Alabama's Clay Dyer ended up 188th at the Travis FLW Tour with three fish for 4-00 (all caught on day 1), but he said his finish could have been considerably higher if a break or two had gone his way.
"I'm not going to beat myself up too bad," he said. "I missed a couple of bites (on day 1) that would have given me a limit, and I had a 4-pounder (on day 2) that came off. If I'd caught those, I'd have been in pretty good shape.
"I'm just learning more and more as I go on and I'm gaining more confidence. I just want to try to keep improving."
The frigid temperatures of the first 2 days and the violent winds of day 2 combined to negate the gameplans he'd formulated in practice.
"I had three or four places where I thought I could catch a limit, but the water had cooled off on me a lot and the wind muddied some of them up. I tried to make adjustments – I ran 30 miles upriver, but that water was trashed.
"I came back to my two best areas on the main lake and the fish were there, but they were suspended. That 4-pounder was the only bite I got all day, and even that one doesn't help if you don't put it in the boat."
The tournament was his first in his new Evinrude-powered Ranger. "I owe a big thanks to D and D Marine in Lawrenceburg, Tenn."
