Dardanelle Elite 50

I caught quite a few fish, but just one keeper. I had about 4 come off. I wasn't too swift today. I don't know what happened.

I did the same thing (flipping), and had 5-6 keeper bites, but just boated one. I tried the shallow stuff and caught quite a few fish, but overall they didn't bite as well as on the last 2 days, for me.

The water was low this morning and this afternoon it came back up. It seemed better when it was lower. I caught more earlier, but I didn't figure out a pattern for the afternoon anyway.

It was basic river fishing: nothing is too shallow. I just didn't run my boat into some of the shallow areas like Kelly (Jordon) did. He told me some areas that I was too scared to go into. I guess you have to throw caution to the wind and run to some areas maybe you think you shouldn't. That's one thing I learned.

I didn't have a limit again. I only caught four. What kills me is I never lost a fish all tournament long.

I changed water after about 2 hours because I only had one fish. I ran to a spot that looked good in practice, and went in there and caught three (keepers). But I caught probably 15 fish today. I had several at 14 1/2 and 14 3/4, but never could get a good bite. I caught two on a homemade black buzzbait and two swimming an FLW jig (black/blue, sapphire blue trailer).

The conditions were about the same – the wind blew out of the south pretty good again. They let the water back up a little today. Some good stringers were caught, but I think that messed the fish up. The fish bit early today.

I caught three fish for 7 pounds and lost two more good keepers. I'm fishing real heavy stuff so it's the nature of the beast. I caught about 15 fish today – quite a few nice 14 1/2-inchers, but not a lot of keepers.

Tomorrow I'll do more of the same. I think it's just a timing deal. The fish are sometimes in these areas, and sometimes they're not. If you make the right decision you can catch a nice limit. Or you could zip. So I'm just going to go out and try to catch a good limit, and move up to 13th.

I had four today that weighed 9-12. I did the same thing. I caught three swimming a jig (as he did yesterday) and one on a buzzbait. I had about 6 fish today that I had to measure that were over 14 3/4 but weren't quite 15. I just can't get a limit, but I have one more day.

I ended up with four for 10 1/2 pounds. I couldn't get my fifth fish to save my butt. I caught a ton of fish – I had a lot of fish and a lot of fun – but I couldn't get five. I had one I could barely make measure, but I lost my nerve (and released it).

I'm happy with what I caught. I had my fifth one on three times. I should've had 12-13 pounds and been fine for the cut, but it wasn't my day to get them in the boat I guess. I was flipping Andre's Beaver (the Sweet Beaver, produced by Reaction Innovations, FLW Tour pro Andre Moore's company) in heavy stuff, and it was hard to get them all out.

Tomorrow I'll probably do the same thing, but I might move out a little. Some guys caught some bigger strings out behind me. The lake dropped about 6 inches today, and the shallow stuff got real tough.

Today was just a real windy day, a post-front type of deal. I tried a couple of creeks down low here, and I didn't get too excited. I was fishing clear-water creeks in the wind. I caught a few dinks and got off the water early.

Tomorrow I'm going to go fish dirty water. How will I do? Anytime you go to new water, you have no clue. I have some areas to fish, and it will be fun having no one in the boat fishing against you. I think it will be a little crowded in a couple of areas, but it will all be being there at the right time.

But I have no clue how I'll do. I've never fished the Arkansas River at all, and I never got on anything that exceptional (in practice), that's for sure.

I didn't catch much. Dang wind blew 20-30 mph all day. I fished until about 2:00. We had to register at 4:30, and I wanted to get my tackle done and gas up, and all of that. (Elias was reminded that he has all morning to do that.) Oh yeah. I could have done that. I forgot about having all that time in the morning. I'm going to go stir-crazy because I get up a 5 a.m.

Tomorrow I'm going to fish where I fished Sunday. I just hope they bite. Something I didn't realize until today is that they've dropped the water and that's hurting it. If they keep dropping it, I don't know what will happen.

I think if I can catch five I'll be right in it because the fish I was catching were pretty good. But I haven't been back in there. I know they're in there somewhere. I just have to hunt them up.

It's pretty interesting. We go out at about 8:00 in the morning, which is pretty nice.

They have a 15-inch limit here, which means a lot of little fish. I didn't set the hook for a while and was feeling pretty good. But then I started sticking a few and got a lot of 12-14 inch fish.

It sort of fishes like Eufaula – a lot of shallow bays and shoreline grass – and the middle has some pretty good current. Other than that, it's really pretty basic April fishing. It's pretty much all bank-related. But I have a feeling someone is going to do well in this tournament fishing some stump rows or deeper water a lot of us aren't fishing.

I've pretty much fished the whole upper section, so tomorrow I'll fish down lower and see what's there. Fortunately they seem to be biting better in the afternoon, so (the later fishing day) might turn out real well.

I've never been here before. They bit like crazy yesterday, and didn't hardly bite today. Yesterday I bet you everybody would've had 15 pounds or more. They were just chomping. Today was like you turned a light switch off. Everyone I talked to said the same thing: How can it change that much overnight? But it seems like it will be a good tournament, even with that 15-inch size limit.

We got this cold front with the wind blowing out of the north pretty bad. It churned the water up, and I think that had a lot to do with (the cooler bite today). But the water temperature didn't really drop, not enough to totally shut them off. Probably the pressure is what got them. But I think by tournament time, the fish will start biting.

Tomorrow I'll look at some new water.