Bassmaster Memorial

Close, but no cigar. Tough times.

Today I actually had my chances. I had two nice ones pull off on a jig, and a couple came off rolling a shakey head. I finally went to a Reaction Innovations Screwed-Up jighead and never lost any more.

And I caught a couple of nice ones that way. I was using a generic shakey head and it wasn't hooking them. That was stupidity on my part.

So I caught my fish on a little 1/4-ounce Yamamoto jig and shaking a Yamamoto Skinny Senko on the Screwed Up head.

Today, (Dave) Wolak was on the second spot I was going to go to. It was a good deep-water spot – I caught a 3 1/2 there in practice. They were there.

And I caught a 3 1/2 in deep water today, then had a big one pull off. I think you just have sort of a small window to catch them deep here.

I'm frustrated with my finish. Anytime I have enough bites to do pretty well, and don't execute, it's purely my fault.

I think Skeet Reese has a real good shot at winning this tournament.

Next up is Grand Lake. I've actually fished three tournaments there and finished in the Top 20 all three times. But I've never fished it this time of year.

It was sort of weird today. On my first cast I had a 5-pounder come up on my Vixen and do everything but eat it. I ended up fishing for that fish for a while and never caught it.

I was mostly catching them on a little Yamamoto jig. I caught four keepers, and never lost any keepers or anything.

I was fishing outside stuff and a couple of spots I wanted to fish had boats on them. Dave Wolak was on one of them, and Scott Rook was on the other. They weren't my spots – they were just obvious areas.

Really, this lake's about timing. You have to get your timing down. I know there's some good fish where I'm fishing, but my timing just has to be better.

It'll be tough for me to make the cut. I'm trying for 25th to get a check.

The fishing's been great – for white bass. You can catch 100 a day. I did catch quite a few small bass, but only had three keepers each day.

I'm pretty much just fishing docks. That's the easiest pattern. The lake's low, so a lot of the good vegetation's out of the water. Some people are cranking them, some are catching topwater fish.

Overall, it's brutal. If there's a good area, there's 50 boats all over each other. Any good area will get eaten up quickly.

I did try some offshore fishing, but as soon as you go deeper you start catching white bass. I haven't found anything out there – everything here seems to be bank-related.

I'll just have to make do. I think probably 8 or 9 pounds a day would make the Top 12 cut, so I'm just looking for a limit.

Everything about this event is great – the venue's just sucking. I don't mind tough fishing, but I don't like it when everyone's fishing on top of each other.