A Blue Trophy Comes back to Canada
Saturday, April 3, 2021 at 10:05PM 
After several years on fishing professional bass tournaments I finally earned my first win! It felt amazing!
In late February at the Tennessee River, fishing out of Knoxville, Tennessee, I found an area with a large school of smallmouths that ended up being the winning fish. 
I was fortunate to find the fish that I did. Heading into the event I didn't know what I really had but after I took the lead on day one, I knew that I had something special. It was pretty cool to do it in downtown Knoxville...one of my favorite cities in the U.S.
I ended up weighing twenty smallmouths over the course of the tournament. Smallmouths had to be 18" to keep at this event and it wasn't expected that limits would be caught so I was fortunate to find the fish that I did. I didn't plan to fish for smallmouths heading into this tournament, I just got lucky and found a few! 
I caught all of my fish on a Z-Man 4" Jerk ShadZ rigged on a 3/8 oz Smeltinator jig head from Lake of the Woods Sports Headquarters in Kenora. It's a bait that we all use a lot around home on Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, so it was something I was really comfortable fishing with. 
I caught all of my fish "moping" or Damiki rig fishing...hanging it under the boat, watching it on my electronics. I watched all but one fish that I weighed come up and bite my bait. My Humminbird Helix 10 2D sonar was the deal! I also found a lot of the rocks that I caught fish from on my MEGA 360 unit. 
It was some fun fishing!
This is a video that Bassmaster put together with most of my fish catches from the event. THANK YOU to them for putting this together! 
It's been a decent start to the season! I put together a decent 24th place finish at the first event on the St. John's River in Florida, thanks to a few big largemouths.
After Knoxville I had a tough event at Pickwick Lake, Alabama, finishing 89th...including a zero on day one, my first goose egg. It's a crazy sport with all the highs and lows but I'm ready to keep this going this week in Texas!
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