Sunday, July 21, 2013

Sportsmen's Digest Professional Team Trail #2 Practice and Tournament July 20, 2013



Practice: I had been guiding at least three days a week leading up to this one and I felt like I knew where every school of fish on the lake was living. The good news was I for some reason had been catching some big ones out of a lot of the schools Id found and really felt like a 20 to 25lb stringer was possible. My ol buddy David Gnewikow was heading up to fish with me and was only going be able to practice a half day so we decided to spend that half day trying to figure out a way to catch some really big fish! Our half day didnt go so well and when we put it on the trailer we hadnt even caught a limit of bass! We decided to run my schools that had been producing the biggest fish and then just hit as many places as we could think of where we might catch a big fish. 


Tournament: It started off slow and the first couple schools we stopped on werent grouped up very well and we only caught a few small keepers. I pulled into a bay and fished a hump that produces some big ones this time of year and we ended up catching a 3lber and about a 17”er there. I headed to what had been one of my best schools all the way down by Paris and they were nowhere to be found. We made our way south and Dave suggested we hit a place on the river that we had both fished in the Everstart and neither one of us had fished it since that tournament. I drove over the ledge and they were laying right where they were a month earlier and while they werent just jumping in the boat we did manage a 3lber and a 4lber out of that school. We kept working our way south and were catching a few here and there but nothing spectacular. I drove over a school that I hadnt seen in awhile and I had caught some big ones off of it last year but nothing much over 2.5lbs this year so far. I didnt see a huge number of fish but it was enough to fish for and once I got us lined up we caught em every throw for about 20 minutes. They were nice fish all in the 3.5lb range but I kept telling Dave this spot owed me a big one. Not long after that he set the hook and called for the net. I grabbed the net and he had the fish coming towards the boat and then she went air born! About a 6lber launched into the air and Daves worm came flying into the net! We were both really bummed out because we knew that would be hard to make up but we kept our heads down and kept fishing hard. We made our way a little further South than wed planned on fishing but our final stop was worth it when David popped a 5.70lber on his Rage tail Thumper worm! We made our way back towards KY Dam fishing a few places along the way but never manage to cull any along the way. We ended up winning the tournament with 20.81lbs and had Daves 5.70lber was good enough for big fish honors.


SUMMARY: Wow! David and I finally won a tournament together. We havent fished together a lot but weve had some really good days when we have weve just come up a little short on our previous attempts. Now that weve got the monkey off our back maybe we can get a few more Ws under our belt before the end of the year!



Tuesday, July 16, 2013

CHURCH TOURNAMENT AND PRACTICE JULY 13, 2013 with the Legend, Ed Gettys



PRACTICE: Ive gotten to meet some awesome people over the years and have become good friends with several of them. When I first started fishing a couple of the first names I ever heard were Ed Gettys and Billy Leadbetter. Ed and Billy were legendary on Lake Guntersville and Ed had gone on to have a very successful draw tournament career with several Everstart, Bassmaster Open and BFL Regional wins to his credit. Ed and I became friends a few years ago and stay with each other when were at the others home lake but Id never had a chance to fish with him until this event. We practiced separately and by tournament day Ed had found about 20 schools he thought had potential to cough up a good fish or two and I had basically eliminated most of my schools for having big fish potential but I did find a new school that I caught a 7lber out of on Thursday. We decided to just head south out of KY Dam and fish everything we could get on that we thought had potential and just see what happened.


Tournament: We headed up the lake and the first three places we stopped on were loaded with bass. We would catch a few really quickly on a 6XD and a Bottom Dweller spinnerbait but then the school would just shut down. I could still see them on my Lowrance after we caught a few but they were just extremely tough to catch. To make a long story short we basically caught a couple off of every place we hit only to have them to shut down after that. We weighed in 17.64lbs and finished 15th out of 225 boats.


SUMMARY: I really enjoyed fishing with my buddy Ed and getting to see how an old school off shore fisherman operates. Ed was fishing ledges when he was 13 years old out of a Jon boat with a rope and a rock to find the drop offs! He has adapted well to the technical side of locating fish but he still uses a lot of his old tricks for lining up on schools and finding the little sweet spots on structure and it was really cool to spend a day in the boat with someone I have so much respect for.

Monday, July 1, 2013

Paul Steele Open Practice and Tournament June 29, 2013



PRACTICE: I had the opportunity to fish the Paul Steel benefit tournament out of Paris Landing with my buddy Triton McClain. Triton is 13 years old and this was our first time fishing together. We headed out Friday to hunt some new places and check some old ones to try and get an idea of what we needed to do on Saturday. Everything was pretty much the same as the last time I had been on the water, schools everywhere with size hard to come by. We managed a couple of decent bites in the 4lb range out of some of the schools wed fished and had about 18lbs for the day. On our way in I ran right by a place that I had found a giant school of fish on early last summer. Id been checking this place several times a week since early may and had yet to see a fish on it so far this year. I had pretty much written it off for this year but since I had to drive right by there I decided to scan over it just for the heck of it. As soon as I hit the top of the bar my Lowrance lit up with bass. I told Triton we were about to smoke em and I caught two 3lbers on my first cast! He made a cast with his 6XD and caught a 4.5lber and we packed up and headed for the house.


TOURNAMENT: We took a left out of Paris Landing and headed straight for our 6XD fish wed left biting on Friday. Last year when I found this school they bit early in the morning and I was hoping they were in the same mood this go round. I made a few casts around my waypoint and never had a bite and was beginning to think they had moved on. I trolled around to hit the bar from another angle and loaded up with a 3lber on my first cast! We caught them every cast for the next hour and when the dust settled we had right at 22lbs in the boat. We ran down south and did everything I could think of to try and upgrade and though we caught a ton of 3 to 3.75lbers we never caught anything that would cull. The wind had picked up and the pleasure boaters were out in full force and unfortunately by the time we made it to weigh in three of our fish and expired and we lost 1.5lbs to fish care penalties. We ended up finishing in 6th place.


SUMMARY: I had a blast fishing with my buddy Triton. We caught well over 100 keepers and unfortunately having those fish expire on us cost us a few places in the standings. I go out of my way to take care of my fish and Im not sure what caused this other than how early in the morning we caught them. Looking back on it we wouldve been better off to just weigh in at 6a.m. and call it a day!