FLW Tour Championship (James River)

Photo: FLWOutdoors.com

I was in the barge pit. There was a little breeze now and then, but it was mostly calm. It was a beautiful day. I kept thinking anywhere else this time of year they'd be exploding on a buzzbait, spinnerbait or topwater plug, and I alternated between those lures. But I think all the rain just messed the fish up.

I ran out of there one time and went inside a row of pilings where I'd gotten a few fish, but I didn't get anything. It was obvious that the river and creeks got considerably muddier, so I really thought it would be a hard day. At around 10:00 or 11:00 I felt like everyone would be having a hard time. That made me bear down more because I firmly believed 2-3 bites on that crankbait could win it.

When I first got here, I got on the water at about 2:00 in the afternoon on Tuesday. I went into the barge pit where I finished in the Top 5 in that first Classic, and started throwing that Mann's 20+ in the same places, and caught three 3-pounders and a 4-pounder. Then I went all over the river for 2 1/2 days but couldn't find quality fish anywhere. So I went back into the barge pit and caught a 4-pounder. From there I decided to devote my whole practice to trying to find something close to that barge pit, but I didn't find anything. I found one area, but it didn't have much. I caught two quality fish there the second day.

I was using a Mann's 20+ (chartreuse/brown back/orange belly) in the barge pit and was cranking it on 14-pound Trilene XT with a Quantum PT 6500 reel and Quantum 7-foot Tour Edition cranking rod. I know where some stuff is in there in about 12 feet of water. But it's really hangy -- you hang up a lot. One kind of neat thing I was using was these Ultimate Lure Saver split rings that will allow a hook to break loose. I still lost several crankbaits because they were getting the bill wedged, but I saved a lot of baits by having that split ring break away so you'd just lose the hook. A lot of people think that's crazy and are scared to use them, but I've really tested them on the lake I live on. I've caught fish up to 10 pounds on them with no problem at all.

Needless to say I don't feel great about where I finished because I naturally want to win, and I fish to win. But I was really on thin ice the whole tournament. I was tickled pink to make the 12 cut because my performance wasn't really a 12-cut performance. But under the brackets, I accomplished what I had to accomplish. I don't feel bad about it because I led MegaBucks twice for 4 days, and then we had to change water and I ended up 10th and 9th. So whatever format you're fishing under is what you go by. This time the format was a drawback to other people and not to me.

Photo: FLWOutdoors.com

Instead I went out and tried to just catch a couple of fish on some high-water stuff before the tide got down some. I kept waiting on the tide, but it never came down. It was going out and went down, but it still had at least 2 feet to go until (a normal) low tide.

I got my fish at 3:06, and we had check-in at 3:30. I was running the river back, fishing the low water back -- the lowest of the day water -- and I caught that fish where I caught another keeper earlier in the week.

The fishing was tough as nails. What I tried to do was fish places where I catch fish in low water because I know that the fish live there, and I just tried to fish them differently today -- a little shallower or with a different bait or something. But I couldn't make them bite.

I was fishing probably 15-20 spots a day that had various types of cover -- laydowns, docks, riprap. I was also fishing little channel-swings, where the channel swings close to the bank. Just a cornucopia of those types of water. Every place I'd pull up to was different.

I threw a 4-inch ringworm (brown or electric blue) most of the tournament. I caught a couple of fish on that Kinami Norie's Bug, but it just seemed like they wanted something extremely small. (The rest of his gear consisted of a 7' medium-heavy Shimano V rod, Shimano Chronarch Superfree reel, 15-pound Triple Fish fluorocarbon line, a 3/16-ounce weight and a 3/0 straight shank Mustad Denny Brauer hook.)

For the conditions I felt really good just to make the Top 12. But once you make a cut like that, you can't be satisfied unless you win. The saving grace to not winning was having the unbelievable support of the hometown crowd. You talk about an indescribable feeling -- when everybody cheers, you just can't describe it in words. It was awesome. To everybody that came out and was cheering, I just want to say thank you for making me feel like a winner.

I'd also like to thank Yamaha and Ranger, and all my family and the rest of my sponsors, for all their support.

Photo: FLWOutdoors.com

I hit a floating log out in the channel at about 10:00 and broke my power trim. I was heading to fish four pilings where I'd caught a fish or two every day. I idled over and started fishing the pilings, where I caught the only fish I caught, and my partner looked down and said, 'Hey man, we have oil leaking out of the motor.'

I asked him to trim it up to see if we had a busted lower unit, but we couldn't see anything. I asked him to trim it back down, but it wouldn't go down. It was all the way out of the water, and I didn't have any tools to open the valve or release it. I fished it for 2 hours trying to call (FLW tournament director) Bill Taylor, but I guess the cell service was all messed up because of the weather. I had to call my wife in Mississippi, and she kept calling him until she got him.

I talked to him at 1:30, and they got a boat to us at 2:30 so we had about another hour. FLW did everything they could to try to help us. (FLW Outdoors will help anglers with mechanical issues when they are running FLW boats, as they are today and tomorrow.)

I lost about a 2 1/2-pounder (after that). I had a horrible day -- I was very frustrated. I wasn't used to the trolling motor either. My partner caught 2 fish behind me because I was being stupid. I wasn't acting professionally, and I was whining because I felt like I was beat because I couldn't get to where I wanted to go.

I don't feel like today represented what I had (for fish) because of the way I've been catching them (he missed the good tides). Tomorrow I'll have about a 2-hour window to catch the bigger fish, and it will be the last part of the day because low tide is at about 1:40 in the area I'm fishing. I should have a decent window to catch them, but I might not get a bite until then.

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Then I ran down a little ways on the river and caught one more keeper. So I had 4, and then came back to a little creek back up the river and caught one more. Then I started hitting main-river stuff and caught a 3-pounder. I hit some more of that kind of stuff and caught a 2-pounder.

Tide-wise I was fishing around the lowest water, but it wasn't very low. It didn't quite get as low as it did yesterday because of the wind. It was still 1 1/2 to 2 feet away from what a real low tide is supposed to be.

Since I caught more today than I have so far in the tournament, I feel pretty good about it, but I'd like to have had one more 2-pounder to make sure I was in.

Ninety-plus percent of the stuff I was planning on fishing this week has been no good because the water's too high. Tomorrow the wind's not supposed to blow as hard, but I heard it's still supposed to blow out of the northeast again. I don't know where that front is, so I don't know if it's still going to be pushing water in here or will let some of it out.

This tournament has been a trial-and-error process to see which places are still good and which aren't because of the high water. That's why I think my weights are getting better each day.

I think I have a shot tomorrow.

(Paul had a 12-01 limit today after just catching one 12-ouncer yesterday, and moves on to the next round.) I just went for broke today. I caught most of them cranking deep. I just went with my strong suit.

I said I'd fish the bank, but I didn't do that. I fished exactly like I fished yesterday. I had enough confidence in those fish that I said I'd do or die with them -- and I stayed with them and caught them. The low tide helped out. The water was in a lot better condition today.

I culled two fish and I lost 3 fish -- and I'm glad I lost them now because I think they were all pretty good ones. So that's 10 bites, 9 more than yesterday. The first one I caught this morning was about a 12-ouncer and I thought, Oh God, here we go again.

Tomorrow I'm up against Wesley Strader, and he's catching them pretty good. I have to stick with where I know I can catch quality fish. Maybe I won't lose any and catch about 12 pounds.

Photo: FLWOutdoors.com

The water came down a little bit today, but it was still way higher than it normally is. It was still 2 feet away from normal low tide. I just fished a few areas a little bit differently, and I kind of changed up my order on where I fished, which I think helped. Logically it was kind of backwards to do what I did, but I think it was best for fish-catching.

I feel extremely lucky to have beat Clunn, but I'm already thinking about tomorrow. I'm just going to wait and watch this weather. I heard it was supposed to be really windy, and that this front is supposed to back up closer to Richmond. If that happens, it will blow more water in here again and it could get worse. It could be like it was yesterday. But if it does stay high all day tomorrow, I'll save myself a lot of time not fishing dead water.

There's nothing to tell. I guess it was the high tide. All three areas I had didn't produce squat. My partner caught one and I caught one in the same area. In practice I got 9 bites in one morning there, real quick. And the key place I thought I could catch a quick limit I fished 5 times today and never got a bite.

Some of the guys caught them. The guy I'm fishing against, Chip Harrison, caught 4 and had only 5 pounds, but that's pretty good when you only have 14 ounces.

I'm really undecided about tomorrow. I spent my whole practice up in the same area so I'm going stay there, but instead of running back and forth to these 3 places I'll probably just get on the bank and fish.

(Going into today) I was more concerned about the other guys trying to fish my areas than the fish not biting. I was really surprised. I really thought everyone would have a limit. But I've never seen a tide that high. It was up over the docks and everything. But I guess it didn't affect everyone. Some guys caught them.

The water started out high, and then it got really high, and when we came off the water it was really, really high. Low tide was the exact same height that high tide usually is, and the fish that I normally target in this river feed very much around the low tide. So needless to say, I struggled all day. I only had 3-4 areas I could catch them on high tide, and I hit most of them today.

It's that northeast wind. It's been blowing constantly for almost 3 days. It's that tropical depression or whatever it is off the coast, and it's just blowing the water from the ocean up into the river, making everything extremely high.

I want to see what this wind does tonight. I think it's a dream for me to expect this water to go out of here anytime soon to where it needs to be for me to catch them. So I'm just going to go back and stare at the map and try to remember some places I've caught them when it's been like this.

I told Anthony Gagliardi said he had only 1 fish, and he said if didn't catch anything tomorrow he'd (give it up and) go buy a john boat. But I said, "Dude, even if you don't catch a fish, you're still getting over $12,000." He cracked a smile at that. That's kind of my attitude about it.

I didn't do real good today. I caught a couple of keepers. I'm banking on about 3 areas and I'm going to have to milk them. If I'm fortunate enough not to have many boats trying do the same stuff, I think can do pretty good.

I was kind of hoping for an early out, but I'm one of the last few boats. One of my places is kind of a community place, and felt like I could get a limit there. But I have 3 areas, and if boats are in there I guess I'll just have to go in there with them.

But I feel pretty good, like I'm going to catch them.

Yesterday (the City of Hope charity tournament) was all right. You were kind of at the mercy of who you had in the boat with you. I had a couple of people who didn't fish much, so I just had to get out in open water and crank. I caught one fish. I had them throwing little Carolina rigs. The lady with me hadn't fished much at all, but once I got her casting, she was a trouper. She caught one, but it was below the 15-inch minimum size. Both were really nice people, but I couldn't get in and flip grass or docks and that's how most of the fish were caught.

I went out early this morning and fished for about 4 hours. Me and my buddy got 4-5 bites. The wind was blowing probably about 20 mph out of the Northeast, which has a tendency to raise the water levels higher than they normally would be, and it was doing a good job of that today. So I was pretty happy to get some bites on that higher-than-normal water.

Anything from an easterly direction will blow the water into this river. The wind's supposed to die down tonight, and then I haven't heard a forecast for what it's supposed to do tomorrow. I don't think it's supposed to blow as hard, which is good. I'm looking forward to this getting back to normal, as far as water levels go.

After I came off the water today I went to the Yamaha trailer and got them to put the new 25 Vmax prop on my boat, and I picked up over 2 mph on my top end. I filled up the livewells with water and was running over 74 mph.

I also did an interview with the local TV station this afternoon. They were asking me what I though about the tournament. I told them that this tournament was way different than any I'd ever fished before in that it's way bigger as far as for money, and it's also the first tournament I've fished in a while on a place I know really well. And also all my family's going to be here. All that stuff is not what I'm used to, so it will be nice to have all those things going at the same time.

(Today the James River was off-limits because of the City of Hope cancer research charity tournament.) It's about 5:00 and we just got done with the celebrity pro bass hawgin' challenge. Me and my bass wranglers (two people were in his boat) caught two fish, but there was a 15-inch size limit -- how ya doin' on that lake. They weighed 5-13, and we came in 6th place. Keith Williams won it. I caught my fish on a big Kinami worm. That was the deal.

I didn't do any good today at all. I had one keeper, but I feel good about it to one extent because it's making it a little more concrete in my mind what to do, as far as where to fish.

On Tuesday (Monday is off-limits) I'll fish maybe 3-4 hours and then come on in. I will again go somewhere else and try something similar to what I've been doing, but in different areas. I don't know if I'll catch anything or not. At this point it'd be nice to find another confidence spot or two, but I feel like have enough if I can just fish it right and execute right. So I'm just waiting on this thing to start, as far as I'm concerned.

It's almost 9:00 and I just got out of the reception for the City of Hope (prostate cancer center) charity tournament going on tomorrow at Lake Chesdin. It was a nice a 2-hour deal. I had some cocktails and some 'horse-doovers' (laughs) and everyone ate up and drank up. I'm heading back to get some sleep.

This morning I started off doing the FLW Outdoors Radio show. It was fun. We talked about the tournament, about chasing Clunn and that kind of stuff.

Then I went to do some FLW camerawork for the pre-tournament show, and being the local yokel I gave them my 2 cents on what I thought everyone would be doing, how I thought the tournament might be won and the keys to the tournament. I enjoyed doing that camerawork stuff, and I look forward to doing more of it because I think I can get better at it. That was fun and took about an hour and half. I heard that I actually did a decent job at it, so maybe there is life after this stuff.

I didn't do very good today. I found one more spot where I have confidence that I can maybe catch one. Besides that, I covered a lot of ground and just caught a few fish. I think I had 3 keepers today.

The way I fished was similar to the way I've been catching fish so I thought I'd do a little better. But I guess the good side of that is that eliminates a lot of that pattern, so I won't be fishing dead water in the tournament.

I'm going to change up a little tomorrow and try some different things, just to satisfy my curiosity about a part of the river I've never fished.

Tide-wise, right now when you start off in the morning it's low outgoing, and the tide starts coming back in pretty quick. On Wednesday, if you fish close to the takeoff you'll have an outgoing tide until about 11:00, and if you go south you have it outgoing until about 9:00. But low tide will get later every day so the tide will be higher every morning where we're starting off.

I've tried to hit the areas I thought were good at about the same tide I thought I'd be fishing in the tournament. In some of the places I don't think the tide is that big a deal – as long as the tide is moving one way or the other the fish will bite. But some areas are really affected by it – I feel like they only bite for a brief time during the tide. I'm sure some guys will run the tide – they'll run south and have an outgoing tide on their way back – but the way I'm fishing now, I'm not going to concentrate on that.

Today wasn't too bad. I took (writer) Rob Newell out in the morning, so I went to an area that I knew had some fish in it because I wanted to catch one so he could take some pictures with it. We went into this area and I saw something I liked. The first spot in there I caught one a little over 2 pounds. So I said, 'Yup, they're in there.'

He fished with me from about sunup until noon. After that I took out and came back down the river. I did a couple of things, then put back in this afternoon. I caught one and shook a couple off – I was checking a few places and fishing new water. A little of both.

I was hoping to get bit on a couple of places I fished – places I was hoping had fish on them – but I didn't. But they could be there the next time I fish there. That's just the way tidal fishing is. It wasn't that big a deal to me. I got other bites in those areas so I know they're there.

I had a pretty good day today. I kind of wish the tournament started today. I've gotten on a decent pattern, but I don't know how many people are fishing the same areas I'm fishing. I haven't seen many boats, though.

I kind of got on it yesterday, just before a big storm came in and I had to get off the water. I expanded on it today and found two pretty good areas. They're not big areas, and if I'm lucky enough to have both of them to myself there's no telling what could happen. But I probably can't be that lucky. There seem to be quite a few fish, and I'm getting several bites. The fish, when you get around them, are pretty easy to catch.

I'm going to try to find as many places I can where I'm confident I can catch one. In case things get bad and too many boats are in the areas where I expect to catch fish, I have to have some kind of backup areas to go to.

We've had pretty severe thunderstorms and a bunch of rain the last two days, and I think the fishing's gotten tougher. It messes them up for a few days. With that in mind, I still caught a few today.

I think everybody's been here for a while, and now there's only a handful of guys who look like they're looking. Everyone kind of seems like they know what they want to do.

I'm feeling pretty good. I think it's just going to be a matter of whether I can get 3-4 decent fish during the day, meaning 2 1/2 pounds or better. That will be the key for everybody, and that's what I'm concentrating on, catching a couple of bigger fish each day.

I really only have all day tomorrow and a part-day on Tuesday left to practice. Sunday I have three different things going on during the day, so I probably won't be on the water at all. I have an FLW Radio show, some camera work for the FLW pre-tournament show and then a reception that evening. Then Monday is off-limits because of that charity tournament.