Potomac FLW Tour Open

Jay Yelas – Days 1 & 2
Friday, June 3, 2011

> Day 1: 5, 11-04
> Day 2: 5, 11-03
> Total = 10, 22-07 (73rd)

It was my worst finish of the year. I'm not happy. You're never happy when you have your worst tournament of the year, and it may be the worst I've ever done here. I'm pretty sure it is. So I'm just very disappointed.

I thought I was in store for a good week. I had a good practice. I caught some good fish in practice, but I don't know what happened. I didn't lose any fish. I just never got a bite over 2 1/2 pounds. When you have a good practice and get some good bites, it's pretty unusual not to get one or two of those a day in the tournament. There must not have been many good ones in the area I was fishing. Either that or I caught them all in practice.

I was fishing two different patterns within the same area. I had some beautiful milfoil I was flipping with a little Berkley HAVOC! Craw Fatty. I was also punching little milfoil clumps with a 7" blue-fleck Power worm. I also caught some fish off laydowns swimming a Berkley Gripper jig tipped with a 3" Chigger craw. I'd gotten some good topwater bites in practice, but I never got one during the tournament.

Everybody pretty much fishes the same way here. All the fish are shallow, in 3 feet of water or less, so everybody's flipping or throwing topwater. I guess I just didn't find an area with the right fish in practice.

Jay Yelas – Practice
Wednesday, June 1, 2011

This was the hottest weather we've had so far this year for a tournament. The fishing's good, but the big fish are kind of scarce. They're there, though, so there's some good fish to be had.

To me, the Potomac's fishing like it always has. The place is just a fish factory when it comes to numbers. But the key here is always the 3-pound-or-bigger bites. So it's like years past: You're catching lots and lots of fish if you want to fish a certain way – two guys could catch 30 or 40 fish pretty easy – but if you want to fish for big fish, you don't get as many bites. It's not easy to catch quality by any means. But I did figure out a couple of things to generate some bigger bites.

I think we're looking at 14 pounds a day to make the Top 20. Somebody will have 20 pounds one day, but if you can hang in there, the weights should be similar to the last time we came in June. The fishing's about the same as it was then.

The Potomac happens to be one of my best waters, but a lot of guys have struggled here. You look at a guy like Rick Clunn, who fished here probably 10 times before he ever made the money, you have to get in the crowd and fish the community-hole fish. Some guys like to get away from the crowd, and this is a really hard place to fish if you want to be by yourself.