A year in review, recent happenings, and future plans....

The colder weather is beginning to set in and in a month or so our lakes in the upper Midwest will be covered with a large sheet of ice... awesome. I will be hanging up the rods for year now that my tournament season is over and bow hunting season is now in full swing. First, an update on how some of my recent fall tournaments went.

On October 11th we had our annual Big Ten tournament on on Lake St. Clair in Michigan. What a massive lake! It was definitely overwhelming to begin with but we ended up finding some fish in the end. The hard part about this tournament is that I brought my own boat to use while most other Big Ten schools had volunteer boaters for practice and tournament day. The volunteer boaters (locals) were able to help out the college anglers in practice while we were left on our own with no help whatsoever. Basically whatever we found in practice, all the locals knew about these spots. In hindsight I would have left my boat at home and gone with a volunteer boater, but that's just how it goes sometimes. Here is a smallie from practice, you can see how big the lake is in the background!

In the end my boat caught 13lbs for 3 fish and as a school we had 19lbs and took 6th place out of 8 boats. Here is a picture of a 4+lb and 5+lb smallmouth that I caught during the tournament day. We were on quality, just couldn't get the quantity.

On October 30th-November 1st my buddy Tyler and I fished in the FLW College Central Division Regional Tournament that we qualified for. It was held on the famous Kentucky Lake. In practice we found the topwater and rattle trap bite to be very good in the backs of the creeks where ever bass we busting and chasing shad. On day one we caught 25-30 fish, but only two that went over 15 inches. We caught all these fish on spooks and red eye shads. We were left in 16th place out of 20 boats and decided on day 2 to run all new water that neither Tyler or I had ever seen in our lives. We ended up getting onto some better fish in the northern part of the lake on rip rap transition areas. We didn't catch as many fish, but we had three keepers for 7lbs 8oz which moved us up to 10th place in the tournament. I was happy with how we were able to scrap everything and make our day fairly productive. If we had only 4 more pounds we would have cracked the top 5 and made it to nationals... so close, yet so far. I can't say enough about FLW outdoors and the National Guard for these awesome college events that they have put together this year. I had an absolute blast fishing these events and will definitely be back next year. Oh yeah, they also gave us Z520 Rangers to use for the event, how sweet is that!? Here are some pictures of the boat, a 4lb practice fish and some of the tournament fish from day 2....

When I look back at the year I had it's definitely had its ups and downs, I've had a blast through it all though. In the end it's just fishing and you can't beat that! I feel like I have gained a great amount of experience in terms of fishing other larger bodies of water throughout the nation because of the college tournaments that I have had the opportunity to fish during the season. The fact that most of the college events are non-entry fee tournaments makes it that much better. I have been able to fish some great bodies of water this year including Lake Dardanelle, AR; Lake Lewisville, TX; Brookville Lake, IN; Arkansas River, AR; Pool 19 Mississippi River, IA; Lake St Clair, MI; Lake of the Ozarks, MO; and Kentucky Lake, KY. I basically got a crash course of what it would be like to be on the tour as a pro. It's a grueling lifestyle, but it's something that I would like to try and pursue after college is done. Once again, I can't say enough about how well run the college events are. It gives us as students the experience we will eventually need down the road if we have aspirations of becoming a pro someday.

I have already began planning for next year and have a few ideas of which tournaments I would like to fish. I know for sure that I am going to be fishing some more of the college events in the spring of the year and possible a couple in the summer. I will also be fishing with my bass club, Lakes Area Bassmasters, throughout the summer. In terms of larger events my goal is to fish some of the ABA events again, and if I can come up with the finances I would like to try my hand at the MN/WI Bassmaster Weekend Series. I like the looks of that schedule and its something that I have my sights set on if things fall into place.

Well, the deer are running like crazy in the woods right now. The rut is in full swing and I've passed on a couple opportunities to take some smaller bucks and does this past week. I'll be hunting hard for the next week or so to see if I can't put a big buck down. So stay tuned.

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who takes the time to sit down and read these posts every so often. I enjoy sharing my trials and tribulations that make up a season of tournament fishing and it also helps me to really study and learn things from each event that I fish when I can go back and re-read my old posts. Thanks again and have a good rest of the fall and winter; spring can't come soon enough!