2017 FLW Tour Season - Part 1

I apologize to everybody because it's been months since I have updated things here!  A lot has happenend since I last posted in December...been through the entire FLW Tour season, had some good ice fishing days and few successful wolf hunters.  I'll try and get everything updated over the next week or so!  

Tour Stop #1: Lake Guntersville, Alabama (Early February)

The first stop of the season went well.  Despite some super tough fishing, I was able to grind out a limit each day en route to a 22nd place finish, only ounces out of the top 20 cut.  I was super happy to get out of this one with a decent finish. I caught a few fish on a Jackall TN70 lipless rattle bait and a few flipping a Northland Impulse Dipstick.  

After the Guntersville tournament I had a day to burn up so I went down the road to Lewis Smith Lake to catch some big spotted bass.  We have visited Smith Lake for Tour events twice since I've been fishing and it's one of my favourite lakes in the South so I was excited to get out there.  I ended up catching a few big spots out deep on swimbaits and drop shots so it was a fun day.  

The day I went to Smith was the day of the Super Bowl and it was rainy so I pretty much had the lake to myself.  My boat this year is the new Lund 2075 ProV Bass and it has been awesome to fish out of.  Runs great, has a ton of storage, looks good, I love it!  

Tour Stop #2: Lake Travis, Texas (mid-February)

After Alabama I made my way to Texas to get ready for the next event at Lake Travis.  I had a couple days of fun fishing with my pal Jeff Sprauge, one of my FLW Tour competitors.  He took me to an awesome lake and showed me how to catch a few fish...good times!  

My brother Ben came down to Travis to practice with me and we had a great time and caught some nice fish.  We ended up getting on a deep program and that was where we caught all of our fish.  This was the big one of the trip and six pounder that Benny caught.  

Aqua-Vu is one of my new sponsors this year and using a camera while practicing at this event was very helpful for distinguishing what I was looking at on my Humminbirds.  One school of fish I marked that I thought were all bass turned out to be a big group of gar.  This camera was able to show me which brush piles had fish in them, it was fun.  

This ended up being a great tournament and I finished up in 13th spot, leaving me sitting in 5th place in the points race through two events.  Little did I know, the season was about to start going downhill.  

Tour Stop #3: Harris Chain, Florida (mid-March)

I went down to Florida a couple days early to warm up at Lake Toho and while the fishing was not fast and furious I did manage to catch a couple of big ones minutes apart one afternoon.  That is a seven and an eight pounder right there!  This is why fishing in Florida is so fun, any flip can kick out one of these things!  

My practice for this tournament was not bad...my travel partner for the season and my best buddy on Tour is Brandon McMillan from Florida so he gives me some good direction in the Sunshine State.  I love fishing down there but my tournament results are all over the map.  Heading into this one I was looking forward to the event. 

While I caught some decent fish at this one I ended up falling a little bit short of cashing a check and ended up in 72nd spot...not great but not horrible I figured.  I had gone nine events in a row where I finished in the money so I figured I was due for a tough one.