Day 2

After an epic fail on day 1, I again achieved another huge no-no in bass fishing. By my calculations, I had missed about 2 hours of a 3 hour topwater bite the morning before. If I just go to the topwater spot first thing in the morning on the the second day, I could get a nice bag of fish before 10 a.m. Classic rule of thumb while fishing, dont fish yesterdays patterns. I again waste 3 hours (travel time included) fishing for fish that were no longer valid. I did manage to get one nice keeper out of a matt flipping a Warrior Baits warrir craw, but obviously that wasnt going to get me anywhere. I was only getting bit 3 or 4 times a day out of the matts during practice and even though they were always quality fish, it wasnt going to be enough to help me. Finally, after nearly an entire tournament, I took everyones advice and just went fishing. I told my co-angler, "I'm sorry to do this to you but I'm going jig fishing in the canals". He kind of laughed and said that they dont jig fish in Florida. I wasnt going up on that stage again without a limit. I went to the canal connecting Toho to Kissimmee and I started flipping a blue and black jig in the riprapp. After about 3 more hours I filled out a limit that included a 5lber (a runt by floridian standards) and I felt alot better about myself. I weighed in and jumped up 38 spots on the leaderboard and finished 112 out of 194. Knowing that a few mental errors and a minimal amount of motor issues (that i caused) kept me out of the top 50 is enough to get me stoked for the next one. I beat myself, for the most part. I was never going to go out there and catch 80lbs like Gerald Swindle did but I could have caught enough to get me into the money if not for a few minor mistakes. I guess what I'm saying is it felt like I could hang with the big boys, I hope things go better in North Carolina!

S.T.P.