IT'S GO TIME

This upcoming weekend I'll be headed to Kentucky Lake to fish a FLW BFL Regional Championship. I qualified for the Kentucky Lake Championship by finishing in the top 40 in points after fishing 5 BFL qualifiers in the FLW BFL Ozark Division. I'm really looking forward to competing this week and I'll be looking for my first FLW win. Up to this point I've been really close to winning a couple of big tournaments with FLW. When I was in college I finished 2nd in the FLW College Fishing Regional Championship on Lake Monroe, Indiana. I had a couple of 2nd place finishes on Lake of the Ozarks and a couple of 3rd place finishes this year which were great but have made the desire to win grow even stronger. If I could pull off the win this week at Kentucky Lake it would mean the world to me.

If I don't win I need to end up somewhere in the top 6 because it would qualify me for a chance to fish the FLW ALL-American. I will be going into this championship swinging for the fence. What that means is I will be throwing big baits and trying to catch big fish. Kentucky Lake really sucks compared to what it used to be in the glory days. The lake just isn't what it used to be 10 years ago due to the Asian Carp situation. There are still big bags to be caught in that lake and I'll be doing my best to make that happen. Someone is going to sack them up and it's going to take some weight to advance to the final day. The weather has finally got to the point that you can say it is fall. This is going to make those fish bite because they know that winter is coming.

This weekend I'll be organizing the tackle that I'm bringing making sure that all my components are ready to go. I enjoy getting tackle ready because it helps me get in the right frame of mind headed into an event. When you got as much tackle as I have accumulated over the years it's good to take a mental inventory and brainstorm on what lures will work and think about what situations you can run into during the tournament. Visualization is key in fishing. You have to visualize yourself in the situation catching fish before you even show up.There's so much prep that goes into these events mentally and just getting your tackle ready to go. Almost all my high finishes this year I had a pretty good mindset on what had to be done to catch my fish going into the tournament and everything fell into place. It's time to finish strong and make it happen.