Lake of the Ozarks FLW Series

I finished 53rd – three spots out of the money. I just never really got a whole lot going. I never got dialed in on the right pattern to win the tournament. I was able to scrape together some fish each day, but it was nothing to write home about.

I was fishing mostly up the river, and catching them various ways. I caught my best fish flipping, and I caught some on a spinnerbait and a buzzbait too.

The biggest thing I take away from this event is that most of the guys in the Top 10 were fishing the lower end of the lake. I was kind of surprised they caught them so good in that clear water this time of year. And they were fishing deep, which is something I never tried. I spent my whole tournament up the river.

There were some fish being caught up there, but when you pick the wrong end of the lake to focus on, you can't even make the money.

This is my seventh or eighth tournament here. It's tough, but that's typical of all these big public lakes we go to. They've had a big tournament here every weekend since March. It's still a great lake, with lots of shad and bass, but 90% of the fish have been caught in 2006.

And it's a tough time of year. There's lots of fish suspended offshore and chasing bait. It'll be a pretty tough bite, so I'll have to go out and fish hard all day.

As far as I'm concerned, it sets up well for a tournament. If you do the right thing all day, you can catch your five keepers, but nobody's on a mother lode. You have to go out, put your nose down and stick to what you have confidence in.

I think 60 pounds ought to be plenty for 4 days to win.