EVERSTART PRACTICE

   
Last week I spent a couple of days on the lake with my parents. I found two really good schools that werent on community holes and each of them had several 4 to 5lbers in them. I didnt lean on them too hard because I didnt want to get spotted by the numerous hole poachers running around the lake and I had high hopes they would stay put for one more week. I also fished a team tournament over the weekend with my buddy David Gnewikow whos fresh off a win in the Triton Owners Tournament. He wasnt planning on fishing the Everstart and agreed to donate a couple of places hed been catching some big ones to try and help my cause. With Davids honey holes in my pocket and two really good schools already located, I felt pretty good going into my official practice days.


I spent Sunday in the New Johnsonville area in the grass and it wasnt too impressive. I flipped, threw top water, square bills, Baby Burners and everything in between and I caught quite a few but nothing over 3.5lbs.


Monday I moved a little further north and scanned for some schools, fished a few shallow bars and fished some more grass but the results were the same….3lbers!


Tuesday I headed to the north end of the lake and scanned some really deep stuff looking for the mother lode but never found it. As I was putting the final touches on my game plan for the first tournament day, I got a phone call that changed everything. David fished a tournament on Tuesday and while he hadnt planned on fishing the couple of big fish holes hed given me, he needed a big fish to have a shot at winning the tournament. He stopped by there on his way in and caught two 5lbers on consecutive casts! That was the final nudge he needed and hes decided to enter the Everstart at the last minute. Davids a heck of a fisherman and a heck of a friend because he actually asked me if I cared if he entered the tournament because he knew I was banking on fishing a couple of his places. It wasnt an easy thing to do but I encouraged him to enter the tournament because hed found those places the right way, on his own and I wouldnt have been much of a friend if I wouldve been upset over the situation.


 So, with Davids honey holes now taken out of the equation, all I have to look forward to are two schools with 20lb potential that I havent even looked at in nine days and 100 places I can catch 3lbers! Ive decided to hit those two schools and just go practicing the rest of the day and hope to stumble across some big ones.