Potomac FLW

Chris Koester (Co-Angler) – Day 3
Sunday, June 26, 2005

Yesterday I told you that you'd hear my roommate Patrick Wilson's name again. I'm not at all surprised that it only took 24 hours. Congratulations to Pat for taking 1st place and banking a cool $40,000. He really deserved it and he earned it.

I wasn't quite as fortunate. As it turned out, George Cochran was fishing some very isolated cover, covering it from all angles, but fishing very fast from spot to spot. There was simply nothing left unsaturated by the time I got to it at any point in the day.

In a few places he'd idle a quarter-mile through a no-wake zone just to fish a single isolated log in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of feet (or more) from the nearest bank, and I'd stand there and watch him fish it for 5 minutes and get one or two casts at the end when he was done before we left the spot. It was pretty much a co-angler's nightmare.

He was pleasant and friendly during the day, but his pattern was about the worst a co-angler could imagine. We rotated through about 10 to 12 different spots during the day, fishing each of them three to five times. Fortunately for me, five of those spots were boat docks. While I was still fishing 100% used water, at least I had something to cast to when he moved to the next piling.

Despite these difficulties, I was proud to still be able to stick some fish. I actually caught nine keepers. All but one came off docks. The other stupid fish came from a random bank I was killing time fishing while Cochran peppered a laydown with his baits. I culled four times, but couldn't accumulate much weight. I still managed to finish with 9 pounds for the day.

That was the good news.

The bad news is that I actually had the bites to win the tournament. I only lost two fish all day, but they were my two biggest bites by far. I lost a really good fish around midday - I set the hook and she just took drag for about 20 feet before the hook pulled out. It was at least 4 pounds and could have been even bigger. The other fish was a 4-pounder that I hooked on my very last cast of the day – only to lose it when it jumped at boatside and threw my hook. No, I'm not kidding. Last freaking cast.

Both fish together could have won the tournament for me. Either one of them could have put me up into 2nd place for the $20,000.

I was numb for the rest of the evening. I'm still nauseated when I think about it.

My wife put the kids in the car and drove up from North Carolina to surprise me. I didn't even know they were coming until I got up onto the weigh-in stage and saw my kids jumping up and down going nuts in the third row. What a great feeling. But it would have been much better if I knew I had the winning fish in my bag.

But that's fishing, I guess. While it's maddening to miss that opportunity, I'd still rather have had it than to have a day where I never even had a chance to contend. And the win could not have gone to a better guy.

I managed to benefit from it pretty well, too. We'd made an agreement that if one of us won the tourney, he'd cover the hotel bill. Patrick also sprung for a spendy dinner for myself, my wife and kids and two of my friends who came to the weigh-in. I also scored the expensive X-Tools culling system that he received as a contingency prize. He's just an awesome guy.

Out of respect for my pro partners, I was playing coy with specific information in my earlier reports. I'll fill in a few details for anyone who's interested.

I caught my big sack on Day 1 of the tournament on a Zoom Horny Toad (watermelonseed). However, rather than some special fishing skill with this bait, the real key to my success was the quality fish that Jason Kilpatrick had found, as well as my strange luck at getting almost all the big bites during the day.

The hardest part of tournament fishing isn't catching the fish, it's finding the fish. My 1st-place sack is really a testament to how good Kilpatrick is at doing just that. It won't be long before he wins one of these things.

During my junk-fishing foray with Kevin Vida the next day, I caught two of my fish on a Net Bait Paca Craw (watermelon red), one fish on a Kinami Flash (green-pumpkin) and one on the same Horny Toad. If I'd missed any of those fish I'd have missed the cut.

During the final day I caught all my fish dropshotting a 4 1/2-inch Roboworm (Aaron' magic) and a Spotsticker hand-poured finesse worm (SS Magic). I owe most of my skills with this technique to my buddy Patrick - he's a true virtuoso with the dropshot rig.

I got $5,000 for 8th place and a monster consolation prize by qualifying for the Forrest L. Wood Championship, by virtue of my 37th-place finish in the season standings. I'm pretty happy about that, and I've already made plans for my wife, kids and my parents to come to Hot Springs for the big show. I really look forward to it, and I'll share my daily reports from the Championship right here in the BassFan Big Sticks section.

Chris Koester (Co-Angler) – Day 2
Friday, June 24, 2005

What a difference a day makes. The fish just flat didn't bite today – at least nowhere near as well as yesterday. All of the community holes and grassbeds that gave up all those 10- to 14-pound sacks were just stone dead today. I don't know whether it's from the pressure yesterday or the front that came through, or both.

I fished with Kevin Vida today. We started in two of the big grassbeds that were so hot yesterday. We each struggled to boat one keeper for our efforts. It became obvious that those fish were completely off.

Unfortunately, Kevin was almost completely reliant on them for the tourney.

We ran around and tried to make a few things happen. We ran to a spot that I found in practice and I caught a small keeper. We ran to another grassbed and Kevin caught one. Then we ran to yet another grassbed and I caught one. Then we ran to another little spot I found in practice and Kevin managed a keeper and a nice 3-pounder. It was just that kind of day - running all over and junk fishing – picking up a fish here and there.

Towards the end of the day we got onto a pretty good bite in one area, but it was too little too late. We had nine topwater blowups in the last 30 minutes of the day, but only put two of them in the boat. If we'd had another hour to fish we would have upgraded a bunch.

I rode into check-in with only four fish in the box. I figured I had a little over 5 pounds. Although I knew weights would be way down today, I was pretty certain I didn't have enough to make the cut. Fortunately for me, the fish weighed a little more than I thought, giving me 6-05 for the day and 22-14 total weight. I sweated out the last few co- anglers and managed to still be in 9th place when the last guy crossed the stage.

My roommate, Patrick Wilson, also made the cut up in 7th place. I'm telling you, this guy is one of the best co-anglers on the planet. This won't be the last time you hear his name.

I'm fishing with George Cochran tomorrow. Based on what I know right now, I feel pretty okay about my chances.

John Murray – Days 1 & 2
Thursday, June 23, 2005

I basically prefished this tournament to catch two limits. I knew I needed two limits to make the Championship. I didn't need a lot, but I didn't want to bomb. I found some areas that had a lot of fish, and in practice, I got some good bites – mostly flipping a Sweet Beaver and then throwing a Senko and maybe throwing a frog a little bit.

The area I was in, guys caught some bigger stringers. But it seems like they had keyed on different stuff. I was keying on pads and cover like that, and in high tide, it seems they get off the pads and get on the grass. It was just really a matter of not addressing the right type of cover for what happened with the tides.

Overall I was happy. I only lost two fish. I wasn't really on big fish, but I wasn't too worried about it. It's a great fishery. To catch 20 pounds and get 136th, what can you say?

I caught them all flipping with a Lamiglas rod, 20-pound Sugoi fluorocarbon and Sweet Beavers and Yamamoto Senkos. That was pretty much the whole bite. Hopefully next year I'll do a little better here.

Chris Koester (Co-Angler) – Day 1
Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Well, I went ahead and got some weight on the board today, just like I'd hoped. My 16-09 was the best co-angler bag for the day, and I find myself nicely nestled in 1st place for now. I'll at least enjoy it overnight.

The problem is that everyone caught fish and the weights are tightly stacked. First place doesn't come with the big cushion that it usually does - 10th place is only a little behind me at 14-04. I think I need to catch 10 pounds tomorrow for a really good shot at making the cut.

I caught my fish today on basically two different baits, but it was night and day in regard to size - one of the two baits is producing solid fish. The bites are a little sporadic, but when you get one it's got shoulders on it.

My pro Jason Kilpatrick had a tough day. It took a long time for him to get his limit and then he only got one good bite of the quality I was getting. He finished with 10-09 after a dead fish penalty. Usually this would still be a respectable weight here at the Potomac, but not this week. He's mired way down in the standings and needs to catch a decent sack tomorrow just to stay in the Championship. He's around the fish to easily do it if things go well.

Kilpatrick is one of the best pros I've ever fished with. He's the whole package: tremendous fishing talent, great attitude and very enjoyable personality. He's a credit to the sport, to FLW Outdoors and to Team Lawry's. Although my fun day must have been terribly frustrating to witness from the front deck, at no point during the day did he get down or negative. He was simply awesome all day long. I'd take him for a partner every single tournament if I could.

Tomorrow I fish with Kevin Vida. My good friend Mike Jones fished with him today and had a little over 9 pounds. He tells me Kevin seems to be around good numbers of fish, so I should have a decent chance to finally bury my traditional Day 2 blues and punch my ticket to fish on Friday.

Chris Koester (Co-Angler) – Practice
Wednesday, June 22, 2005

I brought my boat along to practice for this event, although my practice time was fairly limited. I arrived Sunday morning after driving most of the night to get here in time to fish. I have a friend who lives in the Washington, D.C. area and took him out for the day.

We only got to fish for about 5 hours due to our late start and early trolling-motor battery failure. We were actually pretty successful, given our constraints and the fact that I've never been here before.

We caught 10 keepers total, although none would break 2 pounds. It appears that weekends are pretty brutal in terms of recreational boat traffic - there were an incredible number giant pleasure boats tooling around, throwing their monstrous wakes all over the river.

We found some rockpiles that were getting pummeled by these waves, and that's where we caught most of our fish. We got pummeled a little ourselves - at one point we speared a big boat wake and completely soaked ourselves. We filled the boat with a good 18 inches of water. I was lucky my rod straps, trolling motor and electronics all held in place.

Monday was a better day. My friend Patrick Wilson came back out from sunny California to fish this event, and we fished from dawn until dusk. We caught a lot of fish - I think 23 keepers total - and our best 5 would have been around 15 pounds.

We caught them in a lot of different areas, with a number of different baits. Topwaters, frogs, cranks and multiple plastics were effective. We didn't really dial into to any specific pattern, but we did give ourselves lots of options and confidence in a few baits.

Tuesday was a short day as well. We only fished for about 5 hours before leaving for registration. We caught 3 keepers total, again on frogs and plastics. The action was much slower, although we had several nice blowups and lost fish on frogs. There is a lot of good frog water around, but we didn't have enough time this week to run around enough to find a good concentration of frog fish.

I'll be fishing with Jason Kilpatrick on Day 1. Sounds like we'll be doing a number of different things, and some of them sound similar to what we were doing in practice. I have a few things I have some confidence in, so I feel like I should have a chance at some fish.

I'm in 56th place for the season right now, and I figure I'll need a Top 50 here to assure myself a spot in the Championship. I'd really hate to go into Day 2 knowing I need a huge bag to make it in, so I really hope to get some weight under my belt tomorrow.

John Murray – Practice
Wednesday, June 22, 2005

My practice was not great, but not bad. There's a lot of fish in this river, but as with any tidal situation, there's a small window to catch them. What I've found is, if you have the right tide and decent area, you can catch them pretty quick. Other than that, it's pretty slow.

It's not really even half as good as the California Delta, either for size or numbers. It gets hit way harder and it's not nearly the size. Plus, everything is flatter and the tides are smaller.

I think 200 boats on this place is quite a bit. I don't know how the tournament will work out. I imagine every good spot will have five to 30 boats on it. It really is a small place. You don't run that far – you don't burn a lot of gas. It doesn't really fish that big.

As far as patterns, I think the bass are still in transition. They're not fully on summer patterns, as far as I can tell.

And with the tide, when it starts going out and starts coming in are my two best. We only get the top level this morning, and no low tide, unless you run a long ways south.