Busy Spring on the Road

Since mid-April we have had three FLW Tour events so I have been on the road quite a bit with that.  I'm at home for a few weeks right now, which is nice, taking advantage of the AWESOME fishing that we have here in Sunset Country.  I'll post all about that in the next day or two.  

The first event took place at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky and it did not go as planned.  A horrible first day lead me to a 125th place finish, one of my worst ever but things went good for the next couple of events so I have no complaints.  

To top things off in Kentucky, after the tournament I ended up getting a bunch of gear - rods, reels, tackle and line - stolen out of the back of my truck through the window on the right side of my cap.  Fortunately, thanks to the help of Game Warden Jason Estes and the police in Burnside, Kentucky, most of my things were recovered so I'm very lucky!

After Cumberland we headed to Lewis Smith Lake in Northern Alabama and things went well there.  I had two pretty good days and was in 15th place heading into the weekend.  A tougher day three landed me in 29th place but it was good week.  I really, really enjoy fishing these lakes that have big spotted bass.  They are fun to fish for.  

I caught most my fish at Smith Lake on a wacky rigged Northland Impulse Dipstick (Green Pumpkin) with a nail weight in one end of it.  I also caught a few on a Jackall Rhythm Wave swimbait and a ned rig.  

After Smith we visited Kentucky Lake in mid-May, my third time fishing there.  I've always had fun there in the past so I was looking forward to it.  It is one of the most famous bass lakes in the U.S. with a lot of tournament history so it's always fun to fish there.  It has undergone a major invasion of Asian carp in the past few years so we'll see what happens with that.  The fishing was tougher this the than it's been in the past but I ended up grinding out my limit every day en route to a solid 7th place finish! 

My Dad has come to Kentucky Lake with me each time that I've been there because of the shot at catching several fish like this each day.  It was tougher fishing this time but the quality was still really good.  We didn't catch a lot of fish during the three practice days but most of them were good ones.  

I was really lucky at Kentucky Lake that I had one spot that kicked out most of my fish on days two and three when I had big catches.  Sometimes, that's the way it goes, I'm not going to complain!  I caught most of my fish at KY on a 3/4 oz football jig and a homemade bucktail jig.  

Heading into the last event of the season at Lake St. Clair in a couple of weeks, I am in ninth place in points, looking pretty good for qualifying for the Forrest Wood Cup in August.  The top 40 anglers qualify for the Cup.  I'm very excited about St. Clair, it is one of the best smallmouth lakes in the World so we can expect to see a bunch of big fish.  It's going to be fun!