The BASS CAST

This morning I was paired with Andy Montgomery.  We worked some spots around Crystal Lake and came up to a line of docks were he hit a fish I hit 2 in a row then he hit another one.  I was working my shaky head along and under pontoon and docks.  Both the fish just moved the line and did not feel any hit.  But I had 2 fish in the boat.

We roamed around quite a few spots with no luck then we headed up the Little Saluda.  The water was fairly dirty and I chose the jig over the shaky head.  We were working a broken down boat dock that had a big brush pile in front and I missed a hit so I pitched the lure back in and set the hook on a nice keeper.  Number 4 came from another dock on the Slider jig with a CCL pig on the back.  My last fish came from behind a log with the jig.

I had a pretty good bag and the weigh in had me in 5th place with about 45 people to still weigh in.  I sat in the audience and watched as each one came to the scales.  It was not till the last 3 people to weigh in that I got pushed out of the top ten. The margin was only 7 ounces.  As I was in the media room talking with a few reporters I told them that it probably would not make it and the one fish from yesterday would hurt me.

It was hard to watch but I still ended up in 12th overall out of the top fisherman in the world I feel pretty good about that. 

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Brian and I got up around 4:30 and had breakfast.  We drove over to the launch site and arrived about 5:45.  Ott just happened to be right behind me in the line so I dumped my equipment in the boat and we were dropped in the water.

There was quite a crowd at the docks and we idled around talking with everyone - David Dudley, Andy Montgomery.

The launch went out of the middle of the cove a long way away from the crowd at the ramp.  We were boat 45 and had to be back in at 5:00.  We went out and headed down lake just a few minutes away.

This next spot was the key to my whole tournament.  I saw a bass swimming along and she stopped just off the boat.  I flipped my shaky head in front of her and watched her flair her gills so I set the hook.  She came to the boat and into the net.  Only problem was the fish was hooked in the belly.  And by the rules any sight fish must be hooked in the mouth.  So after a few seconds of talking with Ott about it I tossed her back in the water. 

It was only about 7:30 on the first day and I thought no problem.  I did not get another bite till 3:00.  I put a small fish in the boat on a Cache Custom Lures Trigger Shad way up the river.  I had a few other fish swing at it but not really take it.

I ended up with a little over a pound for the day, not my best day on the water but I did everything I  could to put everything in the boat that came close. 

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First thing on my list this morning was to workout.  I did my basic iso stuff and added a few new moves.  Then I hit the bag for a round.  Then one of my favorite parts of the workout Tai Chi.  I really enjoy the movements and the balance it gives you.

We changed insurance companies so I had to call my agent and cancel a few policies.  Then I got an email from Fantasy Fishing about a free T-shirt and sent them in the mail.  Of course later today I received an email telling me that the adress was incorrect, so I will resend them once they come back.

I mentioned when I started this blog that it would be the day to day happenings of tournament life and some of it is kind of boring, case in point, my next job was to wash my fishing shoes.

I then had a few pc things to do and download a few programs for the wifes pc and set up a program on mine.  The wife was at a meeting and she called and said her Jeep was acting up so I called a garage to have it serviced on Friday.

I did manage to get another cover letter ready for another proposal and got another contact to send one off to.

Then I messed up a little, I was looking at a CMS system and was in the server and accidently deleted this site, the whole thing.  So I just got the blog up and running and will make certain everything is back to the original setting.

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• A. Lake: Norma
• B. Conditions: Hot, slight breeze, water green to blue green, WT 80'3 AT 90's
• C. Trying to accomplish?:
• D. Notes:

I got up a little late this morning and put in at Pinnacle Access.  It was going to be a nice sunny day and the boat traffic was going to be bad.  I shot down lake a ways and worked a few spots that Brain Travis showed me on the map.  Pretty much every spot I went to I either worked a fish up or shook one off. 

I did not try to catch anything today so not exactly certain the exact quality of the fish but a few that I accidentally caught were keepers.  I was working mostly docks and the ones that had brush under them were the best.  I either threw a jig, shaky head, CCL Trigger Shad, Crankbait or Swim Bait.  A few of the spots I had on brought up more with them as usual. 

The swim bait may be a key player I had a few really good fish follow the bait a good ways and either nip at it or just follow so I will need to work on the color or size to get it right.

I still have a few spots from last month to check and some new ones to go over tomorrow.

I set a few goals for this event.  I am a strong believer in putting your goals down.  Here is my 2008 goal list for the TBF Southern Divisional

• Fish a clean tournament
• Fish in the "Zone" each day
• Get an early limit each day
• Find a kicker fish each day
• Win the boater side for SC
• be in the top 4 overall

Right now with the conditions and the all of the time on the water I have been spending I feel really good about this tourney.  I have a good number of spots that have quality fish and as long as the schooling action does not play a big part of the game I should have enough areas for the 3 day event.

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Today at 4:00 we can begin registration for the TBF National Championship on Lake Wylie.

My brother Todd his wife Becky and their daughter Ashley along with my Mom and Dad are in the process of driving down to the campground from PA.  They left at 2:45 AM and at this time they should be just getting into NC with about an hour left in the trip.  It is exciting to have my family come down to see me fish.  This is the first time they have come down to SC.

I will post a few pictures later today of the small reunion. 

The family arrived around 2:00 at the park.  We only had an hour to say hi and get them oriented to the RV and show them how everything worked.  So after a bunch of hello's and stories of travelling, the wife and I headed to the Ramada in for registration.

We checked into our room and got ready to head down to the registration area.  At 4:00 we started going through the registration process.  We signed in at the desk and got some pictures taken by the FLW staff. Then the free stuff started The National Guard our major sponsor gave away a nice goody sack at their table, we received a bunch of t-shirts, hats, Lowrance gave a nice boat sized first aid packet, and other goodies.

I would again like to thank all the sponsors for the support of the TBF, without their support this event would not be possible.

At 5:00 we had boat orientation and the pre tournament meeting.  Here they went over the workings of the Ranger Z-520's we would be in for the event and the Lowrance electronics in each boat.

We then sat down for the welcome dinner courtesy of the National Guard and here we also picked up our practice day and day one partners.

My day one partner was Eric McFarland of Idaho.  We then proceeded to find our boat which was #20 last boat in first flight.  We looked over the boat and headed back to the room.

I needed to get ready for tomorrow so I pulled of my old line on the 5 rods I chose to take with me and put on new Suffix line on my casting reels and tied on new leaders on my spinning gear with Berkley 100% flourocarbon in 10# test on the Berkley crystal braid with double uni knots.

I tied a few baits on that I wanted to use during practice, a Lucky Strike Sammy, A CCL Trigger Shad, and a PJ Lures Super Brush Lil' Jig on the casting rods then I tied on a Shaky head with a CCL Trigger worm in the Real Nightcrawler color and a small drop shot with a CCL finesse worm in real nightcrawler color.

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I worked a few spots on the West side of the lake this morning.  My first spot I worked slowly from the front to the back.  As I was heading to the back an angler from the Federation Nation tournament passed me heading for a few beds in the back.  I went to the other side and kept fishing.  I watched the 2 of them pull in a pair of buck bass off the beds.  I was throwing a trap in front of some potential bedding sites and BAM a 4 pounder sucked that bait half way down her throat.  She did hers best to get off, jumping and surging hard but I got her in.  The other guys in the boat saw her.  I then made 2 more casts and WHAM this time she was close to 6 pounds.

On the way in I hit a few buck bass up shallow and and decided that was not going to help me much.

I continued my pattern in multiple areas with some success.  I did manage to find a cut that had a good number of fish shallow but were pretty skittish.  But these fish should be ready at the next full moon. 

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• A. Lake: Murray
• B. Conditions: Sunny warm AT 60's WT 49-53
• C. Trying to accomplish?: Get a feeling for what the lake was doing
• D. Notes:

Since the lake will be off limits from Monday till the TBF tournament I had to get out on the water and check out the conditions.

I started fishing deep and hit 3+ pound fish at almost every stop on my milk run.  I have been DS these fish for a few years now and when they are there it is a blast.

I kept running to these spots and finally ended up the river and started to not get any hits.  So I started moving back down and saw some loons and gulls in a pocket so I headed in.  The birds were working some shad pretty good so I started with a jerk bait and went to a prototype lure from Cache Custom Lures it is a fluke variety.  Man this hand pour is so fluid in the water it looks like it is moving on its own.  Well a cast beside a large stump pulled in a nice 3.5 on the new lure.

Here are a couple of pictures of her.

I just kept working the shallows and had a great day without really hurting too many fish. 

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• A. Lake: St. John's River
• B. Conditions: Cool, rainy water temp 59-62
• C. Trying to accomplish?: Locate fish for Open
• D. Notes: The fishing is pretty difficult we are in the midst of a cold front with another on it's way.

We are camping at Pacetti's RV Park which is 35 minutes North of the tournament site.  We are on Trout Creek.  So this is where I started.  It is rainy and fairly cool.

I worked Trout Creek for about 7 miles I had 3 boils on a fluke and a jack cut me off.  So much cover it is amazing.  These creeks are tidal, they are deep 20's and there is miles of shoreline structure trees, pads clumps ect.

I moved into 6 Mile Creek and had very little luck. 

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• A. Lake: Murray
• B. Conditions: Cool in morning warmed up nicely slight wind
• C. Trying to accomplish?: Catch some fish
• D. Notes: I started out by going to my favorite drop shot spot that is still a secret as far as I know. I got three nice fish from it but it always seems to get slow when you release deep fish (I think they tell the others whats going on). It was getting pretty warm so I went shallow and saw a few fish cruising and worked them with a 6 inch pumpkin lizard on a 1/32 oz tungsten weight. I just paralleled the edge of the buck brush in 3-8 feet and cast ahead. The fish were very strong. Probably ended up with 13-15 pounds
• description: Early January fishing trip on lake Murray details
• keywords: lake murray bass fishing drop shot shallow
• title: Lake Murray drop shot and shallow

Today I went out on Murray just to go fishing.  No tournaments on that lake until February.  My first 2008 fish was a 4 pounder that hit a drop shot in 21 feet.

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Well, this new year has brought about a lot of changes.  The business is close to being finished and we started changing all the accounts.

Today we worked on starting new bank accounts at First Community Bank.

I dropped off my spare for the boat at Tire Kingdom to get it fixed for the upcoming season.  I also stopped by my insurance agent to get a current copy of my policy for the season.  I need this so I have my $300000 proof of insurance in the tournaments.

I also sent in my prop to Mark Croxton to get it fixed and balanced.  By all the posts I read I should see about 4-6 more miles per hour.

Last on todays list was get a money order to Tournie Shirts in Canada.  He does not take any credit cards and since it was a rush/hurry job I had to 2 day my payment to him so he could get it going so I can have it in time for the first BASS Open in a few weeks 

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