Tournament Recap
Friday, August 21, 2015
Jay Yelas
I just needed a different game plan. My game plan was not good because there were too many guys fishing the stuff I was fishing. I couldn’t move around in this one creek I was fishing (Thursday). Today, there were for four or five and there were fish in there. They just all split up between everybody.
I had another spot up a different river and started there today and made about three casts and Scott (Martin) shows up and he’s like, ‘Hey, this is where I caught ‘em yesterday,’ so I took off. I can’t believe anybody would find that spot. If he hadn’t have found that spot and caught 14 pounds yesterday, I would’ve had them today.
I lost one good one, but I was just not on the right game plan. I think if we were going to keep going, I still don’t know what the deal is. I guess I’d go throw a topwater bait all day. August is just so hard to get on the right game plan. Another middle-of-the-pack finish was not what I was hoping for. When Iook back, I think my strategy was flawed. What I chose to do, there were just too many people doing it. There were guys on the shallow wood and guys on the ledges and I thought there’d be one other boat in there.
Day 1 Practice Recap
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Jay Yelas
I fished the other two Cups and three or four other things there over the years. Back in 2007, I didn’t do any good, but I was 11th in 2011 and the fishing was a lot better the second time. I think this year should be similar to 2011. The lake is in good shape with a lot of grass. I think it’ll be good overall.
My strategy today was to try something totally different from the last time. I spent my morning revisiting some of the stuff I fished in 2011, but I never got a bite on any of that. Around noon, I changed things up completely and went to a different end of the lake and started fresh. I hate getting hung up on memories so it was good to move on.
It’s a big lake and there are a lot of ways to catch them. I’m going to be looking off shore and looking for a topwater bite. Both Cups here have been won deep and you fish this event to win, so I might get out and do something I don’t often do and fish deep.
I was happy with today. I was able to eliminate, in my mind, what I did last time. That’s not always easy to do, especially after a solid finish. I was able to get beyond that today. I did better this afternoon when I started doing other things. That’s where I’m at. There’s still a long ways to go. I didn’t catch any big ones today, just little ones.
Luke Clausen
I just fished all new stuff. I got some bites, but nothing real exciting. I’m still at the point where I’m concerned about catching five. I felt like with the cooler weather the shallow bite should’ve been good, but it wasn’t very good at all. If I fished shallow all day, there’d have no way I’d have caught five.
Out deep, I was marking fish on everything, but it’s hard to tell what they were. Every place I looked it was like my graphs were on simulation mode.
Compared to 2011, there are a lot less fish shallow. I don’t know if the deep fish are easier or harder to catch, but the shallower fish were pretty much vacant. There’s plenty of life up there, but I saw everything but a bass. I did it over half the day and didn’t hardly see anything or get any bites. In my opinion, it was a good day for it, but it wasn’t what I’d hoped for.
I’m going to keep pushing because that’s the way I want to fish. The reality may be that that’s the way I’m going to get beat.
