Lanier FLW Series

Part of the reason I'd done well in this tournament was because I was sticking with largemouths and swinging for the fences, trying to catch big ones. Today, those fish had moved.

I'd been fishing the back of this one creek, and Frank Ippoliti had been fishing the right-hand side of the same creek. We'd been honoring each other's water – he didn't fish my stuff and I didn't want to fish his because it had only been giving up about 8 pounds a day.

Yesterday I caught 15 keepers, but today I never had a bite. Meanwhile, Frank caught 15 pounds. All of my fish must have swam over to his bank. He said he caught 20 fish.

I went to a different area and caught the one spotted bass. It was a frustrating day, but that's fishing.

The only two things I can figure that might have happened were the baitfish might have swung over to his bank for some reason, or else the strong winds we had last night might have stirred up that shallower area that I was in. His area was a little deeper.

It had to be something, because those fish definitely moved.

Lanier is a great tournament lake, and it's nice to be on a lake that has a lot of fish. It was pretty slim pickings at Pickwick, but this place is loaded with spots and there's some largemouths too.

In a 4-day tournament here, you'll have to be able to catch some good spots, because there aren't enough largemouths to hold up for that long.

I'm going to try for largemouths in the beginning in hopes of getting a bigger fish or two. The fish are at all different depths, anywhere from 40 feet to a foot deep. There are a lot of patterns that could work – jerkbaits, crankbaits up shallow, dropshotting or even flipping a jig. I've had some decent bites doing that.

I'll start tomorrow fishing for big largemouth and hopefully I'll get a good kicker right away.