2014 SEASON RECAP

I would like to start off by mentioning a great day I had on the water recently with my little buddy Blare Houston.  I've taken Blare and his dad Scott fishing a few times and have become good friends with them along the way.  I really wanted to get Blare in on some of the ledge action earlier in the year but I had so many guide trips and tournaments I never could get it done.  I decided to invite him to fish the Montgomery County Bass Club Winter Trail event with me Dec. 20 and while we didn't catch them as good as I expected, we were able to make an adjustment or two throughout the day and win the tournament with 20.08lbs.  I just wanted Blare to know how much I appreciate him toughing out a cold, slow day with me as I know it's a lot to ask out of anyone especially a 13 year old. If he even had half as much fun as I did, he had a pretty good time!

I always like to use this last entry of the year to reflect on my season, compare it to years past and that helps me get an idea of if, and how I'm progressing as a fisherman. The main things I like to look at are as follows:

1. Did I learn anything that will help me be more successful down the road?

This is the most important part of the equation to me. It's the reason I fish and I've always said the year I don't learn something will be the year I quit fishing. A couple years ago I got in a rut and I was really beginning to think I'd about maxed out on what I could learn. Last year some things started clicking and I actually said in my 2013 Season Recap that I felt like I'd learned more in 2013 than I had in any year prior. Learning that much in '13 really had me excited about putting it to use this year and I never dreamed I could have another learning year like '13 this far into my career but '14 was even better! It's really hard to explain but let's take March for instance. March has always been my favorite month to fish, I've been pretty successful in March over the years and caught fish a lot of different ways. I pretty much thought I was as dialed into March fishing as I could be and this year it was like all of the little pieces of the puzzle came together and I could see the big picture. Before, I was fortunate to find good places or patterns but this year it became crystal clear to me when and why those places were good and I even added a few new patterns that I never knew existed to my March arsenal. April has always been my Achilles Heel on KY Lake and I had numerous 20lb days this year and that was a huge confidence boost for me moving forward. Another good example was what I learned about electronics and school fishing. I've been able to find and catch fish using my Lowrance for several years but I really learned some next level stuff this past summer. The coolest thing I learned was where to make my first cast into the school by the way they're positioned on the Lowrance to get the most out of the school. I really believe this is the type stuff that's separated guys like Randy Haynes from the rest of the pack the past few years. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I know as much as Randy, just saying I know a lot more than I did 8 months ago! To sum it up, it was a very exciting year from a learning standpoint and probably the best of my career.

2. TOURNAMENT WINS

For me to make a living fishing at this level, I have to win tournaments. As I've said many times, the difference in a win and second place for me is around 10 grand. In order to get all of my big bonus checks from Triton, Mercury, Power-Pole, etc, I have to win! In a recent Bass Fan interview Randall Tharp said at the end of the year he doesn't want to count paychecks, he wants to count trophies! Randall hit the nail on the head and even though I'm competing at a lower level, I can definitely relate. Tournaments, especially one day tournaments, are very hard to win. There are more fishermen on the lake than ever before and with all of the technology and info available the vast majority of these fishermen know what they're doing out there. I don't think we'll ever see an era like I've heard about in the 80's and 90's where guys like Bill and Billy Schroeder on KY Lake or Ed Gettys and Billy Ledbetter on Guntersville dominated and won every single tournament they entered because the playing field is just too level now. I try to set realistic goals every year and while I fish to win every tournament I enter, that's just not realistic this day and age. Too many things have to come together to win. I do believe with smart game plans, smart decisions, perfect execution and a little luck, you can win several tournaments in a season so my goal the past few years has been to win five Triton/Mercury sanctioned events a season. Three years ago when I set this goal, I won two but they were more luck than anything and I just never got in tune with the winning fish that year. Last year, I won two sanctioned events again but I really felt like I was around the winning fish or on the winning patterns in several more. This year I was able to get even closer to my goal of winning five in a season. I only sealed the deal in three of them but either lost the winning fish or was within ounces or one bite of winning four more. This was definitely the most consistent year I've ever had as far as being in contention to win and it strengthens my belief that 5 or more wins in a season is a realistic and reachable goal.

3. TOP 10 FINISHES AND CHECKS

I also like to look at my top 10 finishes and how many checks I cash compared to past years because even though the ultimate goal is winning, the longer you linger around the top 10 the more wins you’re going to get. I was able to cash checks in 17/22 events (77%) and finish in the top 10 in 15/22 events (68%). These numbers are almost identical to 2013 (16/23 on checks and top 10's) but there was one major improvement. Out of my 15 top 10 finishes, 13 of them were 4th place or better. That number of top 4's surpasses any year I've had to date by far and again helped me prove to myself that winning numerous tournaments in a season is very possible.

SUMMARY: I don't have any complaints about this season. My guide business absolutely exploded and I feel like I'm right where I need to be at this point with my guiding. As far as the tournament side, not having any complaints doesn't mean I'm content. I am still striving for the "perfect" season where all of the "one bite away" 2nd and 3rd places are "W's"! What this season did was show me that while not an easy feat, winning 40 to 50% of the tournaments I enter is very possible. It may never happen, but as long as I believe that it's a reachable goal, that's what we're shooting for. I'm usually pretty burnt out by this point in the year and not even wanting to think about the upcoming season but after what I learned this year, I'm very much looking forward to next year's tournament season. That's what I love most about this amazing sport. No matter how much time we spend on the water we can never learn it all, every day is brand new and that's what keeps us coming back.

As always thanks to all of my sponsors: Odom's Blue and Gray Marine, Triton Boats, Mercury Marine, Lowrance, Strike King Lures, Power-Pole, Seaguar, All Pro Rods, Abu Garcia, The Rod Glove, Strike Force Fish Attractant, The Cabin Bait and Tackle and TackleExperts.com.

Thanks to my family and friends for all of their support and most of all my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the opportunity to live the dream.

Thanks to everyone who followed along this year, I hope you all have a blessed 2015! 

OCTOBER, NOVEMBER and DECEMBER 2014

When I returned home in early October from a terrible tournament at Lake Cherokee I was relieved that another season had come to a close and I could kick back, relax and finish out the year guiding without the hustle and bustle of tournament fishing.

A buddy of mine stopped by for a visit as I rigged up four All Pro top water rods and I told him how awesome it was going to be to only need four rods and four baits to close out my fall schedule.  Little did I know the lake was rising and I was on a collision course with some of the toughest fishing I've ever seen on KY Lake.

For the next few weeks I had several guide trips a week and some very excited clients anticipating the phenomenal top water fishing I've advertised the past couple years.  The water muddied up and the current was flowing at a pace I've never had to deal with, at least in the fall of the year, and I was as lost as last years Easter egg on how to consistently catch a fish.

I take my guiding very seriously and believe it or not, I get a lot more stressed out over a bad guide trip than a bad tournament.  To prove my point about how seriously I take guiding, I started a tournament limit guarantee a few years back on every trip which means if we don't put a minimum of five keeper bass in the boat, the trip is on the house.  Five keepers on a lake as good as KY isn't that big of a feat but it is still fishing and when you have a trip scheduled weeks, months or even a year in advance, you never know what you may be faced with weather/conditions wise on a given trip.  During the three years I've been offering this guarantee we have never failed to catch a limit of bass until this brutal stretch at the end of October.  I had six straight trips in which we failed  to catch a limit and it was weighing on me heavily by the end of the month.

The free trip part didn't bother me as there are a lot more good days and $100 tips than terrible days so that all works out.  What was really eating at me is that I had guys driving up to 6 hours to get here expecting explosive top water action and I just couldn't make it happen. It also hurt my pride a little to see my streak of a few hundred consecutive trips with limits come to an end.

What made it even more frustrating was that a few of these days we had the bites to have really big stringers but they jumped off or missed the bait completely which is going to happen Sexy Dawg fishing but when your only getting 5 or 6 bites a day, it makes an already tough day even tougher.

All of my clients were very patient and understanding of the tough fishing and none of them would accept a totally free trip so we ended up agreeing on a half price trip for that day and then they come back for another trip and pay me the other half.  So, it all worked out but it drained me mentally and the cold weather couldn't get here fast enough.

November was pretty mild weather wise other than one little cold snap which got the water temps lingering around that magical 49 to 50 degree mark and I had a list of guys waiting for me to call them for trips when the conditions got prime for the umbrella rig bite.  I called a couple of guys and told them it should be right so they drove down and we hit the lake for my first time since the first week of the month.  It wasn't as fast and furious as I was expecting but we ended up catching about 15 bass and had 23.5lbs on our best 5.  That was a lot better day than we were having earlier in the fall but when I go on an umbrella trip I expect to catch a minimum of 20 fish over 3lbs and at least 25lbs on our best 5 but the majority we caught that day were barely keepers.

I headed to Kingston Springs to visit my family over Thanksgiving assuming the rig bite was getting better by the day.  When I resumed fishing the following week my dad and uncle joined me on a scouting trip and I was very disappointed to learn that the bite had gotten worse and we only caught 6 bass all day with the biggest being 4.75lbs.  As I ran around trying different rig areas I told my dad that the bass were probably doing something so simple that I'd probably feel like an idiot if and when I figured it out.  On the way in that day I passed my buddy Troy Hollowell and gave him a call when we got off the water.  He said he'd struggled with the rig too but right at the end of the day he went shallow and caught a couple handfuls of good fish on a crankbait.  Before I could get off the phone with Troy a txt popped in from my buddy Chad Ashmore informing me he'd caught a pile of fish shallow that day as well.

I spend 9 months out of the year chasing bass around trying to adjust with them and keep up with them and this is the one time of year I hope to be able to throw a few rods and rigs in the boat and not have to think, just cast and catch.  I wasn't looking forward to having to pull all of my tackle back out and try and figure 'em out but I needed to work and I was pretty ticked off at the bass which had me a little extra motivated to hunt them down!

After Chad had told me there was still some grass in New Johnsonville so I decided to start my search there.  I've never gotten to fish grass much in cold weather on KY Lake because there usually isn't any in the spring and I can usually catch them better out deep in the winter. I have spent a lot of time grass fishing on Guntersville in cold weather and figured it couldn't be much different.  I called a buddy who I owed a trip and asked him if he'd like to help me hunt some fish so we headed to New Johnsonville loaded down with all of my favorite cold water grass baits.  It took us a couple hours but once I figured out what to look for we were catching a few bass on every stop ripping a Chili Craw Redeye Shad through the hydrilla which just happens to be one of my favorite ways to catch 'em!  We didn't just blister them that day but I did learn a lot about what to look for and we boated 16 keepers with 21lbs on our best 5 and a 6.75lb big fish.

My good buddy Zach Parker was planning on fishing a small buddy tournament out of Jville that weekend so I told him what I'd found and he went out on Friday and found a few stretches himself.  His partner ended up backing out on him so he talked me into filling in.  We had fished this same tournament in 2012 when we were straight cracking them on the rig and won it with 30.63lbs.  I thought this time around was going to be a different story because other than the one big one I'd caught on Thursday, I felt like we were fishing a 15 to 18lb pattern.  It ended up being a lot better than I expected and we caught about 30 keepers that day and weighed in 23.33lbs on our best 5.  That was only good enough for 2nd place as another team edged us out with 23.44lbs!  It was a fun day and probably ended up like it should've as one of the members of the winning team was none other than Chad Ashmore, who of course was the one that told me the grass was still lingering around to begin with.

I made a few calls to some guys on the A rig waiting list and while most of them wanted to hold out for that bite to turn on, I booked three trips the following week for some grass fishing action.

The first trip was awesome and we caught over 40 bass most of which were keepers we just didn't have any giants.  We ended up with 19lbs on our best 5.

The next trip the bite seemed to be going away and while we did manage a 6.25lber, we only caught a dozen fish all day and had a little over 18lbs on our best 5.

I was a little discouraged heading into trip number 3 as it seemed the grass pattern was dying quickly so I threw some jerkbaits, jigs and rigs in the boat just in case we had to make an adjustment.  For whatever reason the big ones decided to bite that day and we caught 4lber after 4lber and when it was all said and done we had a pair of 7's and a trio of 5's to fill our 28+lb stringer!  It was an awesome day and one I'll never forget as I've never been in on that big of a stringer in December that wasn't caught on an umbrella rig.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and I have a "Season Recap" blog that will be up soon so be sure to check it out!