used to. It requires all of us to dial things in faster and fish more on instinct.

I spent the first day of practice in areas where I’d caught fish in years past, but with an eye toward determining where they’d be staging and how far out they were still holding. Jerkbaiting and throwing a football head jig, I had three bites all day, but two were great big ones. I had caught them in years past on a crankbait, but I knew that bite was off so I didn’t really mess with it.

On the second day of practice, I elected to head up the river to look for some bigger groups of fish in the trees. In my effort to step it up this year, I’ve committed to trying some new things. As I said above, I really want to keep my mind open. So I went way up the James and White Rivers. If I found something, I could spend the rest of practice expanding on it. If I had to fish back down the lake during the tournament, I pretty much knew where I was going to be and how I’d catch them. I never really got on the right creek or the right tree line on that second day, though. I had two bites. They were both big and both came on a jig, but that wasn’t enough to keep me up there. Then again, I knew that if the weather continued to warm up, it still might be an option.

I practiced the third day in the mid-lake section, near the mouths of the rivers. The weather was staying consistent – consistently bad – and just getting a few bites was a chore.

Now that FLW allows the whole field to fish the first three competition days, I wanted to start out the tournament in my comfort zone and just grind on it the first day, so that’s what I did, and I had two bites. The first was a short, spotted bass that I just couldn’t get to touch the line. The second was a 4-14 largemouth. It came farther back in my area than I had ventured during practice, but I knew that there weren’t a lot of fish up.

On the second day, we finally got a weather change. It was slick and calm with sunshine. Typically, that’s a dirty water deal. When there’s no wind, the jerkbait bite in the clear water gets tough and so does the jig bite down there. I started off with the jerkbait and told myself that if I didn’t have a fish in the livewell at 10 o’clock I’d head up the river. But as 10:00 approached, I kept backing off, out to 35 feet of water, and I started catching fish. I caught my first keeper and then time started getting away from me. Eventually I decided that I’d be best served by staying and expanding my water in the 30-35 foot range, and I got another keeper for my efforts. I was surprised that those two fish actually moved me up in the standings.

Moving up in the standings was a double-edged sword. I knew it was tough and I was getting some bites, but I knew I had missed out on the deal up the river. Still, Stacey King was fishing my area, just a different way, and his one bite that day weighed 6-03, so I knew the big ones were around.

When we launched on Day Three, the river was still in the back of my mind, so I made the decision that if I didn’t have a fish by 9:30, I was pulling the trigger and making the run. That time came and I had three fish already, all on the jig in 30+ feet of water. I had figured out that they were relating to rock shelves on secondary points and I felt pretty good. Now it was just a matter of getting a couple of big bites. I pretty much knew that it would take a miracle to get into the top five to get to fish the fourth day, but I could still gain some valuable points.

I caught my fourth and felt really good, but then the bites just stopped – for me. My co-angler caught a 6-02 on a jig, the only bite he had all day. I had picked up the jerkbait for just five minutes and he vacuumed the big one up behind me. It’s one of those things that just happens, but it didn’t feel good. To prevent that from happening again, I put away all of my rods except the jig stick, but I never had another bite.

Looking back, it was just a tough tournament. Practice didn’t tell us much and the conditions were brutal. Sure, there were some good catches up the river, but I’d bet 100-120 out of the 150 anglers were up there and a bunch of them didn’t do anything at all.

A few equipment notes: My key bait in this tournament was a Lunker Lure Finesse Jig, as it has been so many times before. I threw mainly 3/8 ounce in the Cumberland Craw color. I used 12 lb. line on a US Reels Pro Caster, which allowed me to make exceptionally long casts. That’s critical when you’re fishing deep because if you make short casts by the time it gets to the bottom you only get to retrieve the bait a few feet before you have to reel it up again. Also, the 7:1 gear ratio takes up a lot of line in a hurry. Finally, my 7’ extra-heavy Carrot Stix rod allowed me to feel the subtle bites in deep water – the fish definitely didn’t wallop the jig and I’m sure that I hooked a few fish that others would have missed, which is critical in an event like this one.

Next it’s on to Lake Norman, a body of water that historically has not been very kind to me. I’m ready to turn that around this year. They’ve had a lot of precipitation there this winter and maybe it’ll play to my strengths and be a good prespawn dirty water bite.

 

FLW Tour - March 24-27, 2010
Lake Norman
77th Place
15 fish, 25-10

We’ve been to North Carolina’s Lake Norman on multiple occasions now and Norman and I have never really gotten along. Despite that fact, I still went into this tournament with a great attitude, ready to practice hard. I’d thought quite a bit about what the fish would be doing – I did my research and kept an eye on the weather, but the one thing I couldn’t prepare for is illness. I spent two days of practice with the flu and I feel like that really hurt my chances. Getting bites wasn’t a problem but finding bigger fish, particularly largemouths, was tough. I needed all the time on the water I could get.

I knew going into practice that I was going to spend a fair amount of time up river. I normally don’t go there all that much and I felt like maybe I was limiting my chances unnecessarily as a result of that decision. That would still give me plenty of time to check on some old places down the lake. The strategy was well laid out, but it didn’t go according to plan.

The first day of practice, just two hours in I’d caught two really nice largemouths, but then (how can I put this politely?) “physical difficulties” took me out of commission for the next day and a half, and those first two days turned out to be the best two days of practice. On the third day, it was completely different, cloudy with sustained 25 mile per hour winds. I could get bites, but size was a concern.

Heading into Day One, I planned to start in an area I had confidence in, then move on up the river once I had a decent limit. As planned, I had 8 ½ pounds by 10:30, and with a long day on the water I tried to expand, but once I went up the river I only got three more bites and none of them helped me. The temperature up there was right, but the water was lower and dirtier than I wanted. The bottom line is that I ended the day with what I had early on.

On Day Two, I planned to stay down lake a little longer, but again my plans were affected by forces outside of my control. We had clouds and a little wind and I watched another pattern develop in front of my eyes. The bait was moving back and it produced a schooling-type bite. I was catching some of those fish on a 3 ½ inch Lake Fork Tackle Magic Shad and it produced my best limit of the three days. Not substantially larger than the first and third day, but at Norman every ounce makes a difference. With that little boost I moved up over 20 places in the standings. Of course my co-angler had one bite all day and it was a 3 ½ pound largemouth. I really needed that fish, but it also told me that there were some quality bites doing what I was doing and if I could just expand my new pattern into 3 or 4 more areas I knew that I’d eventually run into a big bite or two.

My limit deal was fishing docks with a Lunker Lure Limit Series jig in the Cumberland Craw color. It was happening pretty quickly in the morning and more fish were moving that way. Once again, though, the weather pulled a u-turn on us on Day Three, resulting in clear skies most of the morning. I caught a fish right out of the gate, but then I rotated through several more spots and couldn’t get a bite. I made the decision to head upriver at 11 o’clock, targeting the backs of coves. I’d been catching mostly spotted bass, but once I made this change I dialed right into the largemouth bite and over the next three hours I probably caught 25 or 30 bass, but the one good bite I enticed was under a dock and I lost it.

Even though the stats don’t indicate that I had a good tournament, I’m not terribly discouraged about this one. It didn’t cripple me terribly in the Angler of the Year standings. More importantly, I’ve learned that I can find enough fish to last three or even four tournament days – now I just need to get to that fourth day. It’s just a matter of time. When you’re a slow learner like I am, sometimes it’s even better to have a longer event. I can keep refining my knowledge as the tournament goes on.

My one regret is that I didn’t step up to a full-sized jig. After the tournament, the dock talk indicated that some of the high finishers were using a big jig. I know I can catch limits on the limit-getter, and it attracts its fair share of big bass too, but there’s a time and a place for a bulkier offering and this might have been it.

We only have three FLW Tour tournaments left and I like the way things are setting up. I’m in position to make a run at a slot in the championship and in terms of patterns and seasons, everything seems to be running a little late this year, which I believe works in my favor. Next up is Ft. Loudoun/Tellico and I did well there when we fished those lakes at this time of year. Guntersville is the one that worries me – it’s going to be a slugfest. The wild card is Ouachita. It’s the type of lake where you’re either on them or you’re not. There’s no in between. I’ve been there a couple of times and feel like I have a pretty good handle on the place. With a little more due diligence – and hopefully an ability to avoid another bout of the flu – I feel like things are set up to go my way.

FLW Tour
Fort Loudoun -- Tellico
125th Place -- 6 fish, 11-09

This wasn’t the tour’s first time at Ft. Loudoun – Tellico, and I thought I understood what was likely to happen there. That belief persisted through practice, but in the end, I didn’t have a clue.

I started off practicing on Tellico, in areas where I’d done well before, doing the things I’d done to catch them previously. As hoped, I had a really good first day. My best five probably would’ve weighed somewhere in the 12 to 14 pound range, and just as importantly I was catching really good numbers of fish. They weren’t on the beds. They were getting set up to come up to the beds and they were sitting ducks. The weather was projected to be stable and I figured they’d be easy pickings.

With that established, I decided to spend the second and third days on Ft. Loudoun, one on the upper end of the lake and the other down lake. On that second day, it seemed the same thing was going on at both lakes – the size was about the same but on Loudoun I was catching better numbers.

The final day of practice I went up the river and this is where it got interesting. I didn’t get many bites up there. In fact, I didn’t know if I could catch five up there, but when I got a bite it was a quality fish. Here’s the kicker – eventual winner Glenn Browne was practicing up there with me. We had one little creek that was best and he was getting bit even better than I was in there. So I went into the tournament excited, with both deep and shallow fish. I’m telling the truth when I say that it was nothing to catch 50 or 75 fish a day, and you could catch them on just about anything you wanted. In my case, the top producers were a jig and a Gambler Big EZ swimbait.

On the first day of competition, I started on the lower end of Ft. Loudoun and had four keepers in the boat quickly, so I bailed on that and ran out to Tellico to upgrade. In three hours of fishing Tellico, though, I didn’t catch a keeper. In fact, I barely caught any short fish. I headed back to Ft. Loudoun, filled out my limit and then culled out two limits in the last two hours. I only ended up with about 9 ½ pounds, but it was the easy type of fishing that I expected.

Heading into Day Two, I was done with Tellico and fully committed to Ft. Loudoun, but I was rethinking that strategy at noon when I’d caught 15 short fish but no keepers. I simply didn’t understand it. Nothing had changed to turn the fish off, but they were clearly in a funk – at least for me.

I needed to come up with a new plan. The pockets and the docks had been beaten to death so I tried to relocate my staging fish and ended up with only one for the day. Lots of other guys – Stacey King, Dion and Guido Hibdon – tried the same stuff and also came up short. Meanwhile, Glenn had caught 17 the first day and 16 the second day, so there was no way that I could head back up the river on Day Three and keep my conscience clear. He had a good shot at winning so I didn’t want to screw that up for him.

Instead, on Day Three I committed to the swimbait bite on Tellico. I figured that it was the best way to get a bunch of big bites. All three bites I got on it were big smallmouths, but they didn’t meet the lake’s 18-inch minimum size. I tried it slow, fast, deep and shallow, but couldn’t get anything going. I didn’t have any located on beds and there didn’t seem to be any more moving up. For the first time in at least five years, I just ran out of options and ideas.

If I had this tournament to do over again, I’d start up in the river and never leave. I’d take whatever punishment it could dish out, but at least I’d be around the right quality fish.

In hindsight, I also should have thrown a shakey head when things got tough. I refused to do it because I’ve vowed to fish more aggressively this year, but it’s always a balancing act and I didn’t do a very good job of adapting to conditions. I simply never dreamed that I could blank on that lake. Nobody had a sicker feeling than me on Friday.

I don’t know where this leaves me in the points race and to tell you the truth I don’t care. I’m fishing each event on an individual basis, shooting for the win. If I manage to win one, the Cup will take care of itself.

We have two tough tournaments coming up. At Ouachita, it’ll be hit or miss. Some guys will catch good bags and others will struggle. At Guntersville, everybody will catch them so it’ll be a matter of finding where the big girls live. The past is the past and there’s nothing I can do about it now, so it’s time to move on to the next one.

BASS Southern Open
Smith Lake, Alabama
131st Place -- 2 fish, 3-03

Heading into the second Southern Open of the year, I was determined to keep an open mind. I have a pretty good track record on Smith Lake but I know that it can be a difficult fishery. The spotted bass are dominant, but there’s a decent largemouth fishery as well and I wanted to give them both a fair shake. Still, I had it in the back of my mind that the spots were more likely to bunch up better and therefore they’d be more reliable.

The other thing that I felt would hurt the largemouth bite is that the water was high. There was so much inundated cover that it was hard to know where to start. Even if you caught a few, they were likely to get pounded.

I had a so-so effort on the first day of practice, but on the second day I really dialed in on the spots. I was catching them in 15 to 20 feet of water and I felt that unlike shallow water fish, bass at that depth wouldn’t react negatively to any changes we encountered. In all, I found 6 or 8 places where they were doing the same thing, so even though things always seem to get tough when the tournament starts, I had enough water to grind out a few good limits.

My practice impressions proved to be mistaken.

All I can figure is that when they started generating and moving water, that moved the fish, but to tell you the truth I don’t really know if that fully explains it. By the time I gave all of my places a fair shot on the first tournament day, I was out of time. I’d probably caught about 20 fish, but only one keeper. Either I didn’t go through my rotation in the right order, or I just failed to relocate those schools that had bitten so well just a day or two before. It’s still a mystery to me. Making it even tougher was the fact that my co-angler had three keepers that first day - fish that I really could have used.

As I expected, the three main deals were a jig, a shakey head and a topwater, and I knew that as tough as Smith was fishing, I wasn’t out of it heading into the second day by any means. I made a couple of tackle adjustments and changed my rotation.

I started off in a creek where I knew there was a mix of largemouths and spots and right out of the gate I missed three really good fish. I’d get five or six cranks on them and they’d come off. I was using a shakey head. It’s something I do all the time and don’t lose a lot of fish doing it, but these fish were different, and they were laughing at me. Once I exhausted that area, I ran some of my deeper ledge stuff, trying to relocate the schools. When I went to my primary school almost immediately I lost another good one. At that point I began to come a little bit unraveled and I had to take a minute to calm down and collect myself.

It was dead calm with bright sunny skies, so I focused a little deeper. The areas I keyed on had a hundred feet of water on either side of them and the fish were suspended, which made things even tougher. I had to go to a super-light shakey head that took forever to fall, but all of the bites were spots that ate it as it fell. I caught a keeper almost right away and figured I was on to something, but 20 fish later I hadn’t had another keeper bite there.

I went to my next school and within 20 minutes I lost two bass that I couldn’t even turn and that was it. I went to weigh-in with one lonely bass in my bag again.

I don’t want to cry over spilled milk or lost fish. I had the bites but I just didn’t execute. The end result is what it is. It eliminates my shot at making the Bassmaster Classic through the opens, but if I do well at Seminole I still have a shot to qualify for some things that’ll open up my options. So it’s on to the next one and I plan to kick butt at Seminole.

A tournament like this certainly doesn’t give yo ua mental boost, but if there’s anything positive that I can take away, it’s knowing that after a miserable first day I was smart enough to make some adjustments and get some more bites. It’s not fun to have to come up with rationales like that, but the true pros deal with things during the tough times. Anyone can go through the easy times, but when things aren’t going your way that’s when the weak links wash out.

One other positive note: I was elected by my peers to be the new President of the PAA, taking over for John Crews, who has done a tremendous job during his term in office. I’ve been involved with the organization for a long time and this gives me a chance to work hard to put my personal touch on it. Sure, I’ll be busy, but it’ll keep my mind off of the occasional bad finishes. I’m not like my good friend Shin Fukae who can spend months at a time without taking a day off from the water. Sometimes distractions actually do me some good.

 

FLW Tour
Lake Ouachita
40th Place; 15 fish, 30-06

I had fished the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita back in the summer of 2007, but I still didn’t know quite what to expect when we returned this year. I expected that my past experiences would form my game plan, but I also knew that conditions wouldn’t be quite the same as they were during that hot August event just three years ago.

Mother Nature threw us a curveball heading into the tournament – right before practice the lake jumped up about three and a half feet which put the water in the bushes and gave it some color. There was a lot of newly flooded cover and I’m a sucker for that, but I also suspected that things would change again by the time the tournament ended….and they did. I wanted to chase that shallow bite, but with the water falling again it was a guessing game as to how long the fish would be there.

There didn’t seem to be many fish deep so I stayed shallow, and by the end of the practice period I felt that as long as the water didn’t drop too much, the lowered level would actually help me. The fish wouldn’t all move out deep – instead they’d travel right to me. I was betting on the come.

One other pattern that’s no secret this time of year at Ouachita is the bluegill spawn. It’s a key deal. The bass hang around those bedding spots and if you get into the right bunch of them it can be a winning pattern. I had some of that going on, so by the end of my three days of practice, I felt that I had my bases pretty well covered.

I was banking on an early morning topwater bite, but on the first day of competition, we had a two hour fog delay, which pretty much took that out of play for everybody. I still spent about two and a half hours chasing it, but with only two bites, it just wasn’t going to happen. Then I went flipping bushes and that wasn’t going on either. Both the numbers and the average size were way down. With Plan A and Plan B pretty much done, I went to Plan C - my bluegill bedding areas. I went into what I felt were some of the better ones and started to explore, and what I saw just about drove me insane. There were lots of really good bass around, but it was hard to get them to bite. I messed around with them the rest of the day but only managed to catch eight pounds.

On the second day, I changed up my areas, still chasing the bass around the bluegill beds. We didn’t have a fog delay, but I still couldn’t get any meaningful topwater bite going. With that gone by the wayside, I moved out a little bit deeper and the bite was better. I improved upon my Day One catch by just under two pounds and moved up several places, although still not enough to make it inside the money cut. I knew that I’d have to step up my game even more on the third day. It was going to take a big effort to get a check, but I knew that I was around the right fish to get it done.

With respect to my tactics, once the topwater deal fizzled, I spent most of my time fishing an El Grande tube and a Lunker Lure jig and by the end of the second day I’d started to get dialed in on the particular sizes and colors that worked the best. I also caught a few out deeper, cranking a DT16 and throwing a Carolina rig, but I was banking on the jig to get the job done and on Day Three it lived up to my expectations. I finally found some quality fish in the right mood and finally got a 5 ½ pounder to eat my bait. With that I culled up to 12-07, well within the money cut. I’d had a dead fish penalty on the second day and while it didn’t cost me a lot of money, it did cost me quite a few places since the weights were so tight, but on the whole, I feel that I fished a good, clean tournament. My weight went up every day, which is a sign that I fished intelligently.

My only disappointment coming out of Arkansas is that I’m pretty sure I can’t make up enough points in our final Tour event to make the Cup. While that might be bad news, it also presents an opportunity to swing for the fences at Guntersville to really gamble for a win in a big fish event. I’m ready to take some chances.

We left Ouachita for Alabama to get some pre-practice in before the lake went off-limits and I am just amazed at the quality of the fishery. If it’s not the best lake in the country right now, there can’t be many that are better. You can catch them in all sorts of different ways, and catch big fish doing all of them, but I’m 99 percent sure that I’m going to stay deep on main river channel structure. I’ll definitely have a big jig and a big crankbait tied on, but I’ve also got a couple of tricks up my sleeve, including some swimbaits.

It’s going to take mid- to upper-twenty pound limits every day to be in contention. Typically, I’ve been more successful in the “grind ‘em out” tournaments, fishing with a finesse jig, but I’ve done OK in some slugfests, too, and this is one I feel good about. I know what lives there and I like the way it’s setting up. I don’t necessarily have as much experience on the lake as many of the other competitors, but that can be a positive, too. The lake has more community holes than any place I’ve ever seen, but I’m hoping my lack of familiarity will lead me to something off the beaten path, the type of spot or pattern that can produce a tour-level win.

FLW Tour
Lake Guntersville
112th Place -- 15 fish, 39-13

When I returned to Guntersville for the official practice, a lot had changed since I’d been there just a few weeks earlier. There weren’t as many easily located schools of fish, but once you found them they were bunched up even tighter and in greater numbers. You also had to weed through a lot of them to find any decent ones.

The other change was the fact that the grass had exploded which moved a lot of fish shallow. That gave you two options – stay out and fish the ledges, where I was catching them on a ¾ ounce Lunker Lure football head jig and a Strike King 6XD crankbait, or stay shallow where I could get a lot of bites pitching a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver or a Grass Monster Jig.

Even though the fish were spread among the two depths, it still wasn’t easy. The lake was crowded, and while bites weren’t tough to come by, finding the right school was a needle in a haystack deal. I felt like it would be won on the deep bite so I spent a lot of time with my Humminbird using both the down imaging and side imaging technologies. As a result I felt that I found some schools with potential – maybe not the winning fish, but enough to do pretty well.

On Day One I ran to what I thought was my biggest school and found only one other angler there, my good friend Shin Fukae. For 2 ½ hours we sat there and it was just stupid, a fish on every cast. We both left several times and came back and you could pretty much call your shot. The problem was that the better bites were random. In fact, the biggest bag that came out of there that day was my co-angler’s 18 pounds. It was a hundred yard area so there was nothing you could do to protect it except hope that you put it in front of the right fish. I was severely disappointed by my 13 pound limit, but I felt that just a few more good bites on Day Two and I still had a chance to do well.

On the second morning, I started in the same area and had a limit in 30 minutes, but it was obvious that the school was starting to diminish. In fact, Shin never caught a keeper there. Either we’d damaged the school or else they’d moved on. I tend to think it was the latter. In response, I went shallow for several hours but couldn’t really upgrade much. Finally, with a couple of hours left I made a run up the river to go cranking. I caught my best fish of the day, but also lost two big ones, which really hurt. In this tournament it seemed like whenever I got the right bite, something always went wrong and I couldn’t make it stop. I’m not crying about it now, but it continues to confound me.

Day Three was a short day on the water for me. In order to reduce fish mortality, FLW decided to have us weigh in at 1:30. Once again I hoped that my starting spot would pay off, but those fish were gone. I never got a bite there. With the short day, I didn’t really want to make the 30 mile run up river. ON top of that, I fished a little fast. As I said before, something I can’t figure out must be wrong with my mechanics because I got 30 good bites in a 2 ½ hour period and only boated four of them. In a word, it was horrible.

Still, I didn’t give up hope. I had one spot near the launch that I’d save, a shellbed maybe 50 or 75 yards long, but when I got there the tournament leader, Brent Long, was camped on it. So much for that idea. In short, I was around the right fish but I suppose I didn’t make the right adjustments. There were good stringers caught both shallow and deep, but I couldn’t make it happen this time. Less than 40 pounds over three days on Guntersville is simply not good.

That disappointment marks the end of a disappointing FLW Tour season, but I’m going to keep my chin up. I learned so much about the lake this year and I was so close to putting it all together on the 3rd day that I felt like I was ready to start over again as soon as it was over – and this time the result would be different.

Now it’s off to start the PAA tour and to finish up the Bassmaster Opens, and perhaps fish a few other tournaments too. This is what I do for a living and the more I fish the better I feel. FLW has announced their 2011 schedule, and it’ll have us going back and forth across the country several times, along with increased entry fees, but I’ll worry about that when it gets here. Right now, I need to get back to business as usual.

 

PAA Bass Pro Shops Series Presented by Carrot Stix
Cherokee Lake
61st Place -- 4 fish, 6.81

I really didn’t know what to expect heading into this event. It was my first time on Cherokee, the first PAA tournament of the year and the first one since I was elected President. I had high expectations, to say the least, but also knew that I’d have a lot of responsibility. Fortunately, the tournament as a whole went very well. There are still a few things we need to improve upon, but on the whole I think everyone who was there thought it was a success. My own performance was less satisfying, although I managed to salvage some points out of a near-disaster.

The lake is super-clear and water temperatures were in the 90s, so like just about everyone else I expected that the dominant bite would be deep. I spent the first day of practice fishing offshore exclusively and I felt like I could catch a limit of spots, maybe a few largemouths or smallmouths too. I knew it was going to be tough but I thought 10 pounds was within the realm of possibility and 10 pounds would be strong.

With just one day under my belt I felt that there was a lot left to learn, so I decided that night that I’d spend part of the second day of practice out deep again and part of it up shallow. Unfortunately, some unforeseeable mechanical problems put an end to my plans. I was able to fish a little bit – maybe an hour – on my trolling motor, but I spent most of the day on the phone trying to find someone to deal with my issues. As a result, it was pretty much a wasted day.

Day Three didn’t start out much better. I did manage to hop in a friend’s boat for a few hours while I was waiting to get some info on my mechanical issues and I caught 3 or 4 bass real quick on top, but I never got to see how that would play out because just then I got a phone call about my boat and had to leave. Sometimes things out of your control take over a tournament and you just have to roll with the punches. It’s not fun, but it’s a fact of life on tour.

That evening we had the pre-tournament registration and there was lots going on for everyone, perhaps a little more for me because of my role as an officer in the PAA, but that kept my mind off the tournament. I wasn’t really able to think about it until very late and it was probably 1am before I made the decision that on the first day I’d fish deep as long as I could. To be honest, based on what I was hearing I felt there was a legitimate chance that a bunch of us would blank, so when I caught a decent spot at 10am, I knew I had some points on the board and that relaxed me, so I went back to prefishing. I probably landed 10 or 11 largemouths and smallmouths on my Lunker Lure football head jigs, but none of them hit the line, so I was left with that one good spot.

In the last hour and a half I went shallow and saw one real big bass that I could not get to bite. I also caught some smaller ones that wouldn’t bump. When you got in the right areas, there were lots of bluegills and shad, and that’s where the bass were, too, so I started thinking about a change in game plan for Day Two. Even though I was surprised by how high some of the weights were that day, I also knew that if I caught a few good ones I’d be right back in it.

Given what I’d learned at the end of Day One, I decided that on Day Two I was going to go all the way up the river and just fish everything that looked good. On the way, I stopped at a bluff where I knew there was a school of fish holding. I thought I could catch them on a topwater on a fluke, and I managed to get three or four giants to follow the fluke, but I never caught one, so I had to cut my losses after a couple of hours.

Given the tremendous caliber of anglers in the field, the shallow fish were simply beat to death by that point and I was lucky to get 6 bites, which resulted in 3 keeper largemouths. I also had one big fish miss a buzzbait, but that’s fishing.

The result was that I ended up working the show at Bass Pro Shops on the third day, and while there are rewards in that, I was still frustrated that I didn’t get to keep fishing. Still, my three fish on the second day really moved me up on the standings, and I have to keep my eyes on the larger prize – qualifying for the TTBC and for next year’s All Star Series (top 43 in the standings will qualify).

Next up on the PAA series is Lake Norman in North Carolina, a place I’ve fished several times on the FLW Tour. I thought I’d have a 3 week break, but I got home from Cherokee on Sunday and on Monday I got the call that I’m in the Northern Open on Champlain. Suddenly 3 weeks turned into 3 days. Back to the grind.

While my personal performance at Cherokee was less-than-optimal, I can sense right now that the PAA is on a lot of peoples’ radar. We proved that with the crowds and by the high talent level at Cherokee. There were a lot of anglers there who didn’t have to be. Take Tommy Biffle, for instance. He’s already qualified for the TTBC and he has the Elite Series post-season coming up, but he showed up to support the cause and ended up winning the whole deal. We’re on the verge of big things.

 

BASS Northern Open
Lake Champlain
45th Place -- 10 fish, 30-02

I didn’t know I was going to get to fish the Northern Open until shortly before I’d have to leave for the trip, but once I got in, it was an easy decision to fish it. How can you refuse a trip to Lake Champlain in the middle of the summer? Other than the brutal drive up north, it’s just about paradise – cooler temperatures and you know you’re going to catch tons of fish.

I spent a lot of time up there last summer and feel pretty comfortable on Champlain, but the one area I continue to struggle with is Ticonderoga and that’s where a lot of tournaments are won on largemouths. Therefore, I decided to spend the first two days of practice down there. I caught a lot of fish, but I never found the big groups I felt I’d need to do well.

The possibility was there to catch 15 or 17 pounds a day, but it was taking all day to get it done. If the wind kicked up, it would mean a shortened day of fishing and that would be a tough call, so I left the southern end of the lake to practice the rest of the time up north.

At Champlain, probably more than any other place we fish, you have to keep an open mind – especially when it comes to the decision whether to fish for largemouths or smallmouths. The first day was real slick so I went out chasing the brown fish and caught over 18 pounds pretty quickly. Then the second day the wind blew very hard. My equipment needed some attention and I wasn’t sure I could get much done out on the water, so I devoted most of the day to getting my equipment in shape. That meant that when the tournament started I wasn’t fully committed to go north or south. I was inclined to go to Ticonderoga if the weather permitted, but I drew a short day and elected to stay north.

I didn’t catch the smallmouth as well during the tournament as I did that third day of practice, but I had a limit pretty quick. Unfortunately, I managed to get three of the big bites I needed and every one of them came off at the boat. It made me absolutely sick knowing that it cost me 3 or 4 pounds toward my daily weight. In an event where places would be separated by ounces, that was huge. But I’d caught 15-05 and I knew that if things went better on Day Two I could move up.

Going into the second day I was just outside the money cut and I felt pretty comfortable with my areas on the north end, especially because the weatherman was predicting 20 mph winds. That cemented my decision not to go to Ticonderoga. I had a lot of good areas closer that I could dropshot and crank in 15-25 feet of water and make my move. I wanted to maximize my time and I had a longer day to do it.

By 7am, I had a 4 pounder, one over 4 and one over 3 in the livewell and I knew that I’d made the right decision – I was well on my way to the 18 or 20 pound bag I’d envisioned. But then the wind and waves came up all of a sudden and blew me off of my open-water spots. They repositioned the fish, too, and the 6 foot waves made it tough to move around. They also made it tough to fish. It literally cut my day in half.

I started working my way back toward the launch and ended up getting in a bad position. I was too close to home early in the day and I didn’t have many reefs nearby. I had to fight for every bite I got. In the end, my limit weighed 14-13 and that moved me into the money, so it wasn’t a complete disaster, but it didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.

Champlain is such a huge body of water and I wish I’d had more time to practice. It takes time to break down those big weed beds. The fish can be bunched up in surprisingly tight spots and I have to congratulate Dave Wolak who put in the time and figured things out.

A few notes on my equipment: most of my fish came dropshotting with a 7’2” Carrot Stix dropshot rod and 6 lb. test fluorocarbon. I used a Reaction Innovations Flirt worm and a 5” Berkley Leech, but more than anything I depended on my Humminbird electronics. Just about every fish I caught I actually saw on the screen first. There’s a new software update that makes the units even better than before, if you can believe that.

Next up in the Opens is the Detroit River and I hear that St. Clair is the hot area up there right now. I’m not as familiar with St. Clair as I am with Erie, so I have my work cut out for me.

 

BASS Northern Open
Detroit River
166th Place -- 2 fish, 4-07 (one day)

Dave Mansue and I caravanned directly from the PAA event in North Carolina all the way to Michigan. It shouldn’t have been a particularly bad drive, but between the traffic and a lot of bad weather, it ended up being grueling. Still, by the time we rolled into town on Sunday and picked up fishing licenses, we were ready to hit the water for a few hours.

Erie has been off for the past few years so I felt like St. Clair would be the place to be during the tournament. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the lake at all and I’d be starting from scratch. On those big waters you’re at the mercy of the wind and it didn’t do me any favors. When we got out Sunday afternoon a thunderstorm rolled through. That makes it hard to cover water and stay on top of the sweet spots, so while the time wasn’t wasted, it wasn’t as productive as I would’ve liked.

Monday wasn’t any better. The wind blew again and I couldn’t get anything going deep. Eventually I moved shallow and caught a couple of limits. The best five would have weighed about 12 pounds, which doesn’t do much for you up there.

On Tuesday it was Groundhog Day again – the wind was howling 25 mph. Despite that, I headed over to Erie to check on some places I’ve fished in the past and it was more productive than St. Clair had been. I had 9 bites and would’ve had a little over 21 pounds of smallmouths. Unfortunately, I never really found a group of quality fish. I’d get a bite here and a bite there and they just added up to a big weight. That might not pan out on tournament day.

I tried to make St. Clair work again on Wednesday, the short practice day, but again I got nothing but small bites so I made the strategic decision to go for it on Thursday, the first tournament day. The wind was fairly calm at take-off so I made the long run down to Pelee Island, where I fished a bunch of spots I couldn’t get to on Tuesday. I kept working further and further away and by the time I got to the furthest point, the big wind caught up with me. At that point, I’d caught one keeper and lost three really big ones and I knew I was in trouble. I figured I’d head back to the river with the intention to stop at a couple of little bitty places there. I’d spend 10 minutes or so on each one and try to add to my bag.

I made it back with an hour and a half left to go and managed 7 or 8 short smallmouths and my second keeper largemouth. What can I say? It was a day of bad decisions. It happens.

That left me in the position of needing a really big bag on Day Two to salvage some points and have a chance at a check. When I got off the water, I started calling my co-angler for Friday and never got in touch with him. I resumed the process at 4:30am with the same result. I was going to be an early boat out, with a short day, but the rules say you can’t go out without someone along for the ride. No one was around to come with me, so I was out of luck. I don’t blame BASS – their hands were tied. Furthermore, given the bad situation, they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse so I made the executive decision to come home a day early.

I’m comfortable with the decision that BASS made but I’m not sure what to think about my co-angler. I sincerely hope that nothing happened to him. At the same time, I hope that anyone who signs up for a co-angler slot realizes that this could’ve been much worse. It could’ve cost someone a shot at the Classic or the Elites. A lot is at stake, not just the financial investment.

For the record, most of those who did well caught their fish in isolated grass patches on St. Clair in 17 to 22 feet of water, mostly on a dropshot or some other finesse tactic. It was a similar deal for Erie – just on the hard spots out on the reefs. While my result doesn’t necessarily show it, I used some of the best dropshot baits I’ve ever tried this past week, the Slammer and the Wacky Leech from Strike-Zone Baits, made by Mark Kulik. They don’t sponsor me, but their stuff is very good. If you dropshot at all you need to buy a few packs.

These last few tournaments have been very disappointing, but as I look back on my history I’ve realized that I almost always struggle at this time of year. I’m stretched pretty thin. That’s the result of my own decisions, so the only one I can criticize is myself, but I need to step back and reevaluate how to deal with that realization in the years to come. Right now I have a week and a half before I head to the next PAA tournament, and I get to spend it at one of my favorite events of the year – my annual tournament benefiting the Special Olympics here in Illinois. Guido Hibdon is coming down to help, all of my friends from Jasper will be there and we’re expecting the biggest numbers ever. That’s something to feel good about.