Wheeler FLW

Man what a lousy tournament. I wish I had more to tell everyone, but it's hard to make such a boring few days sound interesting.

Day 1 I fished with Warren Wyman. To make a long, boring story short, we fished one small spot in Wheeler for the better part of 7 hours, waiting for the current to start to run and the fish to show up and start biting. It never happened.

It was a gamble on Wyman's part, and I don't blame him, especially based on the fish he said he caught there in practice. But sitting in one spot and making the same cast 10,000 times while baking in the blazing sun just isn't any fun. Unless you're catching fish, that is.

I managed one very small keeper on a Carolina-rigged Zoom Brush Hog today. It was deep-hooked and didn't survive, which knocked me down to a mortifying 1 pound for the day. I think I finished in 130th place.

Day 2 didn't go much better. I expected it would, since we were making the run up to Guntersville. Any co-angler worth his salt should be able to fling a Senko around the grass up there and get a few keepers. But I couldn't manage it.

There was some excitement this morning when about 140 boats blasted out of the lock into Guntersville. The boat wakes were ridiculous – it was like a giant washing machine. The boat running directly in front of us - about 200 feet ahead - caught a big wake the wrong way.

The keel grabbed the wave while the boat was at a pretty high speed and jerked the boat about 90-degrees sideways, ejecting the co-angler completely out of the boat. It turned out he was not injured and spent the rest of the day fishing and drying out. Credit goes to Faircloth for following at a safe distance - much closer and we might have run him over. Scary to imagine.

I fished with Todd Faircloth – he managed 2 early fish on a spinnerbait and then a small keeper on a Senko later on. I was pretty excited when we pulled up on the same flat where I found a good bunch of fish in practice. Sure enough, I caught several short fish pretty quickly.

Then I hung an absolute monster - I've never had a bass kick my butt that bad. I set the hook and from that point forward the line only went in one direction. She buried me in the grass and I eventually had to break off. That really messed with me mentally.

We locked back down and fished in Wheeler for the last hour. We hadn't had a sniff the whole hour, but on my final cast I finally got bit on a Berkley 10-inch Power Worm and landed a nice fish, giving me 3-02 for the day.

Apparently I finished in 125th place - I was surprised I didn't move up a little more. Although such a bad finish makes me ill, it could have been a lot worse - I was one cast away from a truly huge disaster. That last fish really salvaged some points. I will fall out of the Championship for now, but I'll stay well within striking distance for the final event at the Potomac River next month.

Actually, it went pretty good. I Caught a limit, which was good for me. I caught four largemouths and a spot at the lock. So I was pretty happy. I fished Guntersville.

I ended dup with 25-12 total (41st) so I got $10,000. I had a dead fish each day, and lost a pounds each day. They weren't dying on the runs. They died the minute I put them in the livewell. They're not deep-hooked or anything. They're just post-spawn and stressed out. It had nothing to do with running. Most that died, died right away.

I was fishing for points. I was 16th (in the FLW Tour points). I need one more good finish. A Top 50 here makes my Potomac a little easier.

I was fishing real shallow this week, in 1 to 3 feet, – Senkos and dropshotting Roboworms. I was fishing mostly around bluegill beds. I had some big gills bite. That's when you knew you were in a good spot.

I fished with J.T. Kenney today, and he only had about 7 pounds. Of course, the big news is I zeroed again. It was petty slow, and there's not much to do when you're trying to flip behind a flipper.

We fished in Wheeler today. It was a frustrating day. There's really not much to throw at. There's no stickups in the middle, and it's a bare mud bottom. I was trying to pitch behind stuff he'd pitched to. He was hitting the edges and points.

I'll say this, I got a lot of pitching practice in. I'm a lot better pitcher than when I started.

I bingoed. Zero. Only five bites all day, just one of those connected, and it was a dink. Johnny-Z is back – that's what Art Ferguson called me when I caught zip at that horrible 2004 Smith Lake Bassmaster ordeal.

I'm snakebit, my line stinks, and I worked really hard for 5 hours to not catch a fish. And it's hot out there. But it was pretty chilly running 40 minutes to the lock this morning -- thanks to my fellow BassFan co-angler Chris Koester for the loan of his FishHedz (Save Phace) mask.

Today I made the run to Guntersville with Rob Kilby, 73 miles and a lock in 1 hour 45 minutes, one way. They started the first flight at 6:30. We got to fish 4 hours (8:30 to 12:30) before running back to the lock. Rob caught two in one place, then seven in another and culled out the first two.

Back on Wheeler we had one more hour to fish, and went out on the Decatur flats. He culled again, with a nearly 4-pounder. He had 17-12, I think, and was in 6th when we left the weigh-in (still in progress).

Greg Pugh is buddies with the lockmaster, and we had a smooth lock up and back. He had agreed to lock us back at 1:00 and you couldn't have asked for a better deal. I counted over a hundred boats in the lock. Kilby said he saw 20 boats head downriver at takeoff (we were boat 97), and estimated maybe 40 went to Wheeler or even Wilson. I think more will fish Wheeler tomorrow, especially the ones who didn't have much weight fishing Guntersville today.

Tomorrow I fish with points leader JT Kenney. He told me he went to Guntersville today to bed-fish, but only eight of the 30-odd fish he had marked were still there, and the last two he didn't even fish for since they wouldn't have helped. We're staying on Wheeler tomorrow, and you can bet we'll be flipping in skinny water all day long. Where there's no breeze. I need to take extra water.

While we were sitting in the lock, Matt Herren said he lost two or three nice fish on Guntersville, and his co-angler lost a 5-pounder. Herren was razzing Larry Nixon: "Hey, Larry, are you going on a tear? First you did pretty good at Smith Lake (in the Bassmaster E50) and now you got a big sack here!" Nixon had 23-10 or close to that.

Nixon replied, holding up his right hand, "It finally got hot enough that I can fish! (Laughter all around.) I can tie my own knots now. It was too cold before." The thumb he had operated on still bothers him.

My practice entry for this event will be short - I was only able to practice for 2 days for this event.

I spent Monday in Guntersville, with a lot of other boats. I caught some fish, probably 8 or 9 keepers, most of them on one particular flat. I had a few around 3 pounds and one much bigger that I never saw.

I really only got consistently bit on one bait - nothing else was really working. If I fish Guntersville in this tournament I guess I know exactly what I'll be doing – I'll pick up one rod and it'll stay in my hand.

Tuesday I fished in Wheeler. I had a short day thanks to the pre-tournament meeting.

I caught a bunch of fish, but the 15-inch minimum that applies for this tournament is the killer - I probably caught close to 20 short fish, mostly spotted bass, but only 2 keepers. I did see a number of nice fish cruising in specific areas - if I fish in Wheeler I'll have an idea what to do if I'm fishing the same type of stuff, otherwise
I'll be clueless.

If I end up in Wheeler I'll be flying by the seat of my pants. If I go to Guntersville I can bear down and focus on catching fish. I guess we'll see.

I've been here about 8 days, and I spent 6 of them on Guntersville. It's been real tough for me. The last 2 days on Guntersville have probably been the best. I caught about eight keepers those days during tournament hours. The other days, I caught one to three keepers per day during tournament hours. You can go early or late and catch them, but it's been slow during the day for me. I'm sure there's some hotspots though.

I'm fishing all new stuff on Guntersville – not stuff I fished at the Bassmaster. I'm covering a lot of water – the fish are really scattered. I can only catch one or two fish off an area.

I'm going to Guntersville. I don't know how I can justify not going. I'm going for three bites there. If I can get three, that'll justify not fishing Wheeler. If you get more than three on Guntersville, you'll be in good shape.

The run is pretty scary right now – the locks, barges and everything else. The way this tournament shapes up, you just have to do it. I think if I stayed on Wheeler I'd be freaking out sitting there thinking about everybody catching big fish on Guntersville.

I heard some people know the lockmasters, and tried to get them in touch with FLW to arrange some (lock) times. But FLW won't get involved, and I don't blame them.

Actually, there's two locks there. There's a little lock, and if they opened that, we'd all be safe. Even if we had a barge, we could get through that little lock. As of this point, I haven't heard anything on that.

It'll be an adventure.