Trials and Tribs 2...

And it goes on and on and on. The day doesnt seem to have enough time in it when your on the road and everytime you cut a corner to save money, your using more time. If you do something to conserve time, it usually costs you money. For instance, Ice. Ice is like blood, if you dont have it, your going to die, well not that drastic but you need it to continue on without wasting money. I take a ton of food with me on the road, ice seems to last about a day and a half or two if its not real hot. You can buy ice but thats not cost effective so the only other option you have is to steal it. Is that moral, honest, and full of integrity, not really but you have to do it. Im not talking about stealing from a gas station or a convenient store, Im talking about getting it from the ice machines at the hotels. There are two ways to go about this. #1, load your cooler onto a luggage carrier, tote it over to the ice machine and begin dispensing. Sometimes you need some sort of deflector to make the ice dump straight into your cooler but anyway you slice it, your getting a cooler full of ice for free whether your paying for a hotel room or not. #2, ask for a trash bag and fill that fool up like Santas christmas sack. Take it, fill up your cooler and your boat, beats spending 3 or 4 bones on frozen water.

Gasoline is another biggie. During practice, there is no sense in ripping wide open throttle all over the lake. 35 to 40mph is usually the max speed Im rolling during practice. I get funny looks from some but there are plenty of million dollar fisherman doing the same thing Im doing. When you see the Toyota Tundra boat (scroggins or swindle) on plane only doing about 33mph, you know your at least no alone when it comes to gasoline burning up your budgett. I also use the "drive to launch" method. Find a boat ramp that is in the area you are fishing, use it. Driving to the ramp will save you much more in gas then running from a single ramp all over the lake.

Make Friends! I dont care if you are a lone wolf, you need to find a pack to roll with. Some people are very stuck up, very clique oriented but be nice to everyone and at some point you will find people open to sharing with you. Whether its a room, tools, gear, or info its all valuable at some point.
A few examples: Fletcher Shryocks front sonar quit working, he had determined it was not the unit as it would work when he plugged it into the wiring at the console. After we looked at it for a few minutes we figured out it was a bad fuse. I had a fuse, we plugged it in and he was good to go for the rest of the week.
I was running out of a certain color of Shakeyhead worm, my roomate Brannon Long had a whole bag of the color I needed, bingo bango, no money spent and everything good to go. Little things like that can save yourself money and make the convenience of being on the road a little easier, not to mention, it SUCKS having nobody to talk to all week, it forces you to start talking to yourself. You get some odd stares when those moments start.

 

Make sure you check out some of Brannons sponsors, Im sure he would be grateful. Noco Battery Chargers, Topwater Clothing, Toyota Trucks, Ruby Do Cookies(Amazing freaking cookies) Laguna Rods, Skeeter Boats. Im sure there is more, look him up on the facebook, the guy is a stud in Texas and look for him to do REALLY well at the Erie open in August.