Eufaula Bassmaster Southern Open

I made a little leap from 50th today all the way up to 16th. I had four more fish that weighed 12-04, and one that weighed 6-02. So I got big fish and jumped to 16th place. And I jumped from out of the Top 20 in the points to 10th or 12th. I made a big leap all the way around. I'm pretty excited, pretty ecstatic and all those other big words used to describe your emotions.

I caught all my fish today on a Luhr-Jensen Hot Lips crankbait, a big one. I caught them all cranking ledges, like I did yesterday. I also used a 71/2-foot Shimano V-rod with a Calcutta 150 reel, and 12-pound Triple Fish fluorocarbon.

That was the deal. The first day I caught one, about a 3 1/2-pounder, on a Leverage buzzbait. I couldn't make up my mind whether to fish deep or shallow. But I couldn't find them shallow so I ended up fishing deep, and I'm pretty happy about it.

I am the cut man. The cut is 12-08 and I have 12-08. I just did a small celebratory dance because I caught four fish that weighed 9-03 today. I had four bites and caught four. My Leverage buzzbait bite died, so I had to throw a Luhr Jensen deep-diving crankbait to catch the four I caught today.

It was tough. We had a fog delay this morning for about an hour and a half. I had to check in at 2:30, and it took me until about 2:00 before I caught my fourth one. I thought I needed one more to make the cut, but I'm going fishing tomorrow.

I'll try my best and see what the weather does. I'll probably fish shallow early and deep late. The worst I can do is 50th, so anything tomorrow will be a bonus.

I only had one keeper today that weighed 3-05. I think I caught 7 short fish today.

The pattern I thought I was on wasn't on. The conditions changed a little, but I don't know what happened to them. I just had to go fishing. I had nine rods on the front deck and was throwing every one of them.

One of my roommates, Coby Carden, came by me and asked what I was doing, and I told him I had nothing. He said he had five, and caught seven keepers. He told me what I needed to be doing, and I went and caught the fish I weighed in and five other short fish doing what he told me to do. I also had one real big fish blow up on a buzzbait. That one would've jumped me way up in the standings, but oh well.

Tonight I'm going to have a conference with the guys I'm staying with, and see if we can't put our heads together and come up with something.

I just came back from the meeting. It dragged on because I'm boat 143, so my whole strategy for tomorrow is to go fishing where people aren't.

I only caught one little baby today. I tried a bunch of stuff and actually came off the water a little early to take my time and get everything together. I'm ready to go catch -- something.

I just filled up with gas, and it's starting to rain a little bit. It sprinkled off and on about 5-6 times today, but didn't amount to anything. I caught five fish, and two were keepers. It's still tough. Everyone I'm talking to says it's tough as nails.

The two keepers I did catch were kind of on the same pattern I caught those fish on yesterday, so hopefully that pattern will hold up. But I don't know. It's supposed to rain tomorrow.

By the way, this place has more alligators in it than I ever realized. Every pocket you go into it seems like there's 4 or 5 of them, and they're not scared of people either.

It's extremely tough here, but today I had a better day than I've had the past few days. I caught nine fish, four that were keepers. I'm not sure why it's so tough. I've fished a bunch shallow, and a bunch deep, an they're nowhere. No one is saying they're catching good fish.

They're pulling the water down really slow, and I don't know if that has anything to do with it. The water looks weird, as far as the color goes. It could be turning over, I don't know. Normally a lake is colder when it turns over, but I've had 3-4 people say they thought it was turning over.

I caught all the fish today on two patterns that are similar, so I'm going to keep running those patterns tomorrow and see what happens.