I am in Austin visitng my sister and having a great time meeting new people. Here is K-Love and I telling fish stories.

Parker and I finished 12th out of 140 boats this weekend in the Future Pro Tour. We had a great time catching some nice spotted bass. I found out, after the tournament, that my brother was getting really worried that we weren’t going to do well when we only had a small limit half way through the day. Sticking to our game plan we ended up getting all our big fish in the end of the day. Here is Bass fishings next top thing. Zach is one of my good buddies kids. He is a fishing finatic and always is asking me to take him out. I think he might have to be on my next show.

I had such an awful first day that I finally had enough by the time I got to the stage. I decided to show off my catch regardless of the size, or lack of. They actually had to measure this one on the board! Thats not a good sign when fishing the Delta.

Had some excellent pre-fishing leading up to WCB. Was catching nice fish in different areas during similar tides for the tournament. Put my game plan together and brought in two fish on day one. It was good for last place. Oh well, did get manhandled by a donkey on a dropshot for a few minutes until he broke off in the grass. Still got some points to put me in 14th to make the TOC.

I was having a pretty good first day at Clear Lake during the West Coast Bass tournament when I made a cast and felt a bite. I instinctively set into it and at first it felt like I had set into a log. That immediately changed as the rod began peeling out drag and the fight was on. Each time I was able to make some ground on the fish it would turn and take off again. This was a big fish. After the third or fourth run both myself and my partner were overwhelmed with anticipation of the size of this large fish. About a minute of fighting I had it below the boat but we both hadn’t seen it yet. “I need this fish!” I said. Just then it finally came up to the boat and we were able to net it. A catfish!!! It took me about 15 min to stop shaking because I thought that fish was going to win me the tournament, instead it just got me hyped up for nothing. The one good thing is that if it would have come off before I got a chance to see it then I would have been haunted by the thought that I may have had a giant bass on.

Two years ago when the water level of Lake Folsom was at its lowest point in 50 years, my brothers and I went out with GPS and a camera and documented over 400 spots. A few months later the lake levels went up and I was able to catch fish off the spots we had marked. The only tournament I fished on Folsom last year I ended up 11th out of 160.

I haven’t fished it in about 6 months so I decided to go check out some of my spots. I ended up going out for a couple hours and was able to catch this nice 2 lb spotted bass and then on more little one.

This year the plan is to fish as many tournaments as possible on Folsom and try to make my hard work of documenting the lake pay off.

I am always trying to improve my skills and if you are not getting better then you are being left behind. I went back to the Delta yesterday and fished one of my tournament spots again. This time I tried a few different things and ended up catching 2 3lbers and a 4lber. I feel like I learned some important things this tournament and have taken one more step in closing the gap between myself and the top.

So, we finally had the tournament and the bad conditions kept up. In my first spot we ended up missing four fish. This was a very tough start because that was more bites than I had in all my pre-fishing days combined. It was a long day but I ended up catching one so didn’t get skunked. It was rough for everyone so I ended up 45 out of 63 after day one.
I had to go to work after the first night so I went to go take a shower in the RV park that we were staying in. Once I saw the bathroom I didn’t think it would get me very clean.

Day two came around and I made it my goal to get a 5 fish limit. I set out with my partner for the day and when took off on our long run. We went straight to the spot that I had lost some fish the day before. I slowed down my fishing and really took my time. It payed off and I caught our fifth fish with about 5 min left of the tournament.

When we got back to the docks everyone was talking about someone who caught a 15 lber. When I went down to the stage I ran into my brother who had a big smile on his face. My brother was fishing as an amateur in the tournament and while he had been half asleep in the back of the boat his partner hooked a giant fish. It ended up being the 15 lber and then a little while later they caught a 5lber. So, for 2 fish they weighed in 20 lbs which put spencer in the money and he got a check for $200. Ya Spence Deezy!!

Wow, is all I can say. I just spent the last 5 days practicing for my tournament on the Delta. I showed up in high spirits ready to make some big things happen in my first Pro tournament of the year.

We immediately ran into some tough conditions. First, we hit intense fog which made it very easy to get lost. At one point I had to stop the boat and take a picture. It was like we were floating in space. You couldn’t see where the water ended and the fog began.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the fish would not cooperate! In five days of fishing I only caught one fish. This can make for some very frustrating days. It can also make it very fun when you finally do catch a fish. The pic is of me with the only one I caught. In the fishing world you don’t say that you had a bad few days of fishing. Instead you say that you found a lot of places not to fish. It is called “eliminating water” and boy did I do a lot of that. Fortunately, the tournament is not until Fri/Sat so I will be back on the water Wed and Thur trying to put together a strategy that will make me some money.

Feb 5-6 I will be fishing my first professional tournament. This is a big deal because it is the first time that I have had both the time to pre-fish for the tournament and money to enter so I can see where I stack up against some of the bigger names in the sport.