I had high hopes for my trip on Old Hickory Lake this time around. I was psyched and ready to haul in a big one. Old Hickory Lake, on the other hand, had other ideas. I was fishing with a guide by the name of Tim Staley and he really put me on fish that day. It was certainly not his fault that I performed poorly. He was culling fish by 10 a.m. and I hadn’t gotten one in the boat until noonish. I kept missing bites because it felt like they were so quick. By the time my brain reacted to the feeling on the end of my rod, the bite was gone and I was hook setting air. I think I just made up a new derogatory term similar to “air ball.” You could say “AIR HOOK!” Anyway, I missed several bites like that. I caught several striper and had one in the boat that went 13 and 3/4 inches. Not long enough…again. I think Old Hickory Lake has it out for me. I’ve never caught more than one fish from it in a tournament. This is the third boater I’ve been with that got a check this season and I have yet to get close to my record haul of three fish weighed in a tournament. I did weigh in a 2 pounder which kept me from zeroing, but it was over all a bad day for me. I would tell you what I caught it on and where, but I didn’t do well enough to tell you that it wasn’t a fluke and my boater asked me not to tell anyone where he caught all his fish. So, you tell me if I should fish the super tournament on Old Hickory Lake. It’s a two day tournament in the beginning of fall and I’m currently resting in 56th place. If I do well and make it into the top 40, I will be qualified to fish on. If not I’m out $150 plus boater courtesy cash. Let me know what you think! Leave a comment below…

Here’s to fish IN the boat!

Hello fishing friends and welcome to the first fishing post of the year for me. I hope to post many more this year and give you as much information on what’s going on in the BFL Music City Division this year.

The first tournament of the year this year also happens to be the furthest away from the Nashville area. We traveled all the way up to Byrdstown, TN and Dale Hollow lake. I knew early on that I’d be traveling with my fishing club buddy, Ray Russek, who’d agreed that we’d save money on the travel by riding together. The tournament was being hosted by Star Point Resort in Burdstown. We called ahead to try to get a room and the guy told Ray we couldn’t get a room unless we booked two days. I thought that was a little shady as well as the fact that he was quoting more $$ per room than what was posted on his website. I tried calling them as well to see if they’d quote me the same thing and couldn’t even get anyone to answer the phone. Bad business. So, we decided to stay at the Best Western in Albany, KY which put us near a 30 minute drive to the ramp which worked out great. The hotel was clean and nice enough and we actually got some sleep.
I drew Jeff Delk as my boater. A native KY man who owns his own trucking company, Jeff loves to fish as much as any angler. He likes to take his special needs son fishing and is quite a gentleman. He is very polite on the water, not throwing any wake on close-by fishermen. He informed me we’d catch ‘em based on his pre-fishing spots he’d found on days previous. He owns a Bullet in TN orange of which his friends give him a hard time because he’s from KY.
Early Saturday morning, as boat number 10, we had to be on the water early. Why did I choose a sport where getting up early is a requirement? Anyway, we took off and went pretty far into the Wolf River. There were some spots where Jeff had really been catching fish and he wanted to continue that. Turns out, the cold air and rain the day previous really affected the fish and their willingness to bite. We worked several of the areas he’d caught fish and came up with nothing but a couple “dinks.” So we pulled further back out to the main portion of the river and began to get bites. At approximately 11:30 Jeff got into a big largemouth that looked a lot bigger than he weighed. This one turned out to be a 4 lb. 10 oz. Largemouth. A great fish and a hint to the idea of color and size of lure we should be using. He caught another KY spotted bass shortly thereafter and I was hurting for a real bite. I switched to a watermelon Zoom trick worm with red flake and snagged a keeper KY Spotted Bass. We noticed that most af the fish we’d caught were biting in the 10 – 15 ft mark and decided to go with a little heavier weighted lures to get deeper quicker. At that point my boater got another spot on a green pumpkin jig. So I switched to a football head jig that I put a watermelon baby brush hog with gold flake on. I fished it for a while on caught several dinks until I got a pretty decent KY Spotted Bass that would garner me my final keeper fish of the day. So I with my two KY spots and Jeff with a big Largemouth and three spots headed to the weigh-in. We were boat 10 so we needed to be back by 2:30 p.m. We got back in time to spare and weighed in. Jeff had a little over eight pounds of fish and I had a little bit over 3 pounds with my two fish.
The results were slightly heartbreaking for both of us. As we listened to the numbers come in for the next 4 flights of boaters, we slowly moved further back in the pack of leaders. It’s like a slow disappointment, but both my boater and myself ended up just outside the money. I literally came in 1 place out of the money and my boater came in three places out of the money. Tough to hear, but we have points on the board for the rest of the season. I came in 23rd on the coangler side and Jeff came in at 24th on the boaters side. I hope that I can pick up some of the slack on Percy Priest in April.
So until next time, always have a jig ready and don’t forget your brush hog and trick worm.

Here’s to fish IN the boat!

Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below…

This time we’re at KY Lake launching at Birdsong. I’m fishing with Ray and he also has an eagle boat. We did o.k. on this lake and I actually slayed em with a medium running red craw crankbait near rip rap and some barges. On top of that, I actually pulled in a 20 pound catfish. He was literally right up on the rocks. As soon as my lure hit the water he bit and went straight to the bottom. Needless to say it took me at least five minutes to get the big stinker into the boat so I could get my lure back. From there we past by some other folks who were fishing for big cats and started hitting a point when one of my wild casts with a white/yellow spinner bait got stuck on a rock. We were headed toward my lure so I thought I’d just get it back and move on when all of the sudden my line is going slack and headed straight for me. I wound up my line as fast as I could and a huge bass comes flipping out of the water with my lure in its mouth. It was as if it was in slow motion. He just flipped and flipped and PING JINGLE JINGLE….my lure came flying out of his mouth. I was stunned. My partner was stunned. We both just kind of looked at eash other in silence and awe of what had just occurred. It took several seconds before one of us even said anything and it was more like, “What the Heck was that?” Oh my goodness we could have won this tournament with just that one fish. That was amazing! Well, it’s a good fishing story, but that’s all it was cause we didn’t get that huge thing in the boat and it didn’t win the tournament for us, BUT we did have a good time and caught a bunch of fish. KY lake is interesting. There are a lot of small fish in it, but the size limit is 15 inches. Most the fish I caught were all about 14 and a half to 14 and three quarters. Kinda depressing, but still fun to catch fish. There’s a whole other story about how my boater forgot to turn on his live wells and killed the fish he caught, but that’s a story for another time and may not be blog worthy.
Until next tournament.
Here’s to fish IN the boat.

So this year is ready to go and we start the year off west of Nashville at Beech lake. It’s a lake that requires it’s own permit and has some big bass to offer based on our clubs history. In years past there have been some 6 and 7 pounders pulled from this lake. I was fishing with a guy named Stewart. He was a good guy and had an eagle G3 boat. At least I think that is what it is. Anyway, we headed straight for shallow water because there are some good flats with lillypads on this lake. We say a bunch of topwater action going on and we thought we were in the greatest spot. After hours of trying to get these active fish to bite, we had to give up and head for deep water. The theory there being “if they aren’t in shallow, maybe they’re in deep water.” We headed towards the dam and actually did pull in some pretty fish, but they wouldn’t measure up. I caught three fish on a spot remover with a silver/blue roboworm where the edge of the rip rap turned to sandy bottom. This didn’t garner me any measurable fish, but we did have a great time and the weather was unbeatable. Some of our club members brought in some nice fish, but nothing like last year. I believe the good ones were caught using Texas rigged purple worms.
On to the next tournament.
Until then, here’s to fish IN the boat!

This is a spotted bass I caught on the Elk River outside of Fayetteville, TN.

This fish I caught while on a private pond in Alabama.

It’s that time of year again and much fishing will be done this 2010 season. I’ve waited a little late, but I think I would still be a great representative for any company that needs it’s identity in front of sportsman of all ages in the Middle TN area.
I am a Christian fisherman who is active in Harpeth Community Church of Franklin, TN. I am the secretary and publicity director of a bass fishing club in middle TN. The Central TN Bass Club. Mostly I am a co-angler in need of sponsorship.

By sponsoring me a company would be able to get their information and identity in front of sportsman across middle TN as well as through the internet with blogging.

I will commit to blogging about everything I learn on the lake this year as well as write about experiences with other anglers, products and reviews. I am ex military and have served this great republic in the US Navy. I have a degree in Mass Communication from Middle TN State University and have worked in Video Production and Multimedia for 10 years.

If your company sees a mutual benefit to sponsorship of a competitive angler, please contact me today!

You can sponsor patches on a fishing shirt, an entire fishing jersey, product and more for one tournament or the entire season. For more information on how you can sponsor me, please email me as soon as possible.

Bass Fishing Club Gearing Up for 2010 Season – Classified Ad

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We started out early morning on the first day of the tournament putting around. Ya gotta know I hate putting around. The boater I got paired with was an “old-timer.” Not only that, but yes, he was a major smoker. Imagine that, a bass fisherman that is a smoker. Anyway, he lit up like a chain smoker. Everytime he was sitting still he’d light another one up. Yuk! Anyway, we did o.k. for numbers of fish caught. We were catching fish all day in different spots, but they were all under the size limit. Talk about getting frustrated.

Now the rules of the TBF state that the co-angler gets the boat for half of the day. My boater kept trying to fish humps off of the main channel and all we were catching were small fish, SO I asked him if we could go back up into some creeks and try that, and asked him, and asked him etc. You get my point. This guy didn’t even acknowledge that I’d said anything, much less had an idea that might net us some fish. So as the day went on and I kept asking, I just got more and more frustrated with my boater. Turns out, I’m rating the boater I had on the first day of this tournament as the WORST boater I’ve had in my tournament fishing career so far.

So what is the news when we get back to the scales that afternoon? Guess….
Everybody was catching their fish up in the back of creeks! Of course right?

Second day I faired a lot better on my boater draw. I got a really nice guy and a great partner on the lake. Ya know…the kind you can chat with and kid around…that’s what I’m talking about. He didn’t do very bad on the first day like I did either. He was open to suggestions and we did pretty well considering some awful wind to deal with and a weak trolling motor. We caught fish all day that were small just like the day before, but I had a LOT more fun. Turns out we both got decent keepers that day. I got one on a one knocker from rapala that would almost go 3 .lbs. He got one as well that was a little over 2 lbs. It was a good day…sun was out and we got to go to the scales. That’s always a good day in my book.

As it turns out, the rest of my club team didn’t do so well either and we ended up at the bottom of the standings as a team, but the weekend was a good one and we had fun.

If you have any comments, please feel free to post them and don’t forget to follow this blog because I have some feature posts coming up this winter as well as some history on fishing.

Until next time. Here’s to fish IN the boat!

Hey everyone…I had such a bad day last tournament that I decided to really ask questions about fishing line and see what type answers I’d receive. The truth is…there is no perfect answer, but many. Even though the line that someone uses is highly determined by their preferences, there are “applications” in which certain lines are better than others. Please visit this article presented by bass pro to hopefully shed some light on the subject:
http://tiny.cc/BassProArticle
On the obvious side of things…if you find that the line that you are using doesn’t perform, don’t be afraid to try something else.
I will continue to research this issue and will let you know as I learn more about the subject.
Here’s to fish IN the boat!
Feel free to respond with your preferences and/or any bad day or good day stories where line played they key.