Guntersville FLW Tour

Jay Yelas – Competition
Friday, June 25, 2010

> Day 1: 5, 17-01
> Day 2: 5, 24-01
> Day 3: 5, 17-09
> Total = 15, 58-11 (16th place)

My fish changed a lot during the week. I started out the first day fishing grass – pitching a jig in the milfoil – but that kind of died as the day progressed. Yesterday I got out on some ledges and caught them mostly on crankbaits, but also some on a Carolina rig and a 10-inch Berkley Power Worm. It's Guntersville and I needed a day like that to keep me up there.

Today I never got a bite on the spot where I caught the majority of them yesterday. It turned out that some other people were fishing it that I didn't know about. I caught them in the afternoon and another guy had been catching them in the morning and he was there today. I scrounged around on some other ledges and caught 17 pounds.

It was a decent showing, but I thought I had a chance to do better. I did lose one giant on a crankbait, but other than that it was a case of being close, but not quite good enough. I had 1 good day out of 3 and you really need 2 big days here. It's a fun place to fish and it's got a lot of bass – I think it's the best lake in the country right now.

The spot Brent (Long) is fishing, I practiced on it and caught a 4-pounder on my first cast, but I left it and never got to fish it in the tournament. I didn't know it was that good. It was going to be part of my milk run, but I underestimated what was going on there. That's the way it goes sometimes.

Jay Yelas – Practice
Tuesday, June 22, 2010

This place is loaded with fish, but they're definitely in certain areas and it's not fishing like it does in the springtime. There's some schooled up and if you get on a school, you can have a lot of fun, but there's also a lot of water with no fish, too.

I'm thinking it'll take somewhere in the upper 80s (pounds) over 4 days to win. It's not quite as good as it was in the spring. It's been 98 degrees and hot and sunny and they're not moving any current hardly. If they continue to not move the current until late afternoon, that'll keep the weights down. The flow is probably the biggest factor we have going.

I've had a decent practice, but you never know. It takes some of the best fishing of your life to win a tournament here and I might run into that sometime this week, but so far that hasn't happened. But when you pull up on a spot and catch a 6-pounder on your second cast, like I did yesterday, you move on and you don't keep pounding on them. You don't really find out what you have until the tournament starts.

It's summertime and most of the fish are out deep, and structure fishing will be predominant. There's also fish in the milfoil, but I don't know if the size is up there that shallow to win the tournament. The deepest milfoil is about 5 feet.

The odds are about 90% that it'll be won on a big crankbait, a worm or a jig. It's no secret what these fish like this time of year.