Toho FLW

I drew David Walker for the first tournament day. I was pretty excited about this, as Walker usually does well in Florida, and just finished in 2nd place at the Bassmaster Toho event. However, I know that he does a lot of flipping, and it can be tough to catch fish behind a good flipper down here. However, I knew I could count on him to be around some fish and as a co-angler, that's all you can ask for.

As it turns out, I was right on both counts. Walker was around some fish, and it was very hard to catch them behind him. He probably caught 10 keepers on the day, and culled up to over 11 pounds over the course of the day. As expected, he was flipping. And as expected, it was tough. I tried just about everything over the course of the day, but I never got anything to work very well.

I missed at least one bite on a Kinami Flash, then landed a pickerel on the same bait. I had a couple of boils on a Gambler Flapp'n Shad, but no takers. Very late in the day I managed to score my only keeper on a Kinami Flash, Texas-rigged with an 1/8-ounce Gambler Screw-In weight. My single fish weighed 1-10.

Very tough and very frustrating day overall. It's hard to watch a guy cull again and again when you don't have fish, but when the fish aren't aggressive, it's pretty hard to catch fish behind a guy flipping isolated cover like that. I don't know what I could have done differently, because I tried everything that I knew to do.

My roommate Mike Jones had a similar day, and is way down there near me in the standings. I hope he has a better day tomorrow – he really needs the points after struggling at the Big O.

I fished with Billy Bowen, Jr. on Day 2 – yet another excellent draw. Bowen is a well-known Florida guy and has won more than his share of money on Toho in the past. As it turned out, though, I drew him on the wrong day.

Bowen had struggled a bit on day 1, and only weighed 4 fish for 8-something. His co-angler had not had a bite all day. However, Bowen reported missing some good bites and losing a few good fish, so I was still encouraged.

As it turned out, Day 2 was much worse. Bowen flipped heavy cover all day long, with very little to show for it. He only had three bites all day and only landed one fish for 4-02.

I got a little lucky and landed one small keeper early on a Flash, but that was it for me. The only other bite I had all day long was a short bass. We flipped ourselves into oblivion today, and I threw about a half-dozen other baits trying to get something going, but it never happened. My little rat weighed 1-02, giving me 2-14 for the tournament, flushed down the toilet to about 168th place.

The most frustrating thing was going back to the weigh-in and seeing how well the guys caught fish today, especially when they caught them on the exact same baits I couldn't buy a bite on today – spinnerbaits, Zoom Horny Toads, Flapp'n Shads, Texas-rigged worms, etc.

The good news is that my roommate Mike managed a good limit on a lipless crank today and will get a check and a good chunk of points. After this tourney we should be pretty close to each other in the standings.

We both need a good showing at the next event at the Ouachita River. I'm not looking forward to that tournament at all. It will be the toughest tourney of the season by far. The river is reportedly very high right now, even higher than it was at the BASS Open Championship – and the fishing was extremely tough even back then.

The good news is that it may only take a few fish to make the cut there. The bad news is that the chance for a zero is very high.

At the Ouachita event I'm personally shooting for what co-angler Chris Rand calls a "Pascagoula Limit," which is one fish. Anything else will be gravy. Anything less will be a tragedy.

I ended up 32nd. I had a limit today but it only weighed 8 pounds. The wind changed and it was blowing about 20 mph out of the west. Most of my spots were on the east side so I got pretty much blown out.

I'd been catching them on a Reaction Innovations Trixie Shad and Yamamoto Senkos. Actually, I only had two fish with 40 minutes left in the day. I whacked five in the last 40 minutes.

The finish was a little disappointing because I was 12th after Day 1. I caught them on the Trixie Shad and Senkos that day too.

I really didn't have any area on the lee side that I had confidence in. I never had a big bite all day either – just keeper bites. Yesterday I caught two big fish that really helped me out.

I finished 89th. Yesterday I had four fish, and missed my fifth fish twice. I couldn't hook up. I was throwing a Zoom Horny Toad and the fish just came off.

I went back to the same area this morning. I was fishing really shallow, in hydrilla with cattails and reeds. I had my limit by 9:00 on the Toad again, then started flipping the reeds and culled those out.

I lost two more good fish today and I should have finished in top 75 but I didn't.

I fished Cypress Lake both days. There was a lot of boats there. Locking through was a nightmare.

I hauled the wife and kids down to the big event here at Toho, in order to fit in a little family Disney vacation along with the tournament week.

I practiced for this event with another FLW co-angler, Jason Knapp. He's is a young, hardcore fishing maniac. While he calls Pennsylvania home, he's actually been in Florida since shortly after Christmas. In the past 6 weeks he's fished EverStart, FLW and BASS weekend series events down at Okeechobee, and Bassmaster Tour events here at Toho and then over at the Harris Chain.

Knapp has his boat down here, so off we went on Sunday. The fishing was really slow - we tooled around Toho and looked at some empty spawning beds. I managed a few small fish on a Kinami Flash and Knapp had a few decent bites flipping a tube. Not much excitement to report.

On Monday we trailered down to Lake Kissimmee to give it a try. We managed nice fish here and there, with no real particular area or pattern. We caught just a few fish on Senkos and Zoom Old Monster worms and Knapp had a nice 6-pounder on a crankbait. That's when things got interesting.

Knapp had recently happened across a honey hole where the big fish live – he was generous enough to share it with me for the afternoon. We caught only about a half-dozen fish in there, but they were the right kind. I managed to land two fish within 10 minutes of each other that each weighed 7-12 on a digital scale.

Along with the other nice fish we caught the rest of the day, our best 5 would have weighed in at around 32 pounds. Pretty amazing. And no, we weren't bed-fishing.

The only problem is that the big fish deal we were on will have absolutely no application in the tournament itself - it was pretty much just fun-fishing. I actually feel pretty unprepared for this tourney, as I haven't had a lot of success with any particular presentation.

Although I felt like I'd really benefit from some more practice, Knapp decided to stay in on Tuesday and get tackle organized. I considered going out with someone else for the day, but it didn't take much arm-twisting to talk me into sleeping in and spending the day with my wife and kids.

The weather has been getting nicer since I've gotten here and we're due for a beautiful first tournament day.

It's slow. I don't know what other guys are saying, but it's slow. I had six or seven bites on Monday, and seven or eight yesterday.

I've been practicing hard after Okeechobee. I've spent a lot of time on the water, and lot of that time just looking. I still haven't caught any big, big fish. I'm basically going around catching keeper-type fish.

I'm seeing some beds, but nothing on them. There was a cold front last week and the water cooled off. Then it got warmer and the water warmed up, but we're supposed to get another cold front.

I hope I'm still fishing Friday and I'll worry about the cold front then. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

It's not crowded in the way Okeechobee was crowded. I don't have a clue where Takahiro Omori and David Walker fished. I find my own water so I haven't paid any attention. There are lots of guys fishing close, though. I think they're fishing some of the released fish from the Bassmaster.

It's going good and I have no complaints. I'm hoping for five keeper bites a day and one good kicker to go with it.

I did well on the first day of practice. I had around 20 bites, including one big one that was about 7 or 8 pounds. Then on Monday I went back to my four bites a day, just like the Bassmaster. Yesterday was about the same – three or four bites.

There are some mid-range fish here now. On Sunday I caught solid, quality fish. They were beautiful. So I think if you get in the right area at the right time, you can have a solid bag.

Even though most of my bites are after 11:00, a fog delay would not be good. They're never good.

I've changed up quite a bit from what I did at the Toho Bassmaster. We'll find out tomorrow if it works, but it's really been good one day, then bad one day. I think the cut weight will be around 26 pounds.