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.....