Toho Bassmaster

On Thursday, day 1, I caught one bass for 1-12. Tough day – or maybe the word frustrating comes to mind. First we had a 2 1/2-hour fog delay that drastically cut into our fishing time. Second, thank the good Lord for my Lowrance X-19 GPS because about a quarter mile from the ramp it was solid fog for several miles.

Fog as we all know is extremely dangerous to navigate, let alone try to race to your fishing hole 13 miles uplake. I chose to play it safe and navigate slowly and was beat to my area by two other competitors. I started off pitching the 4-inch smoke-colored tube and caught one, only to go fishless for several hours.

Later in the day, after the sun came out, the bass started moving under the mats, which made there position more predictable. For some odd reason, I ended up losing the last two bites of the day. I'd hook the fish from long distances and drag them through the mats, only to lose them at the boat. They weren't big ones, but considering it won't take much to get a check, let alone points, it hurts deeply.

It feels good to know that I made the right decisions pattern-wise, but today my execution stunk! Besides flipping and pitching the mats, there was also a spinnerbait and frog bite that nobody seems to be talking about. Oh well, this crazy game we call fishing sure can be frustrating at times.

The old saying a couple of the anglers in my bass club once told me: son when you don't have fun anymore then it's time to quit. Easy to say but when it's your job it's a whole new story. Tomorrow the weather will be windy, rainy and overcast. It might hurt the flip bite but help the blade bite.

On Friday, day 2, I caught a limit – 10-02. That got me 70th place and $1,925.

Today I made the decision to lock through Toho and run through Lake Cypress, Hatchineha, and eventually end up in Kissimmee. I stuck to my guns despite running some rough weather, including rain and 25 mph winds.

I caught all of my fish today on 6-pound Line and a 4-inch Yamamoto Senko in the 297 Green Pumpkin color. I rigged it wacky style for extra vibration in the water. In practice I found these fish and had planned to run to them today because of the bad weather – especially the wind.

Fishing Lake Toho on a windy day is a nightmare, so that's why I chose to fish the canals today. However, there aren't many productive canals for me to fish, so I knew it would be a 1-day shot.

Mentally, I'm whooped right now. I'm thrilled to get a fresh start and a little bit of money and points, but these tournaments just drain me. I believe that being on the road already for a month has really taken its toll on me.

I'm learning not to be so hard-headed in events and really trying to fish a variety of techniques. This saved me today. In practice, I was consistently able to catch bass only in dead-end canals that led to peoples' back doors. These canals were special, because they had about 5 to 6 feet of water in them, compared to the 2-foot depths surrounding them.

I feel these ditches helped the fish move up getting ready to spawn. In the back of the canal was also the floating Duckweed, which was for me the key grass to penetrate in order to get bit. I also believe that the smoke-color tube helped generate the reaction strike as it quickly sank in front of them.

My flipping gear was a 7' St. Croix Legend Elite Medium-Heavy rod with 50-pound Power Pro braided line. To me, equipment is everything and it amazes me how people will spend $40,000 for a new boat but won't spend the extra few bucks to get quality equipment.

Talk about extremes in fishing. I thought that I'd end up catching my fish flipping with heavy line, but it was the opposite and I caught them with a 4-inch bait on 6-pound Line. Go Figure.

Tomorrow I'll be working for Triton, Yamaha and Lowrance T the sponsor expo, and Sunday evening I'll get ready for the Harris chain event. Once again, it's been a pleasure talking fishing with you and I look forward meeting you sometime soon. God Bless.

I only caught 1-12 today, and I was lucky to get that. The clouds hurt me – they bit in the sun yesterday – and then a bunch of boats came into my area. I had a 3 1/2-pounder come off, then I flipped up two keepers and they came off too. It was not my day.

Then I went to one fish I saw in practice. I ran 30 miles to catch it, and it bit a Senko. I just didn't get any bites today it seemed.

I think the pressure killed the fishing here. I had a lot of bites in practice, then the pressure just killed them. My main baits in the tournament were a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver and a Yamamoto Senko.

I'll go to the Harris Chain next, then back to Toho for the FLW.

I did about the same as I did in practice. All I had in practice was little bites though, and today I caught a 3 1/2-pounder. I have no idea what I need to catch tomorrow to make the cut.

I was getting three to five bites a day flipping in practice. But when I caught one, I never caught another one in the same area. Today I caught two from one spot, so that made me happy.

I might change it up tomorrow – do something different. The fish are biting really weird. When they finally do bite, they just kill it. Then you go hours without a bite. I just want to stay consistent each day, so I hope and I can the same, or a little better, tomorrow.

I caught a few fish in open water today on Senkos, and I caught a few in heavy cover on Sweet Beavers.

Hello BassFans. My name is Jarrett Edwards and along with my wife Rebecca, we'll be sharing our Bassmaster Tour season with you. Thanks for following along – I'll do my best to let you be a part of my experience on the road for the next 4 months.

Sunday: Rebecca and I have been on the road hauling around our promotional tanks to four major cities since January 3rd. We've traveled about 5,000 miles in less then a month. We're tired of overpriced hotels, high gas prices and crazy weather conditions. However, we are happy to be able to provide our wonderful sponsors with lots of exposure.

After a 11-hour drive from Greensboro, N.C., we arrived here at Kissimmee, Florida. The weather is a cold 44 degrees and there is a winter freeze warning tonight, (did I mention the wind is blowing 20 mph?). Well, so much for warm Florida weather. Tomorrow is a new day however – I'll keep you posted.

Monday: This morning I had breakfast with Mike Reynolds from California. Mike is a good friend and past classic qualifier. We talked about the current conditions and how we'd try to approach Lake Toho and surrounding lakes. Neither of us have ever been here and the lake is at it's highest water level than it's seen in a long time.

I promised myself that I would stay in Toho, but after a few hours of 30 degree weather, I decided to lock into Cypress lake – where I got my first keeper bite. It weighed 1.9 pounds and hit a 1/4-ounce Luhr-Jensen Speed Trap popped through the grass.

After 3 more hours of zero bites, my trolling motor batteries were mysteriously draining down. After a little research I found the caps of one of my batteries were off, with juices running all over. The word messy would be an understatement.

Several more hours of fishing went by with no more strikes and I'm heading in early to go to a mandatory Yamaha sponsor meeting. I decided to stop off to another bank close to the weigh-in that looked great. Several different types of grass and depths and one more bass in the boat – 2 1/2 pounds.

It fell victim to the new Yamamoto Kreature bait in green pumpkin, with a pegged 3/8-ounce tungsten weight. So nine hours of fishing, two strikes and very low confidence. The good news is tomorrow will be a lot warmer than today and will hopefully pull these ole Florida bass out of their negative state.

The plan tomorrow will be to head down to lake Kissimmee and find the clear-water pockets to fish. It's now 9:15 and I'll be up for a few more hours replacing batteries, responding to sponsor email request and trying to organize my speaking engagements for the next month's sport shows.

Did I mention I'm also booking booths for my new sportshow that my father and I put on, or how about the three articles that are due for different magazines by Friday? Whew, too much to do and no time to do it all. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Tuesday: Today was a better day – much better indeed. I started early and locked through to head up lake Kissimmee to check out the flip bite. When I arrived I was dazed and confused on where to start and what to throw, nonetheless just navigate.

Lake Toho and surrounding waters are in a major flood stage, and in some spots the old shoreline is about 500 yards off the bank. Everything looks the same here. Finding fish in extreme flood conditions is a weakness of mine and I've learned a bunch today. I had nine bites, and they came on a 4-inch Yamamoto Senko in color 208 (watermelon/Red flake) and a 4-inch Yamamoto tube in color 150 (smoke/black flake) fished on a 3/8-ounce tungsten weight.

Both baits were fished extreme slowly, and as usual with springtime events, the bite was better as the day progressed. Tomorrow will be a short day because of registration, so I'm anxious to watch the weather channel to see how bad the wind will be on Thursday/Friday.

Wednesday: Today was a little tougher for me. I went around trying to duplicate what I'd found on Tuesday, and I found a few similar areas but nothing too promising. I only had one bite all day and it came on a Senko thrown around an empty bed. Mentally, it's tough right now because I drew out in the 3rd flight, which means I'm due in at 3:20 – about the time my flip fish are turning on.

Oh well, tomorrow is tournament time and what will be will be. My goal this year is to fish as hard on my first cast as my last. Wish me luck.