Halfway Point

So far I've reached the halfway point through my year of tournament fishing. I decided at the beginning of the year that I was going to try and fish as much as possible. I had spent the last couple of years just dabbling in fishing whenever I got time but this year I've been on the road trying to compete as much as possible. My wife's been really supportive of me hitting the lake nearly every weekend since February and we finally got a weekend coming up where I will be making a trip with Courtney to Nashville to celebrate my 30th birthday. I won't be doing any fishing this weekend but I'll be enjoying spending time with Courtney and getting a chance to relax from the stress of traveling and competing across the country. We are planning on checking out a lot of the local musicians and the local brew.

Next weekend I'll be traveling to Truman Lake to compete in the Ozark Division BFL on July 14th. I was scheduled to compete in the BFL on Kentucky Lake but so far my trips to Kentucky have been so bad as far as the fishing goes that I decided to transfer my entry to fish the Truman Lake BFL. Kentucky Lake sets up really tough for a co-angler because those fish get so spot specific and it's all about making the perfect cast. Right now Kentucky Lake is going through a down period where there's not that many keepers left in it. What I found was that the fish are either 13 to 14 inches or over 5lbs. While I like a challenge I'd seen enough this year of Kentucky Lake to make the decision that the odds of getting around the fish just are not good enough to make me want to fish that lake.

I've fished Truman lake one other time about 8 years ago in a BFL and if I remember correctly I took 12th place. Hopefully can continue the success and find some.

After I get back from Truman Lake I'll be traveling to Santa Barbra for a week to vacation but also to attend my cousins wedding. I haven't been out West yet and I've always wanted to make a trip to California just hadn't gotten the chance.Since my cousins getting married I finally got a reason to head out there. I imagine it will be pretty cool and we will have a great time.

When I get back from California I plan on making a trip up to Wisconsin to fish the BFL on July 28th at La Crosse which will be a bit of a drive. I'm curious to see what the fishing will be like on that part of the Mississippi River. It was in college that Mike McCarthy and I took a check in an FLW college qualifier up at Ft. Madison. The fishing was pretty tough during our college tournament but when we went up to practice we had a couple of good days. It should be a good event with maybe some smallmouth action mixed in. I've heard the fishing is even better in La Crosse so guess we will see.