Bassmaster Open Championship (Toledo Bend)

I had two fish today that weighed 3-03 and I ended up in 34th. It was a valiant effort, but I came up a little short.

It was windy, that's for sure. I made it down to where I wanted to fish fine, but I thought it literally killed my partner. He has lung disease, and next week goes on the list for a lung transplant. I knew that, but I didn't think the boat ride and jarring would affect him that much. When we got down there, it was hard for him to breathe and he didn't sound or look good. He didn't move for an hour, but he eventually got himself back together and finally started fishing a little. It freaked me out. I'm glad he's okay. He seems to be fine now.

I was fishing a 1/2-ounce Luhr-Jensen Sugar Shad lipless crankbait (gold/black back) and I was just fishing grasslines, anywhere from 3-4 feet to maybe 6-7 feet. I was ripping the bait out of the grass. I also caught a keeper today on a 3/16-ounce Luhr-Jensen Speed Trap in just a basic shad color. I fished the Sugar Shad on a 7' Shimano Compre rod and a Shimano Chronarch Superfree reel spooled with 20-pound Triple Fish fluorocarbon line.

I wasn't on much in practice and I got a little lucky in getting some bigger bites yesterday. But from what I've heard, I wasn't far off the pattern of some of the guys who are catching them. Clunn and Jack Wade are fishing Rat-L-Traps, so I know I was on the right pattern and throwing right bait. It just wasn't quite in the right area. So I feel pretty good.

To all the BassFans who've read about me this year, thank you very much. It's been great, and hopefully we can do it again next year.

I had three keepers today that weighed 10-07, and I jumped off one about 2 1/2 pounds. That was a slight bit of human error and slight bit of wild fish.

I caught them on a Luhr-Jensen bait today, and it was a pretty cool deal. I fished grass, but I wasted about 2 1/2 hours fishing deep. I won't do that tomorrow. I'll stay shallow and stay with my grass. Hopefully I'll get five bites and get them all in the boat. If I do, they should weigh 14-15 pounds.

I'll give it a shot. At least I'm not out of it.

I didn't do squat today. I caught a striper and a white bass fishing deep, and had one blow up on a buzzbait fishing shallow. That was it.

I think I'll gamble on the grass and see if it pays off. A lot of big fish are down there, and I feel like that's a good place to catch about 15 pounds. So that's where I'm going to go and spend all my time tomorrow, I believe.

I caught two keepers today and 6 shorts, and the guy fishing with me caught four keepers and eight shorts. Neither one of us had any good ones.

I caught most all of my fish deep today, but I'll have to wait and see what the weather does tomorrow. I may fish deep or I may fish shallow. I don't know. I think I can catch a couple deep, but it's way too tough. I don't know what's going on. I'll give it another shot tomorrow and will hopefully figure something out.

I had two 2 1/2-pounders today and a couple of shorts, and a non-boater fishing with me had 3 keepers -- one 3 1/2-pounder -- and another short. We caught three in the same area so I think I found one little area that had some fish in it. But I don't have too much confidence in that area so I'll try to expand it.

I'll fish deep and shallow and will keep looking, but I need to make a decision because this lake's too big to fish any which way but loose.