It has been awhile since my last post, with school starting up I've been a little bit more consumed in my studies rather than being on the water. However, even though the air temps are beginning to drop, my college tournament schedule is beginning to heat up again. I've got a full schedule of tournaments up until the first weekend in November and hope to write a little bit about each one. Here is an update of what has occured in the last month and what will take place in the month ahead.
During the last week of my summer, 3 of my college roommates flew up from Chicago to spend a couple days up north at my cabin. To say the least we had an absolute blast! They had some fishing experience before they got up there, but not a whole lot in terms of fishing "the way we do". It was really fun putting them on some fish, it was a trip I will soon not forget!
In late August I fished my first FLW college event on the Mississippi River out of Fort Madison, Iowa the weekend before school started. My tournament partner practiced for the event a couple weeks before the event and fared well. However, if you have ever fished rivers you know how fast they can change, and change it did. We didn't make the right adjustments and ended up with a big goose egg for the tournament. The fact that 21 other boats out of 40 zeroed as well made me feel a little better, but not a whole lot better,.
If you read my last post about Big Marine you know that my motor wasn't working after that event. Well, it ended up being that my starter went out on me. Thankfully I have an awesome Dad and he was able to replace it and install a new one himself! So, last weekend I went home to get my boat and do some fishing back in Minnesota. Friday the 25th was pretty good fishing on a south metro lake. My best 5 would have been 16+ mainly caught on jigs and frogs. On Saturday I went to visit my buddy in Winona. We spent the day fishing down there on the Mississippi River on Pool 5a. We fared alright, but it was a little slower than normal; swim jigs proved to be best that day.
This past weekend I fished in my second FLW college tournament down in Missouri on Lake of the Ozarks. This time we fared much better than the first tournament. Me and my teammate, Tyler, ended up using All Terrain finesse jigs, t-rigged baby paca craws, spro dawgs, and shakey heads to catch 5 keeper fish for 9lb 5oz. It proved well enough for a 5th place finish out of 40 boats and $1000 cash for the bass club here at the University of Iowa! Also, if you finish in the top 5 in any of the FLW college tournaments you qualify for the regional tournament. Therefore, we will be competing against 19 other regional qualifiers for a top prize of $50,000 on Kentucky Lake from Oct. 31st - Nov. 2nd. To say the least, I am absolutely jacked to fish this event!! I cannot wait! A big thanks goes out to Chuck Campbell for helping us get started on fishing Lake Oz! To follow these college tournaments, you can check it out at www.collegefishing.com
Coming up this weekend from Oct. 8th - Oct. 11th is our annual Big Ten Championship. This year it is going to be moved to the fall season and will be held on Lake St. Clair in Michigan. Both smallmouth and largemouth could come into play during the event. Whether or not the wind blows on this massive lake is really going to determine which species we will target.
So as you can see, I've been a little busy this past month and it won't slow down too soon. However, I wouldn't want it any other way. Be sure to check in frequently this fall on updates from the Big Ten Event and the FLW Central Regional tournament that will take place here at the end of the month. Also, I just purchased a new bow recently and am really looking forward to getting in the woods down here in Iowa once these tournaments are over and November rolls around. I may be giving some updates from my experiences in the woods so stay tuned!!
