Beaver Lake FLW

I'm pretty disgusted with myself. This is the second tourney in a row where I had a great chance to make the cut, but once again I didn't get the job done. Tom (Mann Jr.) had me around plenty of fish today – he caught a good limit of solid spots and probably had 10 keepers today – but I just couldn't get bit behind him after the sun got up.

I started the day with a small spot in the first 5 minutes. A little while later I had what Tom and I both agree was a 14" meanmouth, but the tournament director disagreed and called it a smallmouth, so I had to throw it back. I had one other small spot today as well, so I only weighed two fish for 2-05. Once again I threw back a largemouth that was just short. That 15" minimum is a real killer.

Bill Taylor does a great job as the FLW Tour tournament director. A lot of the things he has to do are pretty thankless, including having to make the call on a somewhat subjective species identification. I think FLW Outdoors should seriously consider employing an independent fisheries biologist or other credible expert to provide courtesy species ID at these tournaments
where hybrid black bass are going to be caught. That would give people like me one less thing to whine about.

I caught every single fish in this tournament on a single bait: a green-pumpkin Zoom Speed Craw. But I considered two components of my equipment much more critical to my success than the plastic bait. One was that I rigged these craws on an All Terrain Tackle Mighty Jig. These are the best jigheads I've ever used for craws and grubs, and I was really sweating it each time I got snagged, as I only had a few left. The other key for me was using light line. I was using 6-pound P-Line Fluorocarbon for the entire tournament. This stuff is absolutely invisible underwater, and you can't believe how strong and abrasion-resistant it is. If there's a better line for a co-angler to use on a lake like this, I've never seen it.

I finished in 23rd place. Respectable enough, and more importantly I continued my march back up the point standings after my zero at Atchafalaya. I expect I should move up to somewhere around 70th place after this tourney, well within striking distance of the critical Top 48.

My friend Mike Jones made the co-angler finals in 5th place. I'll be hanging around tomorrow to watch him hoist the $40,000 check. He just might do it. He's a great fisherman.

It was awesome. I had nine bites and two of them kept. They weighed a total of 2 pounds. I finished way down the line and left as soon as I weighed in.

I spent quite a few hours throwing that Fluke thinking it might be a pattern, but I never got a bite on it. The water temperature didn't start coming up until about noon. I made a mistake: I should've fished deep first and then fished the Fluke. I wasted a lot of time when the water temperature was down in the low 50s.

First I had to get away from the state police or whoever over that whole wallet deal. I thought it was an April Fool's joke, but then they wouldn't let me get back to fishing. I cranked the big motor and it took me all of about 30 seconds to lose them. They had an aluminum boat with a 75 on the back and there's no way they were keeping up with me in a Triton and Mercury 250 XS.

I caught both my fish today on a little jighead and worm. They were small spots. My partner caught four dragging a Carolina rig behind me.

I zeroed today. A couple of guys told me, "Welcome to Beaver."

It was a tough day for me. I caught a bunch of dinks – I caught more fish today than all the days put together, but I couldn't catch any keepers. I broke a good fish off first thing this morning, and as far as I know that was the only keeper bite I had today.

It was bright bluebird skies again, but no wind. It was a slick day, and extremely tough – for me, anyway. Some of the guys still caught them, but I didn't.

I needed to spend more time looking in the clear water. A lot of guys caught limits doing that today. I have to turn myself into a better spotted bass fisherman.

I caught 3 pounds again. It was real calm. I went to some of the clear-water areas, but I didn't have any confidence there because I didn't prefish down there. So I ended up going to where I caught fish yesterday. I ended up just catching a couple, but then I caught a 3-pounder late a little deeper. I hadn't fished that deep, and I think I sort of messed up. It was in 20-25 feet, and I'd been fishing in 10-15. Maybe that would have made a difference, but I don't have a clue.

It's so hit or miss here. It's an interesting lake. Little areas have them, but a lot of areas don't have any. The only thing I would have done differently would have been spending a little more time in the clear water filling out some patterns. My buddy Tim Klinger told me about a pattern for down there, and I should have listened. I think he's in 2nd.

Today dawned cold – pretty painful at 70 mph. It warmed up as the sun rose, and the skies were clear. It was breezy, but nothing like the gales in practice. It stayed pretty comfortable today. Of course, bright sun and less wind means negative fish. Andre and I fished a bunch of different spots today, and bites were sporadic. Despite the conditions, I was able to piece together a decent day.

I caught the first fish of the day, a small meanmouth. I've never caught a meanmouth bass before (a spotted bass/smallmouth hybrid), and this fish externally looked about 98 percent like a smallie. Andre took a close look at it and noted that it had a small patch of teeth on its tongue, identifying it as a meanmouth. This made a big difference in my day, because the smallie length limit is 15", while meanies only have to be 12" long, and this fish was between the two lengths. If Andre hadn't helped me identify it, I may have thrown it back. Later in the day he also helped me identify some short largemouths that I might have mistakenly tried to put in the box.

Later, I managed a nice largemouth a little over 3 pounds, caught another that was just about 1/8-inch short, and then got another over 2 pounds. Late in the day I caught another small keeper meanmouth, but couldn't get a limit fish: My last two fish for the day were short.

My four fish added up to 7 pounds even, good for 15th place on the co-angler side. Andre also got 4 fish for a little over 6 pounds today. He was struggling to land keepers today, and was in a pretty lousy mood until he bagged a decent largemouth with about 15 minutes left in the day.

I feel great about today's results, and I'm now confident in what I'm doing. I threw one bait almost the entire day, and it wasn't a jighead/worm combo like the majority of the field is throwing. Andre was throwing the jig/worm most of the day, and I was managing to catch decent
fish behind him. I'm doing something a little different, and it's working.

I'm paired with Tom Mann Jr. tomorrow. Unfortunately Tom had a breakdown today, and is retrieving his boat so I haven't been able to speak with him yet. But he did have a small limit today, and I'm guessing he's fishing for spotted bass. This should give me a chance to do what I want to do.

My friend Mike Jones is in 6th place, and we vowed to make the cut together. I think I'll need about 5 pounds to have a shot. I think I can do it.

I caught three that weighed 4-11, but they caught the snot out of them. They always do. But I could hardly get a bite.

I was hardly catching any largemouths on that jerkbait. I thought I could catch a limit of spots and maybe get a good fish or two, but today all I could catch were largemouths and they were short. I had five short largemouths and one short spot.

I had a 3-pound largemouth on a Fluke and caught almost a 5-pound largemouth in practice on a Fluke, so I think I'll just do that tomorrow.

I had three that weighed 7-10. The weather was cold this morning, but it was a gorgeous day – bluebird skies and sunshine all day. I caught two on a jig and one on a jerkbait, and lost one other fish. I also caught 3-4 short fish, and that was the extent of the day.

I'm fishing mid-lake range, a bunch of different spots up and down through there. I probably fished 15-20 different spots today, and I'm planning on doing the same thing tomorrow. I haven't looked at the weather so I don't know what it will do yet, but basically I plan on doing the same thing. I hope I can go out and catch 8 or 10 pounds tomorrow and stay in the Top 50. This place scared me to death when I got here, but feel pretty fortunate to have what I have.

Everything I'm doing is brand new to me. I've never done anything like it before. I'm just going fishing, learning as I'm going.

It was another bad day for me. I ended up catching three fish for 3-12, but it was pretty wild – we actually caught about 50 fish. A lot of fish, but just a lot of dinks. I also caught a couple of largemouths around 14 3/4 inches.

I'm going to go the other way tomorrow and try something else. A few guys caught them, but overall it's still wide open if you catch a big stringer. I'll just try something different tomorrow, the opposite of what I did today.

I got into town pretty late last night. It's a long drive from North Carolina, almost 17 hours. I'm staying with Jeffrey Thomas and Chris Elliott, and I stumbled in and woke them both up well after midnight. My alarm clock was the first to go off, at 4:30 a.m., so I could meet Ron Wolfarth to prefish today. I'll bet those guys were really thrilled that they invited me to stay with them. The place we're staying in is pretty small. It's about right for two guys, but three's a crowd for sure. A friend of mine found himself without a roommate at the last minute and is now alone in a hotel room, so I think I'll get out of Chris' and Jeffrey's hair and move in with him for the tourney.

Ron is a rookie FLW Tour pro from North Carolina. He's been practicing for about a week, and has a feel for what he wants to do in the tournament. Today our goal was to find some backup areas/patterns for him to fish in case his primary stuff wasn't working. We were mostly fishing deeper finesse-type stuff today, mostly targeting spotted bass.

We each caught a single keeper spot and several shorts. I also managed to catch a single largemouth and a smallmouth today, both of them short. We shook off several bites in a couple of different areas as well. We made it a short day and got off the water by 1 p.m. The length limit for largemouths and smallies for this tourney is 15 inches, but spotted bass are legal at 12. If you have any trouble distinguishing between largemouth and spots you better have it figured out before you try to fish a tourney here. Only a few lakes in the country have quality, fishable
populations of all three major black bass species, and Beaver Lake is one of the best.

A lot of little spotted bass are in this lake, and there's something about getting a lot of bites that really helps your confidence, even if most of them are only 10 inches long.

I'm paired with Andre Moore tomorrow. He says he has no idea what we'll be doing tomorrow. We'll be fishing by the seat of our pants. Not encouraging, but if there's any lake where a co-angler has a chance to make something out of nothing, this is it. I'll be fishing hard for five little
spotted bass tomorrow, and we'll see how things shake out.

It's supposed to get down around freezing tonight. I'm not thrilled.

Today I caught 1-2 keepers. I didn't do very good. I came off the water at 12:30 because of the wind. I'm worn out. I'm hoping I can catch them, but this is probably the least amount of practice I've put into a tournament. I'm just tired of fighting the weather.

Some guys are getting a lot of bites, but it's been hard for me. The first day of practice I caught them decent – 10-11 pounds – but I haven't caught them since.

I got a lot of bites the first day on a jerkbait, so tomorrow I'll go back in that area and spend 2-3 hours there. If it's not good, I'll go down to clear water and just fish slow, and try to catch some decent fish.

I have to finish in the Top 50 in the next three tournaments to make the championship. I'd like to fish it because I know Logan Martin real well.

Today the wind just howled. I only practiced until noon, and then I came back and got everything ready. I only had a couple of bites today. I just went looking for new stuff, stuff other than what I've been fishing.

I've been getting 2-4 keepers a day. I found a little pattern I think will work, so I'll just run it and hopefully I've got enough time to hit all the spots where I've caught keepers. I'll just take off and fish a run-and-gun-type pattern.

I got on a little something today. I caught nice 3-pound largemouth fishing a lot of stuff like you'd fish at Lake Powell this time of year. I'm fishing mostly deep. I caught a couple of good ones shallow, but it's been a little hit or miss. I'm going to cover a lot of water tomorrow and fish some western baits western style, and see if I can catch a few fish like that.

The water is real clear. I know I'll have to catch a few largemouths, so I'll go for some of those and hopefully catch some spots along the way.

I didn't do very good today. I caught them pretty good yesterday – 10-11 pounds on this lake is pretty good. Today I had one keeper, about a 5-pounder. I thought maybe I found a pattern, but I ran it for another hour and half until I had to come in, and didn't do any good. So I'm practicing again tomorrow, which is going to be an importance practice day for me.

This is the first time I've ever seen Beaver. I haven't fished any of these highland reservoirs before. It's all gin clear and rocky, so I'm struggling to say the least. I've been able to catch 2-3 keepers a day, but that's about it. I haven't caught but one quality fish since I've been here.

My gameplan for tomorrow is to go and look at some new stuff again. Each day is a new adventure for me down here. Most people you talk to say it's real tough, but I'm sure some of the guys are catching them, without a doubt. But I'm definitely struggling.