Indian Lake....

I pretty much choked my season away yesterday and it was more of the same. Its June and I already cant wait for this season to be over and move on to next year. There absolutely has to be something physically wrong with the way Im setting the hook on fish because I have no explanation for why I am having so much trouble landing fish. Its an epidemic as far as Im concerned, a pandemic, its been a nightmare, a long viscious nightmare of headshake/jump then lure flying out of the water. Ive cost myself thousands of dollars, numerous quality finishes and most importantly, my dignity.  Its fishing, its not the end of the world but it feels like it.

So let me tell you about Indian Lake.   First off,  its 120 miles to the lake from my house so I had to get up at 2:30am which is zero fun, especially if you go to bed at a normal time like normal people do.  I get up and start driving. A note about driving at 3am, anyone on the road at 3am is either drunk or getting drunk or going fishing so you got to be on your A-game because EVERY car is a potential head on collision. Luckily I didnt have any run-ins with DUIers but the craziness wasnt completely missing from the morning. A mile from I-70 I see, what appears to be a child knealing on both knees in the side of the road. WTF?  I am not ashamed to admit that Ive been known to "see" things that didnt exist and after a double take I usually am left wondering,  why did I think I saw that?  This time, I drove by it so quickly there wasnt a chance for a double take.  I get to I-70 and I tell myself "what if that was a kid, I have to turn around because that shit aint safe".  So I turn around, start to get close and see what I had hoped was nothing more then my imagination, a person knealing on both knees facing a guardrail on the side of RT 13.  I do another illegal u-turn, while towing a 21 foot bass boat and I pull of the side of the road and I yell over to the opposite side "HEY!, What are you doing? Are you ok?.  This young girl pops up, sobbing, says she doesnt know where she is, where her car is and she doesnt know what to do. I ask her how old she is and if she is hurt, she says she is 22 years old and that she wasnt hurt. I then ask her one more obvious question, "are you drunk?"  I already knew the answer but I get a definitive "yes" to the question. What the hell do I do now? I tell her to get in my truck and that I will take here up to the gas station so she can get help. We stop at the station and the manager called the cops. No clue the outcome though for all I know shes in jail. She looked alot like this....





Thats how my day started and it went down hill from there. It took a little over 10lbs to win, I lost several keeper fish and one tank that I have no good estimate of and I ended the day with around 6lbs on only 4 keepers.  Im so sick of the excuses, I have been on winning fish over and over again and I havent gotten it done.  For awhile I thought it was just a bad streak but clearly there is a technical flaw in something Im doing and I have no idea what it is. I need to figure something out or its just going to keep happening.

Thanks for the support even though Ive sucked terribly this year. To the reader that asked the question on the last post,  dont pay any attention to some of these people, its the interwebs, lot of crazies out there...

Later
S.T.P.

Practice? We talkin about practice?

So, Indian Lake is up next, sunday is the day. I need a solid tournament (top 10) to stay in contention for a state team spot in the Ohio Bass Federation. I currently sit in 10th place, 7 points out of the last spot. I have been extremely busy with other stuff lately and beleive it or not, my only day I could make the 120 mile, one way trip to Indian Lake was last friday. It was worth it for the fishing but Ive convinced myself that the stuff that I did last week will be of little help this sunday.  The weather is going to be completely different so there is no way I can expect to have another day like I did friday but Im hoping the fish are in the same areas so my adjustments will have to be only technique related, not necessarily different water.

Im praying its not a re-deux of last year. I had a great practice leading up to a tournament on Indian Lake last year and ended up struggling majorly in the tournament.  This past friday I caught an insane sack of bass that was anchored by a spawned out female that weighed between 5 and 6lbs.  A true Ohio tank. If she would have been pre-spawn or even had regained some mid-summer weight, I think she could have been 7+, add that donkey to the multiple 3lbers I caught, I would have been culling 2.5lbers. Conservative estimate had me at 15lbs, realistic estimate 17lbs and  a possible but doubt it bag of 18lbs.


So at the risk of taking a wicked beating,  I feel pretty good about sunday.  I guess we will see how it goes.

Go Celtics!  Game 6 tonight!

Federation Nation Rocky Fork...

Great news,   no lost giants!  Bad news, no hooked giants!  I actually was pretty happy with my performance. I caught a shit load of bass, mostly keepers too but never did get into a donkey. The final results havent been posted so Im not sure where I finished but Im thinking it was somewhere around 18th or 19th out of around 45 guys. I caught a solid limit and I caught fish all day long,  I just didnt get a big bite. I practiced the day before the tournament and the lake had cleared up immensely from a few weeks before, it had also dropped down to a normal level (it was about 3 feet high just a few weeks earlier). The fish had all backed off the bank and guys were catching them near the drops. I on the other hand didnt have that bite going, so I stayed shallow, sort of. Alot of the lake had some thick grass building up around it, during practice I had several blow-ups on a frog and several more blow-ups on a popper just on the edges of the grass.  This is what I roled with. I figured since the "popper" fish were more abundant and easier to land, I would do that for most of the day, or at least until I had a solid limit, then I would shift to frog fishing. Frog fishing is awesome and the fish you drag out of the slop are usually pretty quality fish but the flip side is either A- not landing those fish, or B - not getting a hook into those fish. After getting a limit of about 7lbs, I shifted to the frog bite and had 5 blow-ups in about the last 2 hours of the tournament. Not a single one of them got the frog in their mouth so my bag stayed at that 7ish lbs mark.  I cant really complain, of all the lakes on the schedule, this is the tournament I feared the most. I shouldnt drop that much in the points and I should still be in contention for a state team slot. Next up is Indian Lake, a thorn in my side for years but at a minimum, I know the lake and what it takes to win there. I reckon we will see.

For those who might wonder or might want to know what type of popper I was throwing, and trust me it matters, it was a Lobina Lures Rico. I have absolutely zero connection with them but they make the best freakin poppers ever made. Straight up nasty, at Rockyfork, I probably caught 15 keepers throughout the day, lost a handful more while at the same time, my co-anlger, with a generic popper didnt get a single blow up. Rig up a 6'6'' medium action spinning rod and reel with 10lb braid, you can cast it a mile, work it the way it was meant to be worked, and hold on.....

Old Times....

Its been awhile since I posted, laziness the biggest factor for that, sue me. The Warrior Baits tournament did not go as planned although my lil' bro and I was on some really solid fish. The story of my season so far, lost fish killed the opportunity to throw down a big bag of fish on the scale. It wasnt meant to be. My brother, once again put a nice fish in the box, just like he did at Mosquito Lake last summer. We had a fun time, I always have a blast when I get to fish with my family, whether its my dad or one of my brothers or both. We got to talking out on the boat about some of the crazy times we had as kids while fishing and I thought it might be remotely interesting to share a few stories from my childhood.

Im not going to go all in depth on some of these stories, for all I know, these stories might only be funny to me, so I am sorry in advanced if you feel like you "had to be there". Im also probably going to make this a 2 or 3 part deal as I recall new stories.

 The Bullet - There was a pond near one of the handful of houses my dad lived in while we were growing up. For whatever reason, we were only alowed to fish that pond for one summer. I think maybe someone bought the land or something, hell, maybe the landowners just didnt want some douchey kids raping their pond, cant really recall. Anyway, my step-brother and I (Heath) was fishing for whatever was biting. I was usually throwing some variety of plastic worm when I was that age. Heath was a little less evolved and was throwing some sort of rig that required a 1oz bell sinker. As you know, most anything with a 1oz bell sinker will get away from you in a hurry if youre not careful.  Well thats what happened to Heath, he heaved that rig out and it went about 30 yards up and into a tree. I have no idea what kind of line he was using but it was probably the most generic, heaviest mono you can imagine. Im guessing 25lb or more Eagle Claw economy spool. This snag is in there good, so Heath starts tugging and tugging and tugging. He is really leaning on this thing. It looked like a giant banjo string. When it finally let go, it sounded like a major league fastball. Im watching this whole deal unfold, I didnt know what was going to happen but I was pretty sure something was gonna go down. So the line breaks, but it breaks between the hook and the sinker and that sinker was making a B-line towards Heath at a speed that could only be measured with a high speed camera from Mythbusters. Can you imagine the sound it made when it hit him? You would be disapointed if you actually heard it because it wasnt as exciting as you would think but it still makes me laugh when I replay that sound. It hit him right in the bare chest and sounded something like movie punch. Left a welt on him that looked like a paintball wound and is burned into my memory as to what happens when you pull a little to hard on a snag in a tree.

The Lantern -  We spent alot of time catfishing as kids. I couldnt get enough of it. We always went at night, all summer long, seemed like every night of the week. My dad had a vintage Coleman lantern that we used for, of all things, lighting. It was old school, from the early 70s, but it worked awesome. I think he still has that old lantern somewhere. Anyway, one night, we were doing our usual thing, this time at Lake Alma in Vinton county. We were fishing off the only dock in the entire lake at the time, hell it might still be the only dock in the lake, and it was prob midnight. It was kind of spitting rain, kind of chilly, crazy windy, and we werent catching many fish. We decided to pack things up and head back to the car. Heath got up from his lawn chair and started to gather some things when a gust of wind kicked up and blew the lawn chair into the water and with it, the still lit lantern. It stayed lit, believe it or not, for about a tenth of a second. Panic ensued, mainly in part due to the fact that my dad was a hard ass and was likely to be ultra pissed about his lantern being dropped into an average at best catfishing lake. The water wasnt that deep so after gathering our witts, we shined a flashlight on the subject at hand and realized that we could hook the lantern and raise it from the depths. The next day, a 13 year old (yours truly) while dad was at work, completely disassembled the lantern, changed the fuel, put a new mantle on, lubed moving parts and re-glazed the sub-routine without anyone in a position of authority being the wiser. The thing worked like a champ, you would never know it had been drowned the night before.

I got more,  and considering how bad Ive sucked this season, these lame old stories are prob far more interesting then hearing about me losing another tournament because I cant drag a fish out of anything other then open water.

Later

S.T.P.

Breaking down the Cleveland Browns draft...

Well the draft came and went and the Browns (my lifelong headache) came away with some new talent to get us over the hump.  This is my in depth, probing, insightful breakdown of our 2012 NFL draft.



Trent Richardson, RB, Alabama - Beast

Brandon Weeden, QB, Oklahoma State - OLD

Mitchell Schwartz, RT, California - Ehhhhhh, whatever, another o-linemen

John Hughes, DT, Cincinatti - Prjected to go undrafted, Directed iconic 80s films, interesting to see how he will translate to football.

Travis Benjamin, WR, Miami University Florida - Burner

James Micheal Johnson, LB, Nevada - 3 names,  what else matters?

Ryan Miller, G, Colorado - 6'7''?   youre too tall to play guard dude...

Emanual Acho, LB, Texas - At least he looks like a linebacker

Billy Winn, DT, Boise State - guarenteed to have at least one winn, unless he gets cut of course,  then we might be stretching it..
.
Trevin Wade, CB, Arizona - economics major...

Brad Smelley, TE/FB, Alabama - Heckert admits mistake with Vickers/Marecic, drafts new fullback.  I likee.....

Federation Nation...

Well,   my first B.A.S.S. Federation Nation tournament is in the annals of history (sarcastic) and Ive noticed a trend about my game. It seems as if I am getting more consistency but other, newer problems have emerged and I think there is a relationship between the two.

First off,  I finshed 9th out of like 50 or 60 guys which isnt bad but isnt great either. I had slightly more then 8lbs, which again, isnt terrible but isnt great either. Buckeye Lake is pretty much fishing heavy lately, it took 15lbs to win there on saturday in a team tournament and as much of a sewage hole that place is in the summer, the bass are usually extremely healthy, easy to catch, and usually slightly obese, especially the smaller fish (they binge eat like a bulimic teenager).  But here we are again,  I had my chances. I hooked up with 3 really quality fish that I just couldnt muscle out of where they were, which was behind/underneath a dock. If each of those would have been 2lbs, I would have upgraded to around 11 lbs and that would have put me in contention as it took 12 to win.  Bad luck?  I have been a strong proponent against using "luck" as an excuse because in my eyes there is little, if any luck involved but christ, Ive had alot of trouble landing fish lately.

Heres where I think there is a connection between the loss of fish and the improvement in consistency.

A- Ive been hooking alot more fish, so just that alone gives you more opportunity to lose fish. The sheer numbers involved by themself simply gives a guy more chances to screw up.

B - I think this is the most significant factor. The more and more time I spend on the water, the more efficient I get at putting a bait where it needs to be. Where does it need to be? Usually in the gnarliest spots in the area but that comes with a price. If now, you are able to skip a jig 10 feet up under a dock, past 3 or 4 posts, and you know a bass is in there, guess what? You hook up and suddenly that fish becomes much more difficult to extract. Where as before, you get that jig 4 feet up under the dock, you dont get bit, you dont lose (or catch) a fish and its on to the next dock.

Yall see what Im getting at?  Im getting worse because Im getting better. That makes stupid sense but its true. Im getting more opportunities to get it done, Im just not capitalizing. And in the end, I would rather have hooked that fish and lost it then to never have hooked her at all. At least you get to dance for a few seconds.  You cant be great unless you put yourself in a position to have an opportunity.

I have to think its like anything else,  If you keep working to improve, it will get better. Everyone loses fish, Everyone has a sob story about blah blah blah, you just have to fight through it. I lost those fish yesterday before I boated my second fish of the day so I had all day to rebound and really, if I just could have got one more bite for a good bookend fish I would have been set. I had a nice kicker in the bag (3.5) one more of those and that tournament would have went better.


A few notes about fishing boat docks in shallow water on crappy weather days. The weather was terrible, if your counting thats 2 days in a row with NNE heavy winds and a cold front during tournaments. Those are pretty much the worst conditions and if you dont slow down you wont catch a damn thing. The problem is that the wind usually does its best to keep you from fishing slow. Thats where Power Poles excell. Yesterday, I would nose in between two docks, put the power poles down and disect both the docks, then move to the next set of two.  The wind become a non factor and fishing slowly become far easier. If you got a bassboat and you dont have Power Poles, you are missing out.


On a personal note, I dont really know any of those guys in the federation aside from maybe two guys, Todd Thompson, Eddie Levin but I met some nice people despite keeping to myself for the most part. One dude introduced himself to me, said he followed me, here, on this blog.  Thanks alot bro, people like you are why I havent quit writing this thing.

On to the next one...

Warrior Baits held a free tournament in which you could use Warrior Baits only last season at Mosquito Lake. It was a big hit so this year, the idea has expanded to Rocky Fork and its next month (May 5th). I will be fishing with my brother, Jarrod, and we will try to keep all this consistency going.  Rocky Fork is another one of those lakes that is considered by alot of people to be one of the best lakes in Ohio. A couple of weeks ago, it took 18lbs to win the Weekend Series tournament so we will have our work cut out for us.  The good thing is, I grew up about 20 minutes from there, the bad news, I havent fished it for years. If nothing else, it should be alot of fun.

S.T.P.

Lake Norman Re-cap...

Things didnt go quite as planned but there are some good things I can take from the tournament, I will get into that in a minute.  Alot of minor stories to tell but Im not really in the mood for all that. I stayed with a total of 8ish guys, some were very cool, some not so much but as much as I want to, Im not going to call out the "ultra douche" of our bunch and only say that the guy has some issues. I will however give a shout-out to my freinds, guys I hung out with all week this week and all week in florida. It was good times and our bunch had alot of fun despite my outcome. Luke Gritter, who has himself in contention to make the Elite Series, again, this year after another strong finish at Norman (40th), Adam Hock of Kentucky who cracked us all up with his "I just glued my fingers together" story and  Kyle Kempkers who rebounded nicely on day two with a 10lb bag which moved him up nearly 100 spots in the standings.

On to practice and the tournament....

It took me a few days but I figured out a reasonable pattern for largemouth but the bites were not plentiful although they were usually either a quality fish or a buck bass. On the other hand, the spotted bass were insanely easy to find and even easier to coax into biting but they just werent that big. You had to sort through 5 to 10 spotted bass for every keeper.  Im sure that sounds difficult but Its not, there are millions of spotted bass in Lake Norman and you can litterally catch hundreds a day. Every once in awhile you get a truly quality spotted bass (2.5lb to 3lb) so if you hit it hard and you can get a limit of spotted bass that includes two of the quality fish youve got a decent start which is generally 7.5lbs to 9lbs depending on the quality of your fish. My plan then would shift gears and I would spend the rest of the day looking for a big female that was looking to spawn. I say "spawn" with hesitation because these fish were going in all directions. We had post spawners, prespawners, and fish that were locked on to beds, so essentially, I was looking for prespawners or a random bed fish (there wasnt many  of those in the area I was in).

My plan actually worked beautifully, my execution was not beautiful in the even the slightest of manners. All along, I decided that at noon, I was done fishing for the spots regardless of weight (I was certain I would have a limit of fish by then so a big largemouth or two would be a nice supplement). At 10am, I had a limit that consisted of about 5.5 lbs (this is what im talking about, 5 fish for 5lbs was what you had to deal with, the difference would come with the quality fish). at 10:30 am I landed a 2.5lb spotted bass that pushed my bag up to 7lbs and at 11:30 disaster struck.

I whipped a shakeyhead worm up behind a dock and feel the tick, followed by a slow swim away from the dock (typical bite from a spotted bass). I set the hook and its on, spots tend to dive down instead of surface immidiately but this fish did not, it came up, did a head shake, went back down, then came up like a rocket, shot out of the water 4 feet and that was it. A three pound spotted bass lost which would have been a nearly 2lb cull. If your counting that would have put my bag at that time around 9lbs, which was exactly what I expected.

So I regroup and follow my plan. 12 oclock roles around and its time to hunt for some largemouth. I had been finding them at the backs of long narrow coves combined with a certain kind of dock. I took the time to mark EVERY dock that matched my pattern which turned out to be 26 freakin docks out of probably a 1000 in the area I was working the night before and I went to work. I knew that if I got 2 bites doing this in 4 hours that I would still have a chance to rebound because I usually got a really quality fish, it just took longer to do so.  At 2ish, I flip behind one of the docks I had marked and she hit it, came up twice and that was it. Another 3lb fish gone. For those good with the math, that would have been another nearly 2lb cull pushing my bag to around 11lbs which would have been good enough for top 15 after day one.

What a nightmare...

Day two went exactly as planned as well but I never got the bite I needed in the form a 1 big spotted bass so at 12, again, I left the spotted bass for the less plentiful but bigger largemouth with less then 6lbs. I managed to get one 3lb spawned out female that gave me a 2lb cull and put my bag at just under 8lbs.  Day two didnt consist of disaster, the fishing was much harder and I still managed to make it work, it just wasnt good enough.

The things I have learned and feel good about?

I feel good that my plan was solid and that it would have worked if not for a few unfortunate incidents. I know deep down that losing those fish was not my fault, I did nothing wrong, they didnt come unbuttoned at the boat, nothing I could have done differently would have put those fish in the boat.

I feel good knowing that I managed to be consistent, catching loads of fish each day despite terrible weather (blue bird skies, high winds, nasty cold front). I also feel good knowing that I got my limit both days when alot of guys didnt, even though both my limits were small.

I also worked my ass off for those fish. I caught prob 10 to 15 keepers each day, culled numerous times and caught at least 30 to 40 short fish as well (14 inch minimum at Lake Norman).


All in all,  Im not ready to jump off a bridge like after Harris Chain, Im already preparing for Alabama and I cant wait for my next tournament.

Almost forgot the love I got in the photo gallery. The second one is of JVD, Luke Gritter, and myself. (Im on the left, Lukes on the far right, JVD in the middle, some other dude in there that I dont know) JVD and Luke are close freinds, they actually are roomates back where they live in Kalamazoo Michigan...

S.T.P.

LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!!....

I hope Micheal Buffer doesnt sue me for copyright infringement, If so.... Ill just change the title. Ill  be leaving Friday morning for Lake Norman, a few google searches indicated nearly 70 degree water in alot of areas, last year it was just getting into the 60s. Chances are, were gonna be dead in the middle of spawning action, with alot of fish just staging the deal, alot of fish spawned out and alot of fish doing the deed. This is some of my favorite fishing, you can work to your strengths because alot of stuff is going to be effective. Im trying to keep an open mind,  I keep reminding myself to not get locked on any one thing and stay versatile. This certainly is the type of lake and type of conditions to do just that.

One thing Im certain to try, likely to fail, and even more likely to look like a fool doing is throwing that giant behemoth, the alabama rig. For whatever reason, and I have no basis of fact for this thought, I feel like spotted bass would go nuts for an alabama rig and who knows, maybe thats what those bigger spots might be in love with. I plan on giving it a fair shake, if it works, so be it, if not, no sweat. Here it goes!!!


A few side notes - Ive been getting alot more traffic to the site, if you are visiting and you are not a "follower"  please, please for the love of mankind, click on the "follow" button. It makes me feel good AND gives me even more excuse to keep writing this nonsensicle manifesto...

When I get back, hit me up if you (reader) want to take a ride in a new Skeeter, no strings attached. If you are even remotely thinking of jumping in head first to a bassboat, heres your opp. to check out the best in the business...

Check out the tournament starting next Thursday on www.bassmaster.com and cheer me on, I need some people to "will" me to a top 10 finish. I know its possible to "will" someone to do something, I personally "willed" Mike Vick to throw 4 tds and run 2 against the Redskins a few years ago when I desperately needed a fantasy football win, so I know it can be done.

Talk Soon

S.T.P.

Crazy Winter...

Heres the deal, its actually still winter time and the water temps at buckeye lake are in the mid 60s by the middle of the day... I dont recall ever being involved with a winter of this calliber. In fact, not sure we even had a winter, more like a slightly harsh fall.  I can usually catch alot of fish throughout the month of march but it involves alot of slow work. Not this year... I took a freind of mine to buckeye lake to show him around. He is actually the father of one of my best freinds. The guy has been fishing since before I was born but he just got into tournament fishing at the club level a few years ago. His club is going to buckeye lake this year and he had never been to the lake. He asked me to show him around so I abliged and we set out. We prob caught around 10 or 12 bass total, a handful of keepers that prob would have went around 7lbs all together and if nothing else, Dan Rawlings is gonna have a few spots to work next month. Seems we are about a month ahead of schedule so his tournament might be ALOT different by then but at least he has a starting point....


S.T.P.

Springtime!!!

Short post of the year. Spring is here, thinking of heading up to Alum Creek to crack a few musky. Tis the season, water temps are rising and those toothy critters are thick on that lake. A few more weeks and Ill be heading to Lake Norman. Really excited to get down there. Wish I was leaving this week.

On a side note, my wife and I are now the proud parents of a 3 legged cat. One of our kittens got into some trouble (not sure how or where) but his leg was badly broken and will need to be amputated. I cant bring myself to put down an animal, especially such a young one so now a 3 legged cat will roam the Priest house as soon as he gets back from the vet.

S.T.P.

Classic Time....

The Bassmaster Classic is in the books and Chris Lane has now won back to back tournaments, one being the debacle in florida at the Harris Chain and now the big daddy. Congratulations to him, I actually talked to him for a few minutes at one of the ramps down in Florida. Seemed like a good dude so Im happy for the guy. He certainly has taken his game to the next level and watching the live weigh-in on line was motivation enough to keep trying to get there. While he took the next step, I prob have about 6 steps I need to take to get to that level and it all starts next month at Lake Norman.

Fletcher also did not disapoint while Im sure he is disapointed in himself. He made all of us around here proud and he battled hard, caught his limits both days and narrowly missed making the final day cut. His season and his career has just started however and alot of great things are around the corner for him. It wont be his last classic and Im sure is ultra pumped to get to the first stop on the Elite Series schedule.

My gear is close to being ready for the trip south, Im gonna make it happen down there. Balls out, Im going down swinging for the fences and if I get knocked out,  its on to the next one.  My wife and I have a solid plan for the future and it includes a path to the classic. I will continue to work to get better and I will continue to work to get ourselves in a situation that will allow that to happen.  Its comming, maybe not next month, or next year or even 5 years,  but I know deep down its gonna happen. My time will be...

S.T.P.

Nothing new...

Sometimes I get anxious about writing,  I dont have much to say but at the same time I feel like I need to keep the lines of communication open to the fine readers of this here blog.  Its cold, its snowy, its wet and windy,  its freakin winter time.  I hate the winter but at least we got a late start here in Ohio. Hell, it never really even seemed like winter untill a few days ago and if things go like they normally do Ill be wacking some Ohio bass in a month or so. I have been working my balls off lately to muster up the money to head to Lake Norman, the balance of the tourny is due in a few weeks so Im looking forward to that.  I "feel" like Norman could go really great for me but I sort of felt that way about Harris too,  whats it mean?   Who knows,  but anyway you cut it,  I feel like things could go my way. I have a plan that may or may not be applicable by the time the tournament rolls around so I reckon we will see.

The Bassmaster Classic is coming soon to an internet website near you.  It sucks that they wont provide an atleast semi live televised event but if you want to see it live youre gonna have to watch it on http://www.bassmaster.com/.  The heavily edited event wont appear on ESPN until the following week although they will have quite a bit of coverage. I think I read 7 hours all together so thats not bad.

Fletcher is jacked, his rig is ready for the Elites and he is anxious to get the season rolling. I would not be shocked if he does extremely well at the classic,  the guy is good, he is going to be a force for those guys to deal with.

S.T.P





Boat Fire Mike...

I mentioned in a earlier, more depressing post that a friend of mine from Jacksonville was helping me a little with Harris Chain before the official practice days started (after the way things went, I doubt he would want his name mentioned as "helper" in that collosal disapointment of a tournament). That freinds name is Mike White, originally from Reynoldsburgh Ohio and a guy that was right there for an Elite Series and Bassmaster Classic berth until a catastrophic failure occured, try not to laugh while reading this story, it could happen to you!!!

I'll set the stage. Mike was sitting in 5th place in the point standing for the Southern Opens after solid performances in the first two tournaments in the 2009 season. Another solid performance, this time at Santee Cooper in South Carolina he would be dancin in the classic and the elite series.

Mike had spent a week practicing for the tournament earlier in the season and he was pretty confident in some of the things he had going. He didnt get to the lake for the tournament until saturday night which would leave him four days of practice to get dialed in. He is traveling with a local from ohio by the name of Ron Grove and two Michigan guys named Luke Gritter and Kyle Kempker who were staying in an adjoining room to Rons and Mikes.

Sunday morning - Mike wakes up at 5 am, gets dressed and goes outside to see what the weather was like. Looks great he thinks, he goes back inside the hotel and starts to get ready for his first day of practice. 15 minutes later the room lights up as if the sun were up, WTF! He opens the door to find the car parked between his truck and his boat was afire! Panic ensues, he runs back into his room and starts to yell at Ron to "wake the fuck up" (his words) at the same time he is frantically looking for his keys, after all, the mans gotta get home right? He runs back outside and moves his truck out of the line of fire, so to speak. By this time, Ron is dressed and helping, he calmly reminds Mike that his boat is full of gasoline and if they dont move it as well, its going to explode and probably take out half the hotel with it. Ron lines Mike up faster then anyone has ever been lined up (which turns out is not so accurate) and the misallignment leads to one of those adrenaline moments you hear about in mythical tales. Ron picks up the front of the boat and slams it down on the reese hitch ball. By this time his boat is already engulfed with flames, the extension cord is still plugged in but not for long so Mike stomps on the gas. Dragging a firey boat around the hotel which still has the extension cord in tow (also firey) Mike notices that a fiery boat would make a cool Mardi Gras float and I happen to agree but thats neither here nor there. Concurently he is yelling at the hotel manager to get water and call the fire department, his solution? A garden hose! Which does little to nothing, meanwhile, Luke and Kyle are nowhere to be found despite the chaos that has ensued just outside there hotel door.

 Before I dive into those two and their side of the story, you have to know that A - these two guys are loads of fun to be around and B - the manager was middle eastern with a heavy accent.

Luke Gritter - "all I know is there was a guy with a taliban accent screaming about fires and explosions outside our door, there was no way I was going outside". His solution? Hide in the bathtub under blankets of course, it was the only reasonable thing to do. He also advocated to Kyle that they should "make a run for it", Kyle declined that idea...

Kyle Kempker- " I was certain a gang war had erupted and I was just trying to wait it out" His solution? Similar to Lukes, hide between the bed and the wall of the hotel, under blankets of course, it was the only reasonable thing to do...

Mike realizes that Luke and Kyle are still in their hotel room and by that time the hotel had also caught fire. Mike beats on the door, yelling and screaming for them to get out,  "The place is on fire, get the fuck out!" (the manager is also chiming in with commands of "FIRE" "EXPLOSION" "IT WILL BLOW") This doesnt encourage Kyle and Luke to do much of anything but continue to hide. Mike decides to break the window to Kyle and Lukes room, his weapon of choice, a chair. His run-up goes as planned but as soon as he is getting ready to heave the chair, Luke and Kyle crack the door to find the bedlam. The chairs fate? Fuel for the fire, what else?

Fire department finally shows itself but not before the window to Mikes room has shattered from the extreme heat, the same window that Mike had all his tackle and gear in front of, ruining most of it, just add it to the stack of problems already going down. Mike spends the entire day sunday arranging for a new rig, talking to the insurance company and hoping that he has seen his last boat fire.

Monday - Mike travels from South Carolina to Knoxville Tennessee to get a replacement boat to use for the tournament, this trip takes up the entire monday.

Tuesday - Mike gets to the lake, realizes he left all his safety gear in his charred boat, spends most of the morning collecting up the essentials.

Wedsnday - is meeting day so if your counting, thats a little more then a full day of practice, for the biggest tournament of his life, thats not enough in case you didnt know.

Thursday/Friday - tournament time, 1 fish caught, 118th place, no classic, no elites, just failure. (we all know I know how that feels but at least he has an excuse)

Here is a detailed, scientific diagram of the accident sight...

All in all, I would say lifes not so bad, I live to fish another day and despite my horrific tournament, it could have been worse...

To summarize...

First and foremost, as tough as the tournament was, I had a great time down there. I had two really great guys for co-anlgers, I had tons of fun with my roomates and I caught the biggest bass of my life during practice so it wasnt all heartache and heartbreak. I know some of you are sincerely concerned so I will just tell you, my computer lives. I reckon it caught something at the hotel we stayed at for the first two days because it went all black screen on me. It was so bad that I didnt even get it out until today (been home since saturday morning) and after some restarts, some re-booting and some banging on the floor, it seems to be fine now. I thought for sure that 52 error messages all on top of eachother was a death nail but this piece of crap continues to truck along.

Tournament wise, it was easily the most disapointing, biggest most epically failing event I have ever participated in. These are the ones that have you questioning your entire life, your entire lifes goals, your entire being. It makes you wonder if everything youve worked for was just a waste of time and money and was nothing more then a cruel reminder at how far you really are from where you want to be. Where do you go from here? What lies ahead? More bone crushing defeats? More embarrassing beatdowns at the hands of every participant in a tournament? More hints that you really just dont have what it takes to make it to the next level?  Add in the stage I have set for myself by inviting everyone I know to read about it on this blog and you end up where Im at today, pondering my future in fishing.  It would be embarrasing enough to go out and blank for two days but I have to supplement that by saying "hey come read my blog about how im trying to make at as a pro bass fisherman".  That makes for a tough days work and an extremely humbling experience.

Im very tough on myself and I absolutely loathe failure, the fear of failing has kept me from trying alot of things that with hard work, I might have been able to succeed at. At the first glimpse of the possibility of failing I would just quit and say "ahh, could of, would of, should of" but here I am, trying and failing, in front of the internet to boot.  Thats like salt in a gaping wound, a wound that was tore open by my own doing.

Time to move on, the only problem is, Im nearly tapped out of cash and its going to be real tough to pay the balance of my entry fee for the next one. Chances are, Im going to risk it, make the trip to North Carolina for the second stop but its do or die time, if I cant get it done at Norman, Im prob gonna have to give up for a few years, recoup, learn how to fish better and maybe make another run at it after I straighten out the financial situation I have put my wife and I in.

S.T.P.

Bad day gets worse

Where do i start? I sucked ass, thats where i start. Where do i end? At the service station getting my trolling motor fixed. This whole fishing for money deal costs more then its worth. So far this trip has cost me a laptop computer, a gps, and now a trolling motor shaft, not to mention gas, entry fees, food and the likes. Its 7 pm and im still at the motorguide trailer instead of eating and all this bullshit wouldnt have mattered if i had just caught some fish. Its been a tough day, things can only get better, this seems to be the fishing equivelant of rock bottom.

S.T.P.

Practice makes me nuts...

Again, Im writing this on my phone so my thumbs are already tired. Without loads of detail, practice has sucked. I went the first three days catching studs, since then Ive struggled to get bites. I did manage to yank an 8 lber out of some kissimee grass butthat was 3 days ago and it will likely be tough to get her to bite again. You can tune in for my public execution on bassmaster.com or you can read about the train wreck right here at www.stevenpriestfishing.blogspot.com

S.T.P.

Disaster!!!

Computer dropped a duece on me so blogging updates pretty f@&$ing hard(iphone) so this is the extent. Things still seem good but a front is tearing through this weekend. Saw some beasts on beds, one 10+, we let her go evev though its unlikely she will be there next week. Sorry for short posts but my thumbs are aching. Later

S.T.P.

Is this what its like to be on meth?

Please forgive me for misspelling, Ive been awake since yesterday morning at 7ish. If your counting, thats 38 hours and I dont feel tired in the slightest. I had a decent first day of practice but things are gonna change alot before the tournament.  Rooming with Kyle Kempkers and Mike White for the next few days. Mike, aka "Boat fire Mike" (another story I will tell later when Im not a zombie), lost my train of thought, my mind is like rotten cottage cheese at this point. Anyway,  sorry for sounding drunk, Im just dead tired.  Today equalled 13lbs in about 4 hours with an ultra nice 6lber.  I dont think what I did today is going to work during the tournament but we will see. Along time to go till then,  now I need to sleep...

S.T.P.