21st place finish out of 208 Pros in the FLW BFL Table Rock Lake

I kicked off the first tournament of the year with a decent finish in the FLW BFL Ozark Division tournament on Table Rock Lake. I ended up taking 21st place out of 208 Pros. I think we were just one day late as the fishing goes because I caught a couple big ones in practice the day before. I ended up weighing a 5 bass limit for almost 15lbs which is respectable for Table Rock anytime. I made a trip down to to the lake the weekend before the tournament to do some prefishing and I practiced the Thursday and Friday prior to the tournament. I spent a day in each part of the lake to try and get a feel for the fishing. The whole part of practicing is looking for those areas where the fish come easily into the boat. I didn't have all that much experience on Table Rock so when it came to fishing the lake I just went by the seat of my pants.

Usually when it comes to fishing when you get in the right areas the fish come in the boat no matter what if you are fishing at the level that I am at in my career. Most of the time if you have a couple of baits laid out that you can cover each zone from top to bottom your going to get bit on something.

I did have a lot of fun tossing some small jigs around in practice when it was cloudy. The clouds really seemed to drive the fish down to the bottom for the majority of my practice. On Thursday and Friday before the tournament the sunshine really started to pop out and the water temperature began to warm and the fish started to move shallow. This made them more susceptible to the jerkbait. The whole key was fishing the jerkbait painstakingly slow because you had to soak it so the fish would have time to swim up and eat it. Fish were just starting to move a little bit the day or so before the tournament. I threw my jerkbaits on my KastKing Speed Demon Pro rods paired with my Kastking Bassinator Elite reels. I was using 8lb fluorocarbon to get my baits down a little deeper. The new KastKing Kovert Fuorocarbon line from Kastking looks to be promising as I've been fishing it now for a couple of weeks with a lot of success. I had a limit by 1 o'clock and culled a couple of times before the day was over.

I'm just glad that I had a good showing on Table Rock because this early in the year the bite can go either way depending on the weather. While I know better finishes are in me I'm also trying to be consistent because I really want to make the Regional. That's were the big bucks are to win.I was able to find a couple of areas that I could sit on the spot within a spot and the fish just kept coming to me all day. The next stop for the Ozark division BFLs is going to be on Lake of the Ozarks. Depending on how the weather turns out in the next couple of weeks the fishing might set up right in my wheel house. There could be some big bags caught even though that lake has just fished tough since early last fall.