Okeechobee Bassmaster Southern Open

I had around 11 1/2 today, and one dead one. That gave me a little over 18 for two days, and the cut was 21 pounds or so. I fell a little bit short, and I'm kind of disappointed.

I caught most of my fish on a Luhr Jensen Radar 10 crankbait in firetiger, and I was catching them off rock. I used a 6 1/2-foot medium-action Shimano V rod, a Calcutta 150 reel and 15-pound Triple Fish fluorocarbon.

The 3-4 other fish that I weighed I caught on a black/blue Kinami Norie's Bug, with a 3/8-ounce Penetrator weight, 20-pound Triple Fish fluorocarbon, a G. Loomis flipping stick and a left-handed Chronarch Superfree reel. I was flipping cattails and Kissimmee grass.

I had a dispute with the weigh-in people. I was counting the water, and they didn't want to count it (laughs).

I only had 4 today for 6-10. I caught two good fish early, on a Luhr Jensen crankbait, and then that bite kind of died. Then I went down to an area about 20 miles away that had clear water, and I probably had 6-8 bites and only caught 3 of them. Only two of them were keepers.

It was very windy today, with a northeast and east wind. It was probably 15-25 mph, so that made it very rough in areas.

I kind of had a short day, and I basically just fished my two main areas. I've got a long day tomorrow, so I'll try some more stuff and some different things, and maybe I can figure something out. I hope I'll be able to at least catch 12- 13 pounds.

It was a little windy today, but the weather has been beautiful all week. But from what I've been told, the fishing has gotten progressively worse the whole week for no apparent reasons. I agree with that, but I never caught more than 11-12 pounds on any one day. Some guys were catching 15 to 20 pounds as of 3-4 days ago.

That was my best day: 10-11 pounds at least. On another day I had 9-10 pounds.

Last weekend the fishing started getting a little bit tougher. You hear of a few guys saying they're catching some really good fish. But the majority of people I talked to say it is fairly tough. Like 10-12 pounds will be good.

The fish aren't really in transition. This time of year they're waiting for the water to cool down so they can spawn, but they usually don't start spawning until November or December. They're kind of pre-spawn, but it's hard to say that because in most lakes that means they really start feeding and hit the banks. But here these fish are shallow year-round.

I have probably two areas I have confidence in, and tomorrow I'm going to one of them and staying for a while.