Champlain FLW Tour

I'd located quite a few fish on beds, and a few of them were good ones. Some of them I never got to because other people caught them first, and others were gone by the time the tournament started.

All that was left were 2 3/4-pounders. I caught plenty of those, but I really needed some of those bigger ones.

It was a pretty simple plan – I looked for fish on beds in practice and tried to catch fish on beds in the tournament. I caught them on a pumpkin-colored Berkley Power Tube.

The first day was like heaven. It was glass-calm with light winds and sunny. I hadn't had much practice, but I managed to catch quite a few keepers and I ended up with 15-07, mostly bed-fishing with Senkos and stuff.

The second day was totally opposite – it was windy and cloudy, and that hurt me. I went to some of the areas I'd fished here last time, but didn't do any good.

I ended up catching two that were almost 4 pounds, but I just had three little ones to go with them and I only weighed 12-06.

I could have moved up quite a ways with one more good bite, but I never got it. I didn't lose any fish, but I never got any big bites.

It was kind of a frustrating tournament – close, but no cigar. I'm going to stay here for the next 2 days and practice for the Bassmaster (Elite Series) event. I just didn't get it done at this one.

Practice has gone well. I've just been sight-fishing, and I've been finding lots of fish on beds – mostly smallmouth. I've got a list of 10 fish to go to tomorrow that are 3 1/2 pounds or better. If I can catch five of those, that's 17 1/2-plus pounds, and that'd be a good start.

The fish seem to be right in the middle of the spawn this year. The last time I was here was in '02 and I got 9th, but there are five times as many fish on beds this year as there were that time. They've had a cool spring and the spawn is late this year, as far as I can tell.

There are lots and lots of fish. A 15-pound bag is a dime a dozen, and over 17 is what a guy needs. It's kind of funny that it's so hard to get 18 pounds.

I got a half-day yesterday and it was stormy, and then it was stormy the second half of the day today, so I didn't get to practice too much. I fished largemouth, but with this water flooded, I never found anything.

I'm going to go for smallmouths – just go to some areas and fish. It's supposed to be nice weather tomorrow, so that's a plus.

I found a few sight-fish, but it's all going to depend on the conditions. It seems that when you find them, there's a bunch of them there.