Good finish to the FLW season!!!

Over the past month I fished the last two events of the 2014 Walmart FLW Tour season and I am pretty happy to have ended things on a good note!  After a rough start, with two triple digit finishes to start the year I had my best pro-level finish to date in early June at Pickwick Lake in Alabama (17th), then finished up with a 40th place finish this past weekend at Kentucky Lake.

The highlight of the Pickwick event was leading the tournament after the first day thanks to a 24-8 limit that was anchored by the biggest bass I have ever caught, a 10-12 giant!  I was leading the tournament after day one and it felt pretty awesome!  The field of anglers that fishes these tournaments is very competitive!  

Over the course of the next couple of days I had some good fishing on Pickwick, but I was not able to keep up the big pace that I set the first day and ended up in 17th place.  I caught my fish there on a variety of baits including a 3/4 oz football jig, deep-diving crankbaits and swimbaits.  It was a great experience!  

My practice at Pickwick went pretty good, it was a fun lake to fish.  Here was a five pounder I caught in practice on a Jackall Muscle Deep 15 crankbait.  https://www.krugerfarms.com/jackall-muscle-deep-15plus-crank-bait/FLR-0550.html

I was eager to get to Kentucky Lake after getting home for a week or so between events because it has a reputation as one of the top bass lakes in North America and it would fish much like Pickwick.  Lots of using the the Humminbird Side Imaging to search for fish on offshore structure.  

My Dad came down to Kentucky Lake with to prefish and help me out with the big drive home after the event.  We had a great time together.  Though Kentucky Lake is not known for it's smallmouths as much as Pickwick, it has some good ones in it, evident by this nice one my Dad caught in practice.  

Though it didn't work as good as I hoped in the tournament by far my best bait in practice for this tournament was a 1/2 oz homemade bucktail jig.  It's a good shad replica and it was working awesome prior to the tournament.  In the tournament, I caught most of my weigh fish on the football jig.  

I was fishing both the bucktail jig and the football jigs on the same rod - a G. Loomis NRX model.  It was a 7'3" MH (873C).  These are very high end fishing rods, but they are the best and for fishing jigs where sensitivity is important, they are worth it.  
https://www.krugerfarms.com/g-loomis-73-fast-med-heavy-nrx-873c/FRO-0103.html

It felt great to end the season on a good note and now I'm looking forward to getting the tournament season rolling around home in Sunset Country!  Happy bassin'...