As a two-time MLF champion and the 2022 Toyota Plains Angler of the Year, Michael Harlin doesn't just endure the sub-zero tournament conditions—he thrives in them. This episode peels back the layers of strategy and mental resilience demanded by the sport, offering a glimpse into the life of an angler who juggles the love of the catch with the love of family. We explore how Michael's experiences on the Lake of the Ozarks and Table Rock inform his approach to competitive angling.
Discover the ebb and flow of a professional angler's career through Michael's eyes, from the highs of leading the Rookie of the Year race to grappling with "slumps". Decision-making and strategic adjustments during tournaments becomes vivid as we discuss the art of bed fishing through challenging weather and the calculated game of managing tides on the Potomac River.
In the spirit of reflection, we cast our minds back to memorable fishing trips, collegiate victories, and the lessons that shape an angler's destiny. Delving into the business side of the sport, we unravel the complexities of sponsorships and the financial realities that underpin tournament decisions. Michael's insights on mental strategies and personal growth illuminate the path to becoming a top-tier angler.
As a two-time MLF champion and the 2022 Toyota Plains Angler of the Year, Michael Harlin doesn't just endure the sub-zero tournament conditions—he thrives in them. This episode peels back the layers of strategy and mental resilience demanded by the sport, offering a glimpse into the life of an angler who juggles the love of the catch with the love of family. We explore how Michael's experiences on the Lake of the Ozarks and Table Rock inform his approach to competitive angling.
Discover the ebb and flow of a professional angler's career through Michael's eyes, from the highs of leading the Rookie of the Year race to grappling with "slumps". Decision-making and strategic adjustments during tournaments becomes vivid as we discuss the art of bed fishing through challenging weather and the calculated game of managing tides on the Potomac River.
In the spirit of reflection, we cast our minds back to memorable fishing trips, collegiate victories, and the lessons that shape an angler's destiny. Delving into the business side of the sport, we unravel the complexities of sponsorships and the financial realities that underpin tournament decisions. Michael's insights on mental strategies and personal growth illuminate the path to becoming a top-tier angler.
All right. Today we got Michael Harlan, two-time MLF champion, 2022 Plains angler of the year Toyota series. What's up, man?
Speaker 2:Nothing, just chilling chasing Rugrats around. Can't fish. You know how cold it is out there, so it's like chilling in the cold it's three degrees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's nine degrees right now. It started off at like negative one today. It's pretty terrible.
Speaker 2:Not much bassin' going on out there, so instead we're cooped up in the house chasing kids around.
Speaker 1:The problem, the biggest problem for me is like the whole next week, even when it does warm up a little bit, I don't want to like rip the wrap off the side of my boat from the ice, because I've heard that happen to the guys before.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we fished that Toyota series up here at Ozark sitting in 2021 and we were dealing with the lake freezing every day and there was guys peeling keel guards off and all kinds of stuff. Thankfully, none of that happened to me. I was borrowing somebody's boat, but I definitely heard some horror stories from the ice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that same week, like the lake's completely froze over, and the week before that tournament we were at Grand for the national championship. That's right. And every day running down the lake, you could hear the ice cracking. It was pretty thin, but you could hear it cracking as you're going down the lake, which was kind of cool, but at the same time you hear some things up.
Speaker 2:So where I live I live on kind of a peninsula, on the lake, so I kind of have water all around me. I can't see the lake. I came this time here with no leaves on the trees but I can hear the boats really good. And that week of that Toyota series that the lake was frozen I mean I'm telling you is the most horrific sound you've ever heard boats running through that ice. It sounds unbelievable and you could hear from your house.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean loudest could be for miles. You could hear him break an ice running through. I'm like I'm not going out there. I'm first one. I wasn't even my boat. I'm not going to tear somebody else's boat up, but going into the last day I was leading going into the last day. Well, boat one, you're going out first, and so I'm like, oh yeah, Mark McWall turns to Saluse.
Speaker 2:She's like all right, there's no ice out there, Let it rip. So I came out of the glaze, made a left at the moorings and got to the mouth of the glaze Solid sheet ice. The whole lake 20 miles. I ran through it. Just throw an ice both outside, both sides of the boat, Like you could see it skidding across the ice for hundreds of yards?
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, thankfully it didn't tear the boat up at all. We got there and it was fine, but it was just kind of skimmed up, but you could literally see the ice flying I mean all the way across the lake. For me breaking it, it was nuts, that's crazy, I guess it.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't like that bad it grain, and I'm guessing because it's a lot wider, like those are a lot more condensed, you know.
Speaker 2:It's a little warmer too. I think it probably wasn't quite probably water temps, probably cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little bit further south.
Speaker 1:Well, so today we got a couple topics that we wanted to hit on, which is, first of all, we're both fishing the Invitational this year we both did last year and why we're fishing those instead of the NPFL or the Opens, like a lot of guys are going to.
Speaker 1:And then we also want to talk about the differences between, like Table Rock, the White River, versus Lake of Ozarks, especially during the winter time, because for me, one of my worst tournament lakes and it's so much different than Table Rock is. And then the mental side of fishing, because I think that it gets harder and harder as we go a little older. It seems like for me because you got a lot more going on in your life and but you still have to stay competitive, like we still have to be better than we were yesterday. So it takes a lot of effort and there's just a lot of, like I said, stuff going on with your life when you got kids run around the house that you have to worry about and things like that. So I'm not at that point yet, but I know you've been dealing with that for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of it's coming, you just wait, it turns things. It turns things upside down. I'm in a hurry, that's for sure, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure. So first of all I wanted to start with kind of talking about last season. So you have 10 top tens with Major League fishing in 61 tournaments, so you've had a really good MLF career. And last year, the first three tournaments of the Invitational's you start off 833rd and 22nd and I'm pretty sure you're leading rookie of the year at that point right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was in fit for holding in the Ozarks. Dang and then a tough second half of the season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I truthfully I don't really know what happened. I don't think that it was like a mental thing or anything like that where.
Speaker 2:I was on a skid, it just was a. It was a bad streak, Like I wasn't really struggling on the water, I was still having really good practices and I just think that I, you know, mismanaged some things. Ozarks definitely made some bad decisions. I was on, I was on a lot of good fish here. Like I mean, I was very confident going into the first day of tournament. But that tournament, for instance, most of the bed fishing I've done in my career has not really been here. I've kind of learned on the fly.
Speaker 2:You know, I had a top five grand bed fishing and I was in like third or fourth that you follow this year, bed fishing and every one of the tournaments I've ever fished, the key was finding the bass that were like really hard to see, that people were overlooking, and ones that were more skittish than other people were looking in harder places to look, and we were, and that's what I found. And I found a lot, of, a lot of big ones, but they were hard to catch. I've really never had so much trouble catching them and the problem was the lake was coming up a little bit, if I remember right, and we had just the most insane wave of fish come up I've ever seen. And looking back on the footage, to be quite honest, I couldn't really watch live the last day after I got cut. I probably watched like 30 or 45 minutes of it, but watching highlights and what I did watch, those guys were going a hundred miles an hour looking for beds the size of the hood of your truck with them sitting dead in the middle of it, like just the most obvious, easy to catch stupid fish in the lake that you know.
Speaker 2:We're pulling up overnight and making beds and here I was fishing for fish that were in four foot of water. I could barely see, you know, and we had cloudy conditions that week anyway. So it just was a tough deal for me and I learned a lot that week. But that went to the Potomac and literally had like two or the three best days of practice I've ever had at the Potomac. Thought I was going to wax them and just didn't manage the tide stuff, right. I mean, if you're grass fishing you can't run around, and that's what I found myself doing was running around quite a bit and had a good practice at lacrosse too. It just didn't really work out well. So I mean, it's just one of those deals Hopefully learn the lessons I needed to learn where I can, you know, build on that next year.
Speaker 1:Right. So it's kind of crazy to me, like whenever you guys have, it seems like they just have that ball that's rolling, you know, like you can't be stopped by anything, but in this instance, like it was, still was rolling for you. It's just that you know, certain things happen, or little decisions that you make on the water and change your whole season, just like you said, a Potomac, you know, there's just a little decision of do I stay here for 30 more minutes and see if it happens which it could, when the tides change, or, you know, am I wasting my time? Should I go somewhere else?
Speaker 2:So like that tournament, for example.
Speaker 1:I had a bad tournament. I finished in the hundreds. This is the only one that I finished in the hundreds.
Speaker 1:And that was my problem too is like it's really hard to sit there whenever you only have you know a couple of fish and you know I will. You have a small bag and like wait for it to get right. Like as guys that fish lots of brush and we were fishing targets here like we want to move and cover water till we get bites. So like how was your practice there? Like did you just sit down, put the trollmutter down and go fishing? And that's why it was good, because you were there when the tide was right.
Speaker 2:Well, the I think the first day yeah, I was I was just fishing a lot but what ended up happening was I was catching them off, a lot of structure stuff like where it's pretty obvious and stuff that I had caught them on and I knew that it was probably going to happen. But, like duck blinds and stuff like that, they were super obvious, were like the first day, first few days of the turn or practice were automatic, like anywhere you found something like that that had enough water on it, you're catching. I was catching fish, like you know, two and three quarter, two and a half, two and three quarter to three something pounds. I wasn't catching giants, but there that's pretty good and I just fizzled. It was getting hit a lot. The guys know what to look for and I was lacking those like really good grass spots that were reloading for people and stuff like that and I don't know.
Speaker 2:Just a tough ended up being a tough tournament. I found the fish. I mean I had one grass flat up towards Belmont that was absolutely loaded. Brad and I worked, worked together quite a bit in that tournament, probably more than any other all year, and at one point we were both on the same grass flat, catching like three pounder, three pounder, trying to shake them off and they're jumping and like had really good, like it was good, and go back there in the tournament. And the first day didn't catch anything. The second day I'm like I'm staying there, I'm milking that area and I caught like 12 keepers and the biggest one was like 15 inches Like they. Just the size completely changed on me and the other thing I had going in that tournament was Maddow Woman and it just got fished too hard. I will say was, I think was the first day of the tournament on Saturday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was something weird like that. Yeah, because there was.
Speaker 2:There was pleasure boats everywhere, and one thing that we don't have to deal with here, that we see everywhere else we go on tour, is the silt and like the clay and the mud and stuff that gets turned up from boat traffic, like we don't have that problem here.
Speaker 2:I mean, ozark is one of the most traffic lakes in the country and you don't get this like mud line or silt or whatever from people running back and forth and like in Maddow Woman on that first day, the boats were going in and out all those places, just cutting and stirring everything up and it just completely looked way different than it did in practice and that, coupled with all the pressure and all those people in there, it just wasn't. It didn't end up being very good and it has in the past been good and maybe if it was in the middle of the week it had been better. But a lot of the guys that I were fishing, was fishing around, are really good you know Brett Hyde and Tristan McCormick and guys like that, and they didn't catch them either, like everybody else around didn't catch them, and I know that's good.
Speaker 1:That's one of the big. I wonder if that's one of the bigger factors there, Because like Tristan McCormick, he's been there two or three times and he's gotten a top 10 two or three times, like he smashes them every time and then he had to tough towards. A big factor is the weird scheduling that we had with that Because, like you said too, it stirs everything up and, like the grass or so much grass there throws up. Little pieces of grass are floating everywhere, so it's harder to fish and it's just doesn't look as good.
Speaker 2:I had a. I had another like unfortunate situation in that tournament. I was on some really good shallow fish too, like real shallow. It's not arrowheads but it's real similar to arrowheads. I forget what they call it. I was catching fish on high tides around the harder cover, real shallow. And one of those spots that I was catching them on was in the back of Quantico.
Speaker 2:Well, I run in there and practice the day I found all that and sat down in the middle of Quantico Well, anybody that paid attention to that tournament that was the deal, like that was. That was where most of the guys, like most of the checks were cut in the middle of Quantico on eelgrass. And I sat down there and idle around and I'm like, oh, this stuff looks good, there was nice edges and things like that. There was a lot of very big names sitting out there in the middle. I'm like this is good, but I never really fished it very hard.
Speaker 2:It was like the last day of practice and it was the end of the day and I was just kind of mentally fizzled you know how that gets and I just overlooked it. Well, first day of the tournament I start in the back back there and as I run out, I see the coat or I see Nick Hatfield and Shufffield and Cody Meyer and all these guys that had really really good tournaments and I had to run right by him to get out of there. Well, end of the day I'm like, oh, he whacked him, he whacked them, he whacked them, he whacked them. Hmm, wonder where that was. Second day I run to the back of Quantico where I'd found those fish, didn't catch anything and I had to run right by all those guys again and I knew that that's where they were catching them. But and I found where they were catching them, but because I didn't catch any there in practice, I just didn't feel right about fishing it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It just didn't feel right to me. Plus, I was so deep in a hole that I probably wasn't going to make the cut anyway, and I just didn't want to be that guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's crazy that you say that too, because I fished Quantico two separate times for over an hour in practice and I caught like a handful of fish, like little ones, but nothing that great and I try to cover a lot of water in there and there was all those guys that, like you said, there's a lot of big names in there. You're like this is got like, there's got to be fishing here, it's got to be good, and I just never like had very many bites to feel confident to even fish it. I don't know, that place was pretty strange to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like, had I caught fish there in in practice out there in the middle, like where those guys were all sitting, I would have felt way better about even if I caught one fish. I felt better about pulling up there and fishing in the tournament, but I just was like that's not the right thing to do. Like you know what I mean, that just wasn't the deal. So I just went on about my day and tried to find them elsewhere and it didn't really work Right.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that it seems like it was fairly tough on both of us this season, and not I don't want to say tough, like we both had good turns, but ups and downs, but ups and down, a lot of ups and downs, and it was. It was more of a shallow schedule, like we started in Florida, which you did great at, and then we end on two river fish. I got lucky, though I got lucky, yeah, I mean that was.
Speaker 2:that was lucky. But yeah, what you're saying is like it was a shallow schedule and I'm assuming you're going to say that this year the schedule it's rotating, but I've noticed a trend, though.
Speaker 1:Over the past four years it's rotated Like the year before last was a deep schedule, it was offshore deeper schedule and last year was the shallow rivery schedule and now we're kind of moving back to the deep offshore schedule because we're starting in Texas. We have a post spawn offshore tournament. We have two smallmouth fisheries, you know, and the other shallow shallow fishing. I mean, you know we got Kentucky Lake and West Point, whether they're going to be up there, but it's, I think it's going to set up. I'm more excited about it, not that I wasn't excited before, but like dude going to get, getting to go to Rayburn instead of Okachobi, I mean it's, it's the kind of fishing that we like to do fishing brush, fishing deep, trying to find targets to throw at. So I mean, how do you feel about that? Do you feel better about this season than last season because of that?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for a number of reasons I feel better about this season. But the schedule, if I'm being honest, played a pretty big part in my decision of where I wanted to fish this year. And it was just late in the year that we and we'll talk about this, but it was late in the year that that you know that decision was being made on my part, so I really didn't want to make any changes too late in the year. But looking at the schedule, I remember when it came out I was like, ooh, the schedule looks good, like we get to go catch smallmouth, which obviously plays into our advantage, even though we don't. That's not something we've done a lot. I personally have never even done it. I've never been to any of those northern, those northern smallmouth lakes like that.
Speaker 2:But just based off what I've seen and what I know, I feel like that's that's 10 fold better for what I like to do than going to the Potomac and La Crosse. Like, give me a break, champlain and and and the Detroit River versus Potomac and La Crosse. I'm taking that 10 times out of 10. So that and Rayburn and all that, I was excited. I was very excited. I've been to Kentucky lots and lots of times. I never caught them there, but I, you know, I still know it, I'm familiar with it. So you know the schedule to me is way more exciting and suits our, our style a lot better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and here's something that's interesting about it, though, is so I travel with Drew Gil, and he had a phenomenal season last year, life scoping on the shallow schedule, because he was kind of fishing for fish that nobody else was fishing for, right, or that people weren't looking for Like we were. We were just up there shallow throwing baits at the bank trying to do what you're supposed to do, but this.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, doing what you're supposed to do, but this schedule, everyone knows to fish offshore, so it's, you know, it's, it's, it's different, like we're. I think we're pretty decent at it, but we're going up against a lot of guys who are also good at it and that's why they're at the level that they're at, and everyone knows to go skiing around and find as much as possible, and there's a lot of guys that are good at it. So it seems like to me too, like whenever tournaments are won, people have at minimum their own. They're doing something different. So, like in the deep schedules, there's something that you prepare yourself for, like looking at this to try to be different than everyone else, or are you just going to grind it out and try to be there?
Speaker 2:Well, first, with what Drew did to us last year and just being out there with those guys, I really quickly realized like I may be decent at the forward facing sonar and like trying to get here, but on tour I ain't that guy, like I'm not nearly where I needed to be skills wise with that.
Speaker 2:And so since July, august, somewhere in there maybe, I really have like spent a lot more time trying to hone in the details of it and get better at what I'm doing, and I think that that's really proved itself to me here through the winter months, like so far it hadn't hardly been winter until now but just I'm finding stuff in fishing areas that like differently than I've ever seen, like I'm seeing it through a different lens, and so I definitely been working on my active target skills, you know, leading into the year. But, like you said, there's something to be said for going against the grain a little bit. Drew was scoping when he wasn't supposed to be scoping, you know, and then it obviously showed that it works. So maybe there will be something to be said for going up there shallow and trying to bang it out and maybe catch him up that way. But it's a tough crowd to catch him. You know trying to scope when you're supposed to be scoping, you know, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot of young guys, like last year. I knew that the competition was going to be good, but it was better than I thought it was going to be, and I think that's how the case on a lot of tours. Like you're like, oh, you got 50th place, but whenever you're actually there, you're like Damn, I had to try really, really hard and catch a lot of fish to get 50th place.
Speaker 1:You know it's like a different level, so I think that's going to continue. I mean, I know a lot of guys left and people were switching around where they're going, but there's still a lot of young guys are really good at catching fish that they see, and I think that that's kind of going to be the thing that sets people apart this season is figuring out how to catch those fish that most people aren't targeting, and what I mean by that is fish that aren't sitting on anything, you know, even when we're literally at every single one of these tournaments. I think that's going to play a huge role and I don't know it's going to be 50 50 doing what I normally do 50% and try something different. 50% find floating fish, you know, fish that just aren't on anything, but there's a big problem with that too and that they move around a lot.
Speaker 2:They move around a lot. Those floating fish are very obvious out there, like they stick out like a sore thumb, and so I like. My personal opinion is those. The fish have an incredible ability to disappear on the bottom. I don't care who's electronics you have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if they get down on the bottom.
Speaker 2:You can't find them. And I'm sure you've seen it a lot of people have that spend any time doing it. Those days were like you're out there scoping, shining your beam around, shining the flashlight around. You're like there's no fishing here, or they all go Like they aren't.
Speaker 2:If they're not off the bottom, they're not gone, they're still there.
Speaker 2:And you know, you have that one magical deal where you draw a fish out the bottom or you hook one or whatever, and it just blows up and there was hundreds of them down there. I mean there's going to be something to be said for that. And finding those spots, maybe with your side scanner down, imaging your hard spots or something like that, where you can't necessarily see the fish with your spotlight and you have to actually catch them or get them fired up to inform or show yourself, show themselves, because those fish that out there, that float out there by themselves I mean that's shooting fish at barrel. Sure, it's really hard to get them to bite at times or actually get them, you know, to commit enough that you can catch them, but those are the ones that everybody's fishing for and we're definitely going to have to try to go against the grain, to set yourself apart a little bit, because I mean, every year this this for face and sonar thing is snowball, like when I won the Toyota near those are 2021.
Speaker 2:Nobody would. Nobody was doing it, very, very few. And then I mean it showed itself in the next year. There was, everybody was doing it. And then you get to the tour level, like what we're fishing, and then literally everybody is on that deal of like you're no better than anybody else.
Speaker 1:It's hard to say yourself apart as far as that goes yeah, and, like you said, it gets more and more dialed every year. Like you think, like I hear people say that, oh, shallow fishing is going to be the next life scope, like it's gonna beat everyone but the life scope, like the scope the fourth racing sonar game.
Speaker 1:It gets more and more dialed and you can catch fish in a foot of water or in the middle of the main river channel, like it doesn't matter where you're at.
Speaker 1:I mean, besides, like thick grass is, like you know, one of the places it's hard to fish, but it doesn't really matter the depth. Like people are getting better at figuring out how to catch these fish and, like you on the bottom, stay with their offshore schooling and you can throw a bait and catch those fish just by making the same cast. But then again you probably get beat by someone who is trying to pick out the biggest fish that they see and throwing to that fish. You know, I mean, there's just like it just gets more and more dialed and it's a hard game to play. It really is because we have to stay up to date with, like how to get this fish to bite. Like what are we gonna be able to throw this year that someone didn't have last year? Like how are we gonna be ahead of everyone? So, like I've been ordering all kinds of random crap that probably won't work, but you know, you gotta get there.
Speaker 2:And then you got guys like, well, you may even have some all the stuff that sneaky coming out, berkeley stuff, nobody's had yeah some people have probably had, like there's lots of stuff like that that if you can have your hands on it for a while, they haven't seen it that's definitely be big. But I personally don't have that opportunity like I, just I have what I have, I buy what I buy off the shelf for the most part, and so it's hard to be sneaky as far as that stuff goes. Everybody knows what's out there, so I don't know. There's definitely definitely something to be said, though, for for throwing baits that other people aren't yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:I've had some of those baits since June, like the. The Kredge is the, the biggest one they've been talking about, for example, but it sinks really slow. So it's like I'm sure you've seen some videos this I feel like it's more of a summertime bait or you know something, where you can catch them within 10 feet of the surface, like lacrosse. I caught him over the top of winged dams on it a little bit. So I think it's you know, it's gonna definitely play in some certain situations and like brush polyfishing too, because it kind of sinks backwards. I mean it's like a I don't know. It's like it's like a weird jerk bait.
Speaker 1:It's like a sink and jerk bait almost you know I guess do what like it's full of water or something yeah, yeah, I don't know interesting, but yeah, you kind of got a like, and that's another thing is like all the Japanese guys with their weird techniques that were like, oh, that's so weird, I would never throw that. Well, a lot of them get a lot of top 10s and have really good tournaments by throwing their weird stuff, you know, and it keeps them ahead of the game yeah, no, I've definitely spent a lot of time paying attention as close as I can to what those guys are doing.
Speaker 2:You know, like Koya and and and Taku and guys like that, like they're setting the bar. I mean, that's been the history of bass fishing from the beginning. For the most part is the trend start in Japan and work their way from west to east coast. So like they're definitely ahead of the curve and you gotta, you gotta be willing to adapt and, and you know, learn new techniques and new baits yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:That's how you have to stay part of the game, like the old guys that are, you know, using the live scope right now and making themselves relevant or keeping staying relevant. I guess it's like you have to do that to stay up there. So what? One of the big topics that we wanted to hit was why are we staying with MLF? So I didn't. I didn't ever really consider fishing the opens or fishing the NPFL. I thought about it, but it was never real consideration because, you know, I like the way that MLF is structured payouts and everything. But talk a little bit about your offices, offseason decisions and kind of like what the points were that almost made you fish the opens.
Speaker 2:I mean, you guys were considering it there for a while yeah, and you know, just like everybody I would say, I grew up watching the elite series and that's near and dear to my heart, like in my, my mind. That's always been where I wanted to, probably in my career. But at the same time I wouldn't be who I am without major league fishing. You know, being like the Ozarks Missouri guy. Mlf comes here constantly for Toyotas and BFLs and things like that and that's just what I had in my fingertips to fish and that's kind of that's just that's where I cut my teeth, that's where I learned how to do what I do and I'm attached to it. You know what I mean. Like it's that's definitely part of who I am as an angler. But at the same time, obviously you can't ignore all the stuff that's been going on and and certainly don't like a lot of that stuff there's a lot of negativity surrounding the company. I don't like that. I feel like a lot of the things that have been said and done by MLF. It. It kind of clouds the anglers a little bit. It takes some credibility from them and what they've worked for. So we definitely were in heavy consideration to go to the opens.
Speaker 2:But for me right now at this point in my life. Fishing is how I put food on the table. It's how I make my living. That's the only way pretty much that I make any money. I sell a little bit of real estate but for the most part the last three years has all been fishing. I've got three kids now, a family that I have to take care of and a lot of bills I got to pay, and fishing the opens is basically like fishing.
Speaker 2:You know Toyota series all across the country. Yeah, sure, it's been great. Toyota's have been great to me regionally the last three years. But if you take me and take, put me at Okeechobee or you know, the East Coast or wherever that definitely that definitely makes things harder. It's a bigger field that pays less. You know you get the last check in MLF. You're getting eight or ten grand as opposed to I don't know exactly what it is, but two thousand something for bass. It's a bigger field and it's not paying near as good, like 40 grand, 50 grand to win as opposed to 100 grand to win and the invitations right and I had one of the one of the big things that it gets talked about.
Speaker 1:A lot is okay. Well, paths are a lot less, but I'm paying three grand less an entry fees, you know, per tournament. So, like, the intro fees are way less, but I'm pretty sure you guys worked out the numbers and it it's similar. Similarly compares, though, even though it's a lot less to expenses, wise right yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you put the, you know you put a pen and paper to it and figure out like how much you spend versus how much you make. It's actually pretty close. But I couldn't. I couldn't fish nationally on tour, what we're doing, the invitations or whatever if it weren't for sponsors. Like I can't afford to spend $30,000 in entry fees and $20,000 in travel and other expenses.
Speaker 2:So if I'm gonna be helped in that way with sponsors and say I'm not paying entry fees, well, if you go to the opens, that will pay for your travel and your entries.
Speaker 2:Basically say, you know you have 30 grand, you can pay for everything in the opens with that money.
Speaker 2:Well, that leaves your earnings to to pay the bills or that's what you get to take home.
Speaker 2:If I'm gonna make $2,000 three times, you know, next year, or cash a check and half of them you know I'm sitting on basically nothing like that, that doesn't go very far. But if I go cash three or four checks and in the invitationals and I make 10 grand or 12 grand or 14, I made it Okeechobee, like that moves the needle, that helps, and so if I'm gonna have my expenses paid for, I'd rather be fishing for as much money as I can on the biggest platform I can't and we get great exposure. I had a live camera twice last year in the invitationals. If I wouldn't have stunk it up so bad, I'd have kept the camera, you know, and that type of thing helps build your brain and it helps, you know, helps get your exposure out there. So, media wise, camera wise, life live coverage wise and and ultimately, check cash in the invitationals outweighs the opens pretty severely to me and I think that's the way it's been for many years now, I mean, all through college.
Speaker 1:Like every year I would sit down and like, look at the numbers and like how are you able to survive as an angler? And a lot of the guys on the lease here's came up through the pro circuit fishing MLF because it was a such a good place to fish and you get good coverage and you there's good payouts and you get to, you know, do all these things still, and it's always been like that, even though you know recently there's been some changes to the invitationals so they changed to go to the championship, change the payouts. It's still a better way to go, I think. And you know, like you're saying with coverage, like I got a live camera twice to there was constantly camera boats around so you get pictures. You know they do great with articles and stuff like that, and I feel like that's not as true with the opens. It seems like they really maybe target the handful of guys that get more attention, which you know I mean that's, that's how it goes. I mean, if you're better you're well known like that's what sells.
Speaker 1:But for us coming up, you know it's really great that they try to help us. You know that like they want to have their eyes on the next dude that you know does good or you know goes up to the Bass Pro Tour or whatever, and that's why I really appreciate, appreciated about them. And I think another big decision going into it was how the Bass Pro Tour is changing. You know they're on a scope right now to drop their field down to 50, which means that they're only taking five anglers instead of eight from the invitationals. So you know that kind of hurts as well.
Speaker 1:It makes it harder for us to move up to the next level because I mean, once you get to the Bass Pro Tour, you know the payouts are better than almost anywhere and it gives you a lot of, you know, opportunity, especially if there's only 50 anglers in the field. But that also makes it tougher on us. I don't know it's. It's it's kind of hard with all, with everything changing, to like try to make the best decision for us yeah, I mean it's a tough time in Bass Fish and there's no doubt I mean it's.
Speaker 2:If you ask any season pro, they're gonna tell you it's the hardest time to come up there's ever been. So we definitely have it, have it dealt to us tough from the beginning and they make it hard to make any decisions, like obviously the NPFL is also on the table. I had the opportunity, probably like you did, to go fish that if I wanted to, and and we thought about that as well. I mean, heck, they're coming to like the Ozarks in October, so but that's the ceiling, right, so it doesn't get any bigger than that. And and there's something to be said for the media outlets that Bass and MLF have.
Speaker 2:But for me you know, I feel like MLF has made me who I am as far as determines. I fished and I've built a regionally as anyway, I built a fairly good platform for myself. But the second you make that switch to Bass. None of those guys know who we are, dude, they don't know us and they don't care. You know you got to go prove yourself again and as to where. Like you know, an MLF going into Ozarks, I had a camera in my boat on the first day because I was expected to catch them. I didn't. It didn't work out, but still they left, knew who I was and they trusted that I was gonna catch them or at least be good on camera. And you know that's an opportunity. You're not gonna get in the opens, I'm not so. Like you know my whole plan once. Once I knew I was gonna take the next step. I you know even before that right.
Speaker 2:Ever since I've been with MLF and I've my dream to be in a professional angler. My plan, subliminally, has always been I'm gonna build myself as an angler, I'm gonna become a pro, I'm gonna learn how to be a pro, build my brand, build my platform and my sponsorships, my endorsements, to where I can jump back to major bass if I want to, and take all that with me. You know I'll take my brand and my sponsors and then you don't have the stress of you know cash and checks in the opens it to go and put pressure on yourself to qualify like I'd rather go at a time where I feel like it could take I could take three or four years to qualify because I've already established myself as a pro, similar to what the guys that have gone back to bass have done. You know you can't tell me it's not easier on guys that have you know sponsors and things like that that they don't have to catch right and so that definitely makes that a lot easier.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of way I've always felt about it that I'd rather learn how to be a pro and grow with MLF and if the time is right, when the time is right, then make the transition yeah, and I think that's the way to do it, especially because sponsorships now are so much of and you know, like your presence, like how many people know you, how many people do you influence and, like you said, a lot of those guys that are able to go fish the opens for two, three, four, five years, like those, are those type of guys that have the support to fish, no matter if they make it or not, like they're still relevant because they have those viewers, and I think that's that's it's getting harder and harder to do because there's so many people doing it. I know that that you guys had started like a YouTube channel, had camera guys falling around did you guys do that last year no, we did that one time for the.
Speaker 2:Toyota, yeah, yeah, we just we just didn't really have the the capability of know how to put it all together, like none of us are by any means media or editing gurus or know anything about that to begin with.
Speaker 2:So we got it all on tape and, to be honest with you, nothing really ever happened with it. It's a hard thing to do to to orchestrate all that and a lot of extra pressure, like, and it's something that's really, it's kind of required of you now maybe not to that extent, but it's some, just to some extent. And, yeah, it's tough, like I just felt like I needed to learn how to catch them better as opposed to worrying about all that. Now I'm back to the point where I've got to start stepping up my game or else you get stagnant and you're not gonna go anywhere. So it's definitely something you got to incorporate. But it's hard man, it's not.
Speaker 1:It is hard dude, it's so it's really time-consuming and if you pay someone to do it for you it's expensive for it.
Speaker 1:No, I can't so much money to have that. And then, like you said, like it's so much to deal with by yourself, all the footage putting it together, and then you know, like from February, when we leave for a burn, until the end of May, like we're constantly going from tournament to tournament and that's a lot of footage to keep track of and try to work on in between all that. So I don't know. But then again, like if you look at any company inside the industry, like they're asking how many followers do you have? Like they think that's what they care about more than anything. They don't. They don't necessarily ask you well, how many you know? How do you, how do you do in tournaments this year? Like they generally want to know, they want to know what level you're at. But it's about it's about social media, because that's how I say and we talked about this a little bit before we started.
Speaker 2:But you know, I don't think guys like us can make it as professional anglers without the help of non-indemic, local type sponsors like you. Don't just jump into full-on endemic sponsors with the biggest names in the industry. Like there's guys that have been making a living doing this for years and years and they still are just landing those deals. There was a major one came out on Facebook yesterday. I'm like how'd that guy not already have that deal?
Speaker 1:and I was like well, you know that's.
Speaker 2:There's no way I'm gonna get that deal if a guy like that's 100s of thousands of dollars you fishing, doesn't have it and still has a good social media presence. So you know me personally, I lean on more local companies, non-indemic type companies, or you know smaller within the industry companies that that they've made it possible for me to go out and chase my dream. So you know, super thankful for them, and I think that's something that young people need to be aware of too that are trying to do this.
Speaker 1:Like you know, you got to reach out to people that know you and are willing to support you and and it's definitely a it takes time to build the relationships you need to to get with those bigger companies yeah, and I wish more people would talk about that, like the top pros, like they would explain to these young people, like what it takes, and you do have to start off with just local companies that you know and people who are willing to help you, because there's no money, hardly any money to be had in the fishing industry.
Speaker 1:They're not there's. There's no company that is going to give me any cash right now. You know the top guys like, yeah, you might be able to get some of your interest fees paid for. Maybe they pay for some interest fees, but if you're looking to get cash, which is necessary, like you said, like we have to survive, we have to live and we can't come up with 30 or 40 grand or 50 if we're fishing the toy, like we have to have companies help us do that, and so what we were talking about earlier, like the biggest way that we can help contribute to those, is by taking people fishing.
Speaker 1:I mean because that's not the luxury, that's not a luxury that a lot of people have, and especially with a nice boat, nice equipment, that someone that knows how to fish and take you to fish you know.
Speaker 2:So I think that's one of the biggest things I would tell the people is like reach out to people that you know and try to try to take them fishing you know, barter, you know there's other ways to work it other than just asking for money and tell them you're gonna post on social media like work for, yeah, do whatever you got to do. I just I just announced today that I signed a new deal with Fitz fishing here at Lake of the Ozarks, which I'm very, very excited about, and I've been working for them for three years once a week. I've worked there every Wednesday, if you know. If you know you know I'm there every Wednesday if I'm not fishing, and mainly I started doing that because I wanted obviously the discount is nice and in two, I can't tell you the amount of relationships and things that I have formed from working at that tackle shop one day a week, like, and that turned into a big deal for me. It turned into a big sponsorship. That really helps.
Speaker 2:And it's when I started out. That's not the goal that I had, that's not what I saw coming. When I started working there I hadn't even won the Toyota series yet, like I had. I had no idea what my path was gonna be. You know, it's something that's unfolded in the last few years and so that was just something that happened out of, you know, time building, building the relationship and being with them over time and you know myself growing as they grew. So there's definitely, if you're a young kid out there trying to land new sponsors or whatever, be a pro. Don't be a host, just going out there and putting actually some hard work in or trading or bartering or doing something along those lines, like Cole said, taking people, fishing or there's a million ways to work it. But you're not gonna go land a giant deal with Berkeley because you made a few posts on on social media yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of time and you know, like some of my sponsors, such as pure fishing, you know a Berkeley and Abigarcia, like they sponsored our college team and then I was trying to work on for two to something years before it actually, you know, happened and so, and I think a lot of people might have the mindset of you know, I want some money and I'll post on social media and you know that'll be enough, but, like, like you said, it takes a lot of work, like if you really want to be able to make it, like it's almost full-time job to try to satisfy these people and even if you don't get it, even return, like that's what you have to do to try to, you know, make it in there sometimes. So it's, it's really difficult, it's not as maybe glorious as it seems sometimes like it, you know, as little kids watching the professionals it's like, oh, you make it to that level. And you know I made it, I'm done, I'm taking care of, but that's not that's not really how it works.
Speaker 1:You know, you have to really fight for your own personal brand and keep growing it and keep making relationships, and that's really what it's all about is having relationships yeah, I mean we, we got kind of sidetracked there, but I mean that all circles back around answers a question why I didn't go fish.
Speaker 2:She opens, that's why there's a million things that went into it and it was a. You know those decisions where people were. You know MLF made those changes late in the year. The schedules hadn't came out. You know, all year long switching and going to the opens was not on my radar. That was nowhere. Nowhere in my brain was I thinking Next year I'm gonna change what I'm doing and go fish the opens like I'm trying to get my feet under me and learn how to be a pro, and no part of me was wanting to leave. So all of a sudden that was sprung on us and like what? October or something like that. It was like right around the Toyota championship and that was also a huge factor into why, you know, I I personally didn't make the change. But you know there's a million reasons why I didn't and you know I'm sure the same goes for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So, besides the invitations this year, what toyotas are you fishing?
Speaker 2:We've been threatened to fish the northerns. We are obviously gonna fish the. We're gonna fish the the planes. Yeah, they've been pretty good to us the last few years.
Speaker 2:I think like there's only been in the last two years. There might have been like, well, no, the last three years. I think there's only one Toyota in the planes of vision that Brad or myself wasn't in the top 10. So Right, it's worked out, so we're gonna fish those again. I'm not crazy about the schedule. I wish it was flipped around quite a bit, but it is what it is, we're gonna try to attack it.
Speaker 1:So think what's gonna make your decision there.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:You said you're thinking about doing the northerns Toyota's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's all gonna pin on how much money I made if.
Speaker 1:I'm struggling. If you can afford it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I've talked about maybe there's a way we might be able to work it where we can Stay out of yeast while we're out of yeast and fish a few of those. I think it's like Potomac, champlain, st Lawrence I've never been to St Lawrence and definitely need to get some some time under my belt there, as well as Champlain and To be honest I wouldn't.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't mind having another crack at the Potomac. So I mean, it's really what has me wanting to do. It is an experience thing, like this year. We were sitting at home all fall after the last tournament and I'm looking at the results from St Lawrence and all those going. I'm getting out worked like there's guy all the Tational's guys are at these Toyotas and I felt like I was getting out worked and that's what makes me want to do it. But at the end of the day, making that giant trek out there, you, you got to have the funds to do it and I haven't planned for that for this year. I mean, it's a tight year as far as everything goes and people aren't want to fork out a lot of money, which I don't blame them, so that's that's what's gonna cost.
Speaker 1:It costs us a lot more to do everything to do. I mean our boats cost more travel costs, more living costs more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean everything. It everything's a challenge. Just and that's another thing that we didn't really talk about but the mark, the boat mark. It's a tough deal right now for everybody. I know that's something that I'm personally struggling with. I'm gonna run the same boat next year. It's gonna have an insane amount of hours on it, but nobody wants to buy boats right now.
Speaker 1:Right, so and so, and I think I think a lot of guys on the invitationals and across the other Professional leagues there's gonna be a lot of guys that have run gonna run the same boats as they did the year before, because the prices have gone up on almost every boat, even this year and they have the past four years in a row, it seems like and Interest rates are crazy. No one's wanting to buy boats and you can't sell your boat either. So it's just, it's difficult right now, for sure.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of, a lot of stuff that goes into that. But you know, if it's, if the first half of the year is good or the whole year is good and things are going good, then yeah, we're probably gonna try to to fish some, maybe just one, maybe the whole thing, something. What do you have to fish for? Yeah, well, it will be walk while card eligible for yeah.
Speaker 1:For yeah Because for a wild card division.
Speaker 2:I mean, dude, it's hard to make the Toyota championship but that's not an easy thing, that's not something to take, you know, take for granted. And Going into the last Toyota here I was on the bubble, I was in 25th, so I Was like the two extremes. I got second one and like a hundred and tenth and the other one yeah it was a. You know, I was fretting that I wasn't gonna make it and it was at table rock. I'm like I got like it there.
Speaker 1:Right and I fished. I fished a fourth one as a wild card, just for that fact, like I was, like I can't miss out on one that's in the Ozarks, you know. So I fished one at Dardanelle that was part of the Southwestern division, just to make sure.
Speaker 1:I would make it. Yeah, I got sixth, which I was excited. I mean I, like Dardanelle, done decent there over the years. But, like you're saying, though, like with fishing, more tournaments I think it goes really hand-in-hand with. It costs more money, but it's gonna make me better and probably make me more money. You know, it's like an investment, almost so like, and and like you said, a lot of the guys are really good, they fish and they fish and they fish and that's why they're good. Is they fish so many tournaments that they're just dialed in, you know, to everything that has to do with fishing, and so I feel like, as you know, fishing the invitations and fishing one division of the Toyotas Well, I look back at it and I fished for Toyotas and made, you know, a little over 20 grand, so that really helped me pay for the rest of my season.
Speaker 1:You know, even for the invitations the Southwestern's this year as well, because you know it's gonna be Six Toyotas instead of four, so it's only two more tournaments. But you know, you get that extra chance to make money, you get the extra experience, and I've heard a lot of the pros say that I think it was great Hackney that was saying that he, whenever he fished the elites and the pro circuit is whenever he did the best, whenever he fished all those tournaments, he was constantly fishing, but that those are the times when he has best angler the ear finishes on both tours because you know, you just it's like practicing every day, like you have to stay at it to be making the right decisions and you know, having the right mechanics Do not lose fishing stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So I mean it's definitely like John Cox.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, he never stops fishing everything.
Speaker 2:And anybody that's looked at the MPFL roster for next year. I mean, you can't go but notice like I think there's a couple reasons why this is happening, other than just fishing all the time. But you, kyle Welcher and Zach Burge and and Patrick Walters and all these like big-time, high-profile guys fishing them. I think they see a business opportunity there, but at the same time, you know, I think, that they're they're also wanting to spend more time on the water and fish more big tournaments. That that's what makes you who you are, makes you better angler. And if I hadn't a fish of toyotas this year, I wouldn't be fishing the imitations next year because that I mean that Supplement in my ear I might have made more fishing.
Speaker 2:I probably did made more fishing toyotas than I did than I did the imitations If it weren't for that, though, I gotta say, there's no way I'm fishing the imitations right now, because I'd be dead broke If I'm not already. Like I'd be. I mean, I'd be out. So it's one of those things where it's like one thing leads to another and you make the right decisions and you are where you need to be right. I mean, everything happens for a reason, but definitely gonna try to keep fishing as many of those as I can.
Speaker 1:So what's?
Speaker 2:the. What's the Southwest? Schedule you fishing the Southwesterns?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the Southwestern starts at Rayburn in February. So it's we it's like two weeks after our Invitational, so you know, not bad already get to see the lake and practice for a little bit, and then Toledo Bend at the end of March, so that's when the opens were there this year. So it'll be kind of, you know, probably around that spawn, maybe early post spawn deal, and then it goes. Do you follow Oklahoma in May? And well, so not a bad schedule.
Speaker 2:No, not at all. That's a. That's something to think about.
Speaker 1:You're gonna stay down there, a Rayburn come back home and that week between, just because I think the next two or three weeks after that will be gone, because West points You're right around the first of March.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have to go straight to Kentucky from West Point, do we?
Speaker 1:yep, kentucky Lake, or maybe West points after Kentucky Lake, I don't know somewhere out in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for the planes, it is nice to have the. We kind of get to pre-practice Kentucky and fish Toyota at the same time, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the, the Toyota on Kentucky Lake is right there around March West Point too. So you know that's like I Don't know I got to be home a little bit. You know, make some money. Can't be away from my wife for five weeks in a row. So you know you got to keep the balance and check for sure, for sure, although I would love to fish Texas another week.
Speaker 2:That's I think that's my favorite state.
Speaker 1:I haven't spent a whole lot of time fishing down there, but just because that's where my wife Haley's from and her parents have a lake house and it's, it's got to be my favorite state and I think you'd love it too. You will love it.
Speaker 2:I At all I was. I've been to Raven once, but I liked I was. That was during what I like to call my dumb ass days. I didn't, I didn't really have any clue what I was doing back then and I still did. Okay, it was flooded, so it's gonna be a big change from what I saw last. Like you couldn't even tell there was trees in the place when I was there, but that's the only time I've ever been down there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now it's gonna be six or seven foot low yeah.
Speaker 2:Low. Low is better for what we like to do than high, I would say yeah, my might be a little bit more sketchy with.
Speaker 1:You know the trees and be able to run everywhere. But yeah, I'd rather have it low than high for sure, Because we definitely have to be up in the grass and bushes and crap. Maybe not the bushes, but you know shallow grass. So where's the?
Speaker 2:where is your in-laws like? How's that? What like is on. So it is Lake Cypress Springs. It's about 30 minutes to the east of Lake Fork.
Speaker 1:So I've gotten a fish fork, some, and it's just a little tiny lake and they've got a couple of lakes around there and it's kind of weird because it's all like the. It's covered in docks with the wooden posts but there's no brush, hardly. There's like nothing On the lake at all, except for there's a couple, and I cannot catch a fish, hardly on anything but those tire piles. And like two years ago, and it was the January first, we had like a 30 pound bag in an hour sitting on one tire pile. You know, it's just, I don't know. It's kind of like fishing right here, honestly, in the winter time. Well, very similar. I've noticed a lot of those guys to go down to Texas and do pretty good.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's something goes hand in hand. I'm worried about a guy like Brad and Brock who fished Truman all the time, like I feel like Truman is a well-grooming Texas lake, like it's dirty, muddy and it's you know, it's got lots of timber in it, so that's somewhere I've just started learning how to fish.
Speaker 2:The last few years like chairman and I finally started getting along a little bit. But back on the day when we have BFLs there all the time, I think I'm gonna be able to get a little bit of fish. Okay, when we have BFLs there all the time, an absolute grind. So we'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So what was the tournament you're down in Raven for I?
Speaker 2:Wasn't even there for a tournament, it was a you. You might even know my buddy, a Rob. We went with him. That's actually when I met him and me and Austin Culberton and my two other buddies his name's Austin we all went down there for a trip that just just a fun trip down at Raven. I think it was in like April or something like that, and it was just, it was just a trip to get out there. Let me think what boat did I have? It was that blue and white champion. I still have that boat. That's the boat I went down there, and so I was even using an old, used boat when I went down there a long time ago. Yeah, got some good stories from that.
Speaker 1:There Did you you fish in college right? Yeah, like two semesters I wasn't really Just a handful of tournaments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first first time I think I think it's the first time I ever caught 20 pounds in my life was In a college tournament, kentucky leg, on an a rig. We drove, yeah, drove through the night From college to Kentucky leg, put the boat in, caught 20 pounds in practice and and like I'm not kidding You're like probably two hours Never even hardly ran around, didn't know what I was doing, had hardly fished any tournaments Put the boat back on the trailer. Didn't practice anymore. Like up I'm on them, put it back on the trailer. It caught 21, 8, 21, 8. The first day we're in eighth place.
Speaker 2:No it was before the is before the carp, right before the carp, so it's still good. And yeah, we fell on our face the second day and that was that was my first like rude awakening. I didn't start fishing tournaments until even like like real tournaments, till after that time frame. I had it, I was, I was 20 years old before I started fishing tournaments, really really Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So that's, and how old are you now?
Speaker 2:I'll be 30 this year. Thank, you know, oh yeah, for sure I'm up there. It happens quick, but not, I would say, still yet. Like the first Six years or so, my career was all just learning lessons like taking my bruises and like not really getting much accomplished, not really learning much, just being out there and learning how to lose it wasn't till the last few years that things started coming together Like there was a lot of hard lessons learned out there.
Speaker 2:Nobody, really. I didn't have any mentors or anything growing up nobody in my family fish bass tournaments just learned to fish from the bank. So I spent a lot of time in a tackle shop. That's kind of what got me started. I started working at a local store here and then worked at Bass Pro in Columbia and then worked at Fitts's and so I've been in a Tackle shop a lot. But yeah, pretty much everything self taught, self learned, or you learn from YouTube and tournament videos. But yeah, it was a it was a hard go for a while.
Speaker 1:Right. So over these past ten years, I mean it takes it takes a lot of Mental thought and a lot of the guys that I think you're at the top consistently mentally. Like Someone who blows my mind is Jacob Wheeler. Like he just looks like he catches fish but the way he attacks again mentally is insane. And you know talking with like Keith Carson recently I got to know him more this past year like he is mentally dialed in and in all aspects of his life but, like you know, it's about constantly learning and making your life Better. Like you're trying to fix things right. You're trying to be better as a person. You're trying to like dial down mentally how do I get better at fishing? So like what are some of the biggest things mentally that you've?
Speaker 1:learned the past ten years that you apply.
Speaker 2:Like you. Like you touched on a lot of, a lot of how you get to that winning mentality. That winning state Happens off the water, right like it's. It's between your ears and it's your relationships with your family. It's your off-the-water life, leads to things that happen on the water and how you deal with tough situations and tough tournaments and things like that.
Speaker 2:And that's something that I've personally been fighting through like the last year or so, like just trying to grow as a person and change Some things off the water that are, I'm hoping, are gonna, you know, equate to more success on the water, at least being able to handle situations properly or see more clearly. So you know, there's a lot of lot to be said for, you know, growing yourself personally and trying to become a better person and, you know, get a better hole on life and do things like that, that, I think, will equate to more success on the water. So I feel a lot better this year going into it. I've told a couple people that it's just feels different. I feel different, I feel like I'm in a better place Mentally, and so I'm hoping that that's gonna equate. You know it's that's gonna show itself on the water. It might not, you never know. But I can tell you one thing I don't regret like doing what I've done and trying to grow the way I have and and work on that type of thing.
Speaker 2:So it's something that you don't want to shy away from. It's you know. It needs to be talked about more, and I certainly respect a guy like Gerald Swindle who will go out of his way to talk about things that Most other people don't want to talk about in turn, at fishing or whatever life in general. But definitely there's a million different ways you can do it and everybody has their own path. As far as is growing yourself, I did. I got a baby sitting right here in the bed. I can't believe she started screaming yet. So you're good. That's kind of the debt's kind of where I stand on that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I agree with all that. So, like, what do you do? I Think, sometimes, like for me, times where you're not catching them you know you have a bad mindset, maybe you just had a bad tournament. Or you know, two days practice has gone by and you haven't found nothing and you're like man, this sucks, I don't want to be here anymore. You know, like, what do you do in those situations? Or how do you, you know, keep a good mental state, because you know it takes an hour to find something in practice really good. Or you know, in the tournament, like making the decision.
Speaker 1:But I think it's important and I got to see that in college, a lot, a lot of guys would just give up, like there'd be, there'd be five or six boat tied tied up in the middle of the lake and they're just chilling because it's noon and they haven't caught a fish yet and you know it can come down to the last castle a lot of times. So the mentality is a huge factor in like being relentless. You know, as you're out there and those, that that type of mentality is how you find more fish. How do you, you know, rise above everyone else. So, like, what do you? What do you do in those situations when it's just tough, I mean?
Speaker 2:The more I fish and as I get older and the more I'm out there on the water, the less that stuff bothers me. It in the tournament is when I have the most trouble. Like if, if I had good practice and I'm in the tournament and things aren't going right, like I can feel that 400 pound gorilla like G always talks about, like that's whenever I that's what I have to fix. Like having a tough practice man, that's the best that I. Normally that's when I do the best, though. A Toyota that I won here was like one of the most Terrible adverse conditions that anybody had ever seen. Like people were saying you weren't gonna catch any bass, they wouldn't buy it an a-rig, things like that. And then my second best finish ever was at grand last year. You know as well as anybody how tough and terrible it was out there. The conditions were terrible, practice was terrible.
Speaker 1:I didn't get a buck freezing on the last day.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, it was all. It was all miserable and I was on Nothing like nothing going into that tournament and I just kept learning as I went and, you know, putting the troll motor down and forced myself to fish and like look for new stuff. And that's the easy part to me. The hard part is when I feel like I'm on something or I feel like I have to do well or Something like that, and I'm in the tournament and it's not working in the tournament. That's when it's tough and that's something I'm still working on, like I'm working on things like that can help me get through those situations, like controlled breathing and meditation and like Rick clon type stuff that that is gonna help take you to a place where you can fight through those tough battles you know what I mean like that's tough and it's always gonna be tough.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's ever gonna get easier, but it may get easier, but it won't go away. So there's a if that's an ever-changing, ever you know ever evolving process that I'm working on constantly. But as far as like having tough practices and lakes fishing tough and like knowing the tournament's gonna be tough, I thrive in those situations like that's what I like, but I don't like when I'm not catching them in the tournament, or like I thought I was gonna, something was gonna work and the plan Goes awry. That's when it's when I personally struggle. So I Don't know. It's something I'm working on. I don't really have a good answer for it, but I mean, what do you think? How do you break that down?
Speaker 1:well, um, I agree that, like one of the hardest things to do is learning how to change and Basically bail out on what you've, what you've found and like look for something new, because it's like safety and comfort, or it's even like a Spot that you know that there's fish here, like you had it Potomac Wait, where'd you say that was that yeah, I was told where you like had three pounders that were biting left and right, and then there were little bitty ones, you know, and then it's like, okay, at what point do I need to leave and find something new?
Speaker 1:But it's unknown, like I don't know if there's even gonna be any fish there, and just hope that it changes or hope that I, you know, catch a big fish, and I think that's one of the biggest things that people struggle with in tournament fishing and I a good example of being able to see the importance of this is Ken van Dam. When they're sagging all day this year, you know he the final day he was fishing around, fishing kind of his largemouth stuff, when he you know knows he needed to be catching small math and he's like I could stay here. But I would be, you know, I would be losing on purpose. Essentially I would be giving up if I stayed here and try to catch these fish. Like I have to go, try to Find something else or, you know, make something happen.
Speaker 1:So I think that's a that's definitely one of the biggest things and you know you just have to like keep grinding at it, like you got to keep looking. And so here's something really interesting that I think that you know a lot of people should hear is that? Um, whenever I was talking to Keith Carson on one of the last podcasts, he said that every year you did it. Yeah, every year he picks a a thing to work on and his most beneficial one was bailing, scrapping and so.
Speaker 1:Scrapping it? Yeah, and I was talking to him about so he won um, an npfl right patman a couple years ago and he said that he islands, he was catching fish around and day two of the tournament, like he smashed on day one, was leading and to start day two he didn't even start on those islands, like the wind was just blowing into a little creek or bay and he went in there and smashed him again and it was just because, like the conditions changed, the winds, you know shifted directions and he's like that's where I think I need to go. You know, like I don't need to waste any time on this other stuff, even though he caught, you know, 20-something pound back there. So I think the further you can get the head on bailing and and Following your instincts and finding new water, the further ahead you're going to be of everyone else.
Speaker 1:But it's the hardest thing to do. It is definitely one of the hardest things to do, like you said when you found fish or you know fish should be somewhere and I think it's hardest on Probably like those rocks for you, because it's really tough for me on tabarok, like I know where the fish live a lot of times, I know how big they are and I could just sit there and like I just want them to bite. I just need to catch one of these fish, you know, and I'd be good. But you know you could go to another spot 10 miles down the lake and first cast in there. You catch five pounder, like there's always those fish out there, and that's what I always have to tell myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you said something when you brought a Kevin Van Dyn that sparked something Uh in my mind and I've seen the clip. You've seen the clip, everybody's seen it. Uh, the clip of him, I think, is that Toledo been, it might even be the tournament where he got the hook in his hand. Uh, where he jumps off like four or five giants in a row and you just like looks at the cameras, like that don't happen off, and he flops fires back out there. And those are the things that don't really bother me that much, because those are uncontrollable things, right? So you're in a tough lake and the fish is tough, that's uncontrollable. The weather sucks, that's uncontrollable. You know you lose a fish of the boat, that's uncontrollable.
Speaker 2:It's the controllables that I struggle with, right, like it's your decision making, where you're choosing to do something or another. Um, and that's that's where I fight my mental battles like where, like you said, do I pull the plug? Do I scrap it? Do I bail? Do I go throw? You know, go run to the other end of the lake, things like that. Or I know they're here and I can't get them to bite, like these are the winning fish. Those are the, the mental struggles that I deal with a lot, but the uncontrollable stuff is the easiest. The easiest stuff to let go and to not let bother you, in my opinion, like that's the first thing I learned how to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with that. I've had that's making me think lately I've had tournaments, especially on table rock, I think, the toy, the championship. I did this when I'm like, okay, I know I have to move to go find some fish and I drive down the lake and I'll drive for a couple minutes and I'll turn, make up my mind on what I want to do or where I want to go.
Speaker 1:It's, it's and it's like that's the hardest decision for me to make while I'm out there, anywhere we go. Like you know, thing that stresses me out is making decisions because you have to hold.
Speaker 2:You have to hold yourself accountable. If you make the wrong decision, it's on you, it's not. It's not faith that something happened.
Speaker 1:You did. You know, yeah, yeah, exactly. But you never know like I could go. You know I got these two creeks. Say, at table rock there's bait. You know there could be zero fish in either of them. There could be 20 pounds waiting in both of them. You don't know. You know, am I? It's really hard to say you're making the right decision Now, I think one of the worst things to do is second guess your decisions, which something that I'm gonna try to be better at this year.
Speaker 1:It's like if my instincts tell me something, I'm gonna try to do it right away. Like I thought of it for a reason you know, and like the times when I think, oh, should I go here, should I go here? And I'm second guessing it. I think that's you know. Whenever things can go bad, you know and you don't make the right decisions, like following your instincts, because you know, like your 10 years of tournament fishing or you know however many days on the water that we've spent, like we learn something every day and our instincts are Our accumulation of all that stuff trying to tell us, you know, where the fish should be or what we should know. So try to work on this year, um, because it's it's definitely one of the most difficult things, I think.
Speaker 2:That's cool. Yeah, for sure I agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, and like dude, like those arcs, we got to talk about that now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the problem for me is Maybe it's because I haven't spent years much time on like those arcs, because I just dislike it and you can't even fish in the summer, really, um, because it's so bad. But dude, I've had so many times where I've gone out and caught fish and I'm like, oh yeah, I finally got figured out, and then I got the next day and I don't catch anything, I catch nothing. I catch like the skinniest 15 inches that I could possibly find. I found them, you know so I feel the same way about this.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, we got to figure something out here, because, like on table rock, I think that For me it's uh, you have to keep moving till you find them, because, table rock, it doesn't matter what time of year they're going to be in areas where other fish are, and I don't know if that's because maybe in the winter those fish move in giant groups, so much that, you know, in the spring, hey, like this is where we ended up, this is where we're going to spawn. You know, I don't know exactly, but the same time, in the same deal, you just got to keep moving because they're out there somewhere, there's a big school waiting to be caught somewhere. Like, you just have to keep moving. And for me it's about hitting a lot of targets, and you know a lot of them are suspended and that's what makes it difficult. But like on, on, like those arcs, I don't think you catch as many fish in a day or I don't anyway as I do on table rock, and maybe that's because there's the lack of species as well.
Speaker 1:There's three species to be caught so you can catch more fish.
Speaker 2:But it's harder for me to dial that in on on, like those arcs well, as far as catching a lot of fish, because I don't know what the number is, but like, if I don't, if I have days where I don't catch like 30 fish, I'm pissed Like third, I've I've gotten accustomed to catching a lot of fish.
Speaker 2:now that's winter time and summertime, you know you're not going to do that in October or September or whatever, but that it seems like when I do what my biggest strengths are, when I can go through a lot of fish, like I don't I'm not Drag a jig and catch five, five fish away, 20 pounds guy, I'm a numbers guy, uh, and I like to get feedback and see them. So To me, the the biggest key is being around a lot of them, uh, and trying to be be around as many of them as you can. And uh, ozarks, you know you said like the fish at table rock maybe are so pelagic that it's a little more random as to where they end up Every year, whereas Ozarks is very, very historical, I think, a lot of times, like winter time banks, summer time spots, as long as the conditions are similar, like your water color is the same or similar as what it was the year before, like we don't have big, massive fluctuations in the water. Uh, you know, like it this, like camp flood, and it doesn't, you know, it doesn't. It's not never more than like a four or five foot swing throughout the course of a year and it's never over pool.
Speaker 2:So the fish know they seem to have it in their head like where they want to be certain times a year, like the, the banks or the spots that I catch fish off of in the winter time. As long as the conditions are similar, I can tell you right now I'm going to go there and catch it like they're there. So that's definitely something to be said like. And they do have tendency to like, show themselves on your sonar one day and and not show themselves the other. Um and a lot of that's probably pressure and things like that, but Uh, no one where they get and just having the confidence to know they're there is a lot as a lot of it, um and like.
Speaker 1:I just have. I'm very confident that I know. So do you think it's about? Do you think it's about covering water and just learning the lake more? Because I mean, that's what it seems like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you, I fish A lot of this lake. I don't want to say I fished the whole lake, but my boat has been in every creek on this whole entire lake and and it's a it's a massive, massive place, uh, but Still yet, like this year, the last couple weeks, every time I've went out, I've fished stuff that I've never fished before, or at least something that I'm looking at through a completely different lens. Um, and a lot of the fish here Don't show themselves on your sonar until they're interacting with a bait, like either they're coming off the bank or they're coming off the bottom, and there's no way to tell that they were there until you put something in front of them to make them, you know, interact with it. As to where a lot of the time table you ever, you see it right.
Speaker 1:It's like opposite. Yeah, you see him, so do they. Do you ever see this has been a bass?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, hardly this year, this year, in the summertime, I I did really well Fishing for fish that probably shouldn't even say this, but fishing for fish that were up off the bottom, on spots that normally Because we had no current and so they floated a lot more, this year they were still around the spots that they normally would be when there's current moving. Um, and I was catching them, uh, just by targeting them and seeing them up, but you know, they may be over 40 foot of water, but only five foot down. You know, like they're they're floating, um, and so people were saying that they weren't there or they couldn't catch them, they weren't on their summer spots because they didn't have any current. Well, they just weren't on the bottom.
Speaker 2:Uh, so they definitely will float around and and then, like the days here in the winter time when they sit up high in the brush pile, that's, that's the days when everybody finds them or catches them, um, like you can definitely tell, like, one day They'll be at the bottom of the pile, one day They'll be at the top, and if they're at the bottom they're super hard to see, um, or maybe not even be able to see them at all. But if you, you know, if you're out there on the right day and they're floating up high in the brush or whatever, or in the water column, that's when you you can kind of take their definitely want to be in and it's probably gonna be good forever and ever.
Speaker 1:So during the wintertime, are you throwing to mainly targets? Are you fishing mainly banks, where you know there's fish, or a lot of both?
Speaker 2:It's uh, it's both, and they happen at different times, so like there's a time when they're on the bank and there's a time when they're not on the bank. That's all I'm gonna give you.
Speaker 1:So that's, all winner though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well like it. It seems like they start on one and then transition to the other. You can figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got you. Yeah, so you, so you won. You won a tournament with like what? 21 pounds, like one, two, three weeks ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a. Yeah, it was um.
Speaker 1:I had 21.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the angry pirate. I'm four for four in the last four in the last four little throw together now there's only been like 40 boats combined between the four tournaments.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's good. So I mean, what's the fishing been like? I mean, are they like full wintertime yet, or you in like?
Speaker 2:a transition. Yeah, no, it's definitely like in what I would call an early winter pattern a lot of fish not showing themselves, not really many structure fish and the fishing is really not that good. I just been covering a lot of water, you know I put in the trolling motor down and being bullheaded with what I'm doing and where I'm doing it and just fishing. I actually all of them have been one In different parts of the lake, all four of them.
Speaker 1:Really so. I mean, what's your? What makes that decision to go to those different parts of like? Is it conditions? Yeah, kind of conditions places.
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of that. Like I won one of them in the grave way. I won one of them in the glaze. I won one what we called like the B stretch, which is like the Shawnee Bend stretch, and I won one up like an entire area and it's just like a kind of a gut thing, kind of a. I'm bored with this part of the lake thing, or like not seeing it like I still did good, like I still ended up having a good day at the end Of the day, but it wasn't. It wasn't exactly how I thought it should be. So it's just like in constant evolution and feedback from being out there and just covering a lot of covering a lot of water and and that's no, it's no secret I mean I want all four of them on an eight rig. I never, I never, caught another fish on anything else.
Speaker 1:It's like do you hardly throw anything else?
Speaker 2:No, I made like three casts with a jerk bait in the last one and caught a crappie and that was it.
Speaker 1:And but like the thing is like.
Speaker 2:I could have caught them on an arig or on a jerk bait, but I can't cover in here as much water like I can just cover so much more water with the arig. One of the days I swore I actually didn't even have all I had was like an arig setup. I was really unprepared. I'd been doing something like the three days before the tournament and just showed up that morning had to rig an arig. I had to borrow an arig and rig one up like I had nothing and that day I was frustrated because I felt like I could have caught him better on a jerk bait and I just wasn't prepared for it.
Speaker 2:But in my mind, like here, especially if you can throw an arig and you know like they will bite it, you probably need to be throwing it like it. Like if, if it's below 50 degrees or even like 55 or below it, and if I go out in the day and I catch a couple like see them chase it or try to hit it, then that's what I'm gonna do, like that's how it's gonna prop, like it may not get one that way, but if I'm gonna win it's probably gonna be like that. I love jerk bait fishing. Don't get me wrong. It's literally, if I could choose any way like my favorite way to catch them is on a jerk bait. I absolutely love throwing jerk bait in the winter time. That's why I love the bass Bob so much, because I know nobody's gonna go beat me with an arig.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, because they can't throw the arig right in that tournament, right.
Speaker 2:No, no arig in that tournament. So guess what? We throw one bait, we throw jerk bait. Like we may have six of them or eight of them laid out, but we're going, we're going jerk bait fishing and I love jerk bait fishing and in there's days where it will by far outshine the arig. But you know to me like I can just cover so much more water by the end of the day. It's it's an easy thing for me to be out there, and if I'm catching them slow or they're not eating it like people put it down because they're hammering it and they won't Get hooked. They're doing that like crazy right now, just blowing through it. But I just know that if I don't lay it down and I keep my trolling motor Moving and I keep putting it in front of fish, by the end of the day I'm going to catch. I'm gonna catch five good ones.
Speaker 1:So whenever you have times like that, like you said, they're just blowing through, they rig and it's, you know, a lot of them don't bite. Do you ever like slow down and fish that same area or stretch with a jerk bait? Or do you just keep moving? Because Because, like on on table rock, there's a lot of suspended fish and I give them like one or maybe two casts and if they're, if they follow once and you know they, they get right on it, or you know they're not interested. I move on to the next fish, because there's enough fish out there that you can get in front of one that's gonna eat. So trying to figure out how that relates.
Speaker 2:No, lately, that's the approach I've been taken to, like I, if they're your first, your first chance at one's your best opportunity at one, unless they, like, keep making multiple efforts to eat it. I've caught a lot of fish recently actually by, you know, making multiple presentations, but it's not because they're not I mean like that they're hitting it on every cast type thing, like I'll throw at them until they act like they don't want it anymore and then I'm gonna keep going. I I'm not going back and forth with with the airing. Now, if it's a jerk bait tournament or, like you know, especially in a jerk bait tournament, I'll go back and forth and keep hitting, hitting a spot multiple times or revisit it multiple times. And I may revisit a spot with the airing in a tournament if, like I saw big ones, or like, thought I saw a giant or something like that.
Speaker 2:But for the most part I'm making, I'm giving them one shot and I'm gonna keep going like I'm just gonna keep going until I run into the right number of them that are gonna actually commit to it and eat it.
Speaker 1:So same type of thing you're doing. Yeah well, and that's why I like a jerk bait so much as you can make a little difference, to just barely get them to come up and eat it, you know. But like on table rock during the winter, I feel like it's even irrelevant to throw in a regular jerk bait anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah because there's so many schools of fish moving around out there and it makes it difficult to tournament fish too, because it's almost about who spends more time on the water. You know, like if you don't get a chance to practice and find fish, then that's all you're doing during the tournament like is just island around trying to find a group of fish, and if they're not you know large mouth then they're not thrown. So I don't know it's it's pretty difficult because there's gonna be a school of big ones out there somewhere, but it's really hard to beat that. You know, trying to fish a jerk bait or an a-rig like you can have some good days for sure. In recent tournaments, you know, guys have had good days on rock crawler or jerk bait or an a-rig whenever we have some conditions, but there's just so many fish out there deep that, but it's like you know it's hard to beat If you're, if you're demikian or ice jigging or whatever, like it's more like pick your prey type situation.
Speaker 2:All right, like you can put it in front of this, you know the exact fish that you want. I haven't ever really done it much that's I need to. I really need to get down there and do it like Because I need to. I need to do it to help home my skills, because that's something I really wanted to do a lot. But I, to be honest with you, have a really hard time leaving here to go to table rock in the winter time, like Now. You, you lift, you roll out a bed, catch 15 pounds. It's hard to go somewhere else, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah but I don't, I don't have much experience doing it and it bit me at the Toyota championship. I wasn't trying to do that. I. I got around to one of the good areas. I think that a lot of guys ended up catching them out on bait, but they weren't doing it great and the day I found it was like Really early in the morning and I was super excited to get out there and I just kind of looked at him for a little bit. Three, I don't didn't catch him and went to the bank, but I, dude, was just on a little side. Now I really felt like I was on. I don't know about the winning fish, but the fish to do really good in that tournament. But they were small mouth but I could point to you on a map and tell you, everywhere there was gonna be a school of small mouth and I was around a Lot of them, a lot of them, dude, and I couldn't get them to bite, anything like. I couldn't get them to commit to.
Speaker 1:Turn me, you couldn't uh-uh and because it was the conditions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I was wrecking them in practice, dude, wrecking them, I caught more. I caught doubles on an a-rig like four different times.
Speaker 1:Really. Yeah, at one point so how big, how big were these schools of small mouth?
Speaker 2:Oh Dude, stupid, like like hundreds, big really like, like at least 50 in every, every spot I'd go to in.
Speaker 2:And I could see if they were on the bottom and they were shallow, really shallow, and even in the tournament I could see them up there and I couldn't get them to bite anything like at one point in the Tournament or in practice. I had thrown an a-rig to this spot, got clobbered by a small mouth, it got hooked on a stump and Whenever I reeled it up, I got the, I got the fish and he had. There was other small mouth, whether they had pulled both the teasers off the a-rig and Another fish had pulled it off the other one off the stump, like like loaded. I just couldn't get them to bite and I and it was similar to how the guy that won, I think, was fishing Some of them were, you know, relating to the, to the trees and stuff, but they were shallow and it was a lot of pocket oriented stuff and like just some bad luck.
Speaker 2:My co-angler railed them on the second day Like he caught. He caught a three something pounds small mouth when he was trying to jab the bait out of the rocks with his rod tip on a single swim base like a boy, poking it that, like literally reeled all the way down to it, jabbing it out of the rocks and goes oh gosh, I got one and it's like a three and a half. Some pound ate it. I mean he was hung and it ate it off the bottom with us sitting right there, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just crazy stuff like that and it was just a weird deal but it was super frustrating. I couldn't get them to bite, but that's what kept me trying some like really finesse stuff out of them. Oh yeah, everything. I tried everything, Like tiny little Ned rigs and just I don't even. I can't remember. I'm trying to think but like they wouldn't eat a little.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they would need a little chi-tech and they were kind of too shallow like probably could have like hover strolled them, but that wasn't. That wasn't something that I've really really great doing probably. Yeah, yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't savvy on the on the hover strolling yet, but I've been thinking about it.
Speaker 1:So what were they relating to? I mean, like what, what made you be able to tell where those fish were at it? I guess it's kind of a dream was like.
Speaker 2:it was kind of like a drain thing, I think, like it's just like anywhere there was some gravel when it would, when it would, when it would you know, it's typical smallmouth like they were wanting to be on the gravel and it seemed like it ended up being pocket, pocket type Oriented stuff, like pretty much any pocket you went to for the most part.
Speaker 1:So was it like close to the main lake?
Speaker 2:Yeah, real, all, real close to the main lake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so were they like, because I catch a lot of fish there, fishing like the timber, like in those pockets that are close to the main lake, but like is that where you catch them?
Speaker 2:Were you like towards the back or the other backs, like in the very corners, like in the very back corners. Yeah, and if there was, if there was timber there at help, but they were in there at the base of it, they weren't, they weren't up um like up in, up in it um.
Speaker 2:I did have a typically like I was gonna say I had a giant. My co-angler saw it. I didn't get to see it. He said it's the biggest smallmouth he's ever seen his life hit a glide, a big glide. Um that I was watching on the scope and like it. It was just a weird situation. But he's like my co-angler goes oh dude, he's got it. And so I naturally went like this and didn't didn't catch it, where I think if I wouldn't have done that, I probably, if he wouldn't have said that, I probably would have caught it. But he said it had an. He said he saw it sideways in its mouth. So I mean what?
Speaker 1:are you know way gosh? Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Out of a tree. It's suspended in a tree and where I saw it in the morning Um, I think I think it followed a rig or followed a Followed a rig or something. And I saw it in the morning. I'm like I'm coming back and catching you later.
Speaker 2:Literally came back in the other day, made the perfect decision Like I'm gonna go catch that giant I thought it was a largemouth like I'm gonna go catch that giant, throw over there one cast comes out, clovers it right at the boat or no. What happened was I had the glide almost to the boat and I was watching on scope and knew that it was like it was right there and it must have tried to eat it Because like this big surface disturbance, like it's splash, but I never felt a thing, like it was like nothing touched it. But I'm looking at the scope and the sunshine in my face and I I hear it splash but didn't see anything happen. So I didn't really do anything. And then I like twitched it one more time and that's when my co-angler was like Dude, he's got it and I just had the hook and missed it and it was just too excited about the whole situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely would have got paid if I'd have caught that one, I think. If I remember right, I barely missed a check.
Speaker 1:Oh, did you really? What was your weight for two days?
Speaker 2:It was like 11 and 11 or something, all smallmouth yeah.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's crazy. That sounds like a blast. I think if you would, if we would have had like that cloudy, rainy, windy weather that we would have had in practice, then you would have smashed him probably. But it just got like calm and sunny. And you know, with them, fish being shallow, it's just hard to get them to bite. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Looking at the highlights, it looked like that guy won similar to how I was fishing, but he was uh, he was getting. He was fishing the same pattern but it looked like more tree oriented and he was just somehow getting them to bite. I know he's thrown that little jig with a net rig, but I mean I threw a little jerk dirks jig and stuff at him and couldn't even fight.
Speaker 1:Right. I feel like he was probably Fishing where more people like he had more water to himself, I think, and so you know this first time that those fish see a bait, it's way easier to catch them. So I'm assuming you're fishing down, like Kimberly say, to the dam.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I would. I didn't even go past Indian like I was, I was getting jacked by guy. I mean there's guys everywhere. That definitely didn't help. No, but after seeing what I saw in practice. I was like I got to do anything else, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a tough tournament too because, like I, the dam is like phenomenal that time of year. But the thing that sucks too is like that tournament taken out of state park.
Speaker 2:Just there's so many boats around so yeah, if it would have been a camera like city, if it had been a camera like city tournament, it might have been a little different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would have been a lot better, probably. So I had a problem, dude I. I was running around every day. I found fish every day of the tournament and just caught new fish.
Speaker 2:So were they getting on bait as they're getting on bait as the tournament went like because of that cold fronter.
Speaker 1:No, they were already on bait and I found a decent amount of fish in practice, nothing crazy. But the fish that I had found were all gone. What that? Or they turned into like little bitty ones and there just wasn't as many. And so, like the first day took me a while and like, right the end of the day I was fishing like around Cow Creek and found some bait on the main lake and Cold under 12. And then the second day, I'm like so I ran at the White River on day one. I'm like I'm not gonna do that again. You know I'm gonna stay down Lake and fish Cow Creek to Indian point and I ended up finding fish around Indian point and I didn't practice, but there were so many people down there, you know Fishing out in the middle of the creeks and stuff, but it's actually between the dam and Indian point. I just found some bait and there was smallmouth floating around.
Speaker 1:There was, there was a school of like 20 fish that I would go up to this point and this school of fish would like follow my boat and I would just drift back and try to catch him and they would never follow anything.
Speaker 1:And finally I threw a little hair jig to him and one of them just came up and ate it and it was like a three-pound largemouth so it's big school largemouth just kept following my boat around. And then on that same stretch I was in 40 foot of water or 35, and there was this big dots sitting on top of the stump and I'm like there's no way that's a bass, but I'm gonna throw to it for sure. And I threw my a jig to it and it sank right next to him and he followed it straight down and ate it and it was like it was like a three and three-quarter four pounder, but it had like a five pound head, you know. So I thought it was giant. And then the third day I started in that same area and there was a bunch of fish around and then I went across I didn't catch them in before and I caught. I Got 12 and a half pounds of smallmouth, like three or four times.
Speaker 2:What? What day was it that you were around, brad? Because?
Speaker 1:I think I was day three.
Speaker 2:You made Brad question his entire existence Put on an absolute clinic and he could not catch a bass.
Speaker 1:He's like I saw him throw back 12 pounds six times and I could, yeah so so, yeah, so what happened is there was a ton of bait in this creek and and there was fish floating everywhere, but there were schools, a largemouth, swimming around and they were deep, I mean they're like 60, 80 foot, and they were not around bait. I mean, all the bait was at the surface and I was just chasing around these schools and throwing it the new Picasso ice jig to him and Dude, I was catching every time I threw in there. I was catching one of them and I caught, I Cut, like a one that was over three, but all the rest of them were like two and a half, two and three quarters and yeah, like you said, I caught several limit 12 and a half pound limits of largemouth. And then I went across the creek and caught several 12 and a half pound limits of smallmouth.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how many fish I caught in that day, but it was just. I literally didn't leave that little, that little area all day because I was just catching all day long and I had like 15 and a half. Good, because, like the largemouth weren't schooled up yet, like they were still spread out, you know, like their fall deal, and so, like I went in pre practice and I caught several four to five pounders Largemouth that were schooled up like in schools of, like you know, 20 or 30, but then in the tournament you know I couldn't find that and Everyone was catching spots in smallmouth and that's why the weights were kind of a little bit lower than I thought they were gonna be.
Speaker 2:Look, I was surprised how many small or how many spots were getting weighed in like by guys that were doing good.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, that's because the spots in the smallmouth is what? Like largemouth didn't hardly play. Like I weighed, I Don't know, maybe half my fish were largemouth or a little under half, you know, but a lot of guys were not catching largemouth and that was. That was the reason why, those spots that way decent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did get on that dock deal pretty good, but I I couldn't get myself to leave those smallies, like every time I went to a big dock. I could, I could catch them off, those docks just drop shot and then stuff, but I, I just couldn't get myself to leave those smallmouth because I knew what was there and I just I Don't know, I couldn't get myself to leave it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think those become a popular thing, like fishing a football jig. Flip them into the stalls, you know, 15 to 45 foot deep. I Think if you could take the weight from all the fish under docks you'd have mega bags every day. But it's just, they get fish so much and it's really hard to give them to bite you know it's hard oh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, they'll follow, they'll follow everything down. You could, you could, I would skip a demici right under there and give Me to follow it out. But you know, I cut some spots and a couple little largemouth but Just get where you see it. They're just so pressured.
Speaker 2:Were you seeing a giant bag every day, cuz I definitely was like under the oh yeah, I could, oh no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and I, I, I fished it a lot on day one and that's why I Struggled most of the days, cuz I wasn't around active fish. I was trying to catch those big ones and it was just impossible, dude. I mean, some days they'll bite and some, you know, a lot of the time they don't. And so I, I, I, I dock fished every day a little bit, you know, cuz I know it's there, but it's just hard to give them to bite, and I think that's where a lot of those largemouth are.
Speaker 2:They gotta be. I mean their largemouth. It's normal of them right, but I don't know, definitely would like to get some revenge on on that. That term and I was upset with it just felt like once again I was, I was on, I just didn't, couldn't get it all to come together. Not great decision-making, not, my fish were too pressured, but it's hard when you see them.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, that's how it goes, though I mean Different conditions and maybe they would a bit and you would have smashed them. You know it's hard to say.
Speaker 2:But I was mad at myself for not getting on the bait deal. But, like I, I looked a lot. I looked a lot and, like I said, I've never really done it that much and I found a lot of bait but I couldn't find fish on the bait.
Speaker 1:Right, it was weird. It was. It was crazy Because I don't know what made this happen. The water for temperature was warmer than normal, plus, you know, the lake was low and coming down, which is really low now.
Speaker 1:But there was so many, so much debate on the main lake and there was absolutely like almost zero in the creeks. You know, there was like a little bit here and there and that's usually when, as good as when, the bait is in the Creeks because they're more confined and that's pre find the fish. But a lot of the bait was on the main lake and so that's what it was so hard to like find those fish and stay with them and, like you said, like maybe some of the the little pockets closer to the main lake would have them. But I think that's why another reason it was like a tougher to wait in is because I've never seen it where it's that I Don't say difficult, but where there's that many fish that aren't in creeks. And like drew he ended up getting third, he literally caught all of his fish in the main river channel just around bait. He would just graph around, find some bait, fish it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I was gonna ask. Like I noticed something crazy in that tournament when I was looking for that bait. Like you could be in a hundred feet of water right idling or, you know, looking with your troll water, whatever you're doing, and Like you're coming up to the channel and it's a hundred feet here and 120 feet in the channel, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing get to the edge of that channel bait. How do those, how does the bait, know that they're sitting over that channel? They like I don't get it, like even if they're five feet down, they will be right on the edge of that that break. That's a hundred feet below the surface, like they feel it.
Speaker 1:No, they, they always do that and they'll get chased off of it, and I think that's what pushes them out of that channel more than anything is when they get chased. But they do they. They relate to the dead center of the channel 90% of the time and I don't know why. Whenever they're up higher, I mean it makes sense. When they're down there closer to the bottom, you know, because they have, you know, it's like it's something to follow, it's like a road right. But when they're, yeah, up higher, like that, they still do and I, I don't know why, I don't.
Speaker 2:Understand how they can tell that they're over the channel like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:It was weird. But yeah, that's where I mean I was finding all those all. I found a ton of that bait around that cow Creek Bend down there and that's where the only place I saw fish on bait the whole week and I just ignorantly overlooked it. I think, you know, if I would have stuck with it a while, I probably would have found some fish. But I mean, I saw, I definitely saw some, but it was just short-lived, I didn't give it the time I should have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think you should get used to chasing bait because I think that Just about every Toyota series championship that we have from here on out will be bait oriented, you know, because it's it's always that October, november and that's. I mean they're around bait, like like Gunnersville last year, you know Most of top 10 chasing bait. This year your table rock was obvious but, like even next year, we're going to the Tennessee River and I guarantee that's all it's gonna be. You know, it could be on the main river, could be in creeks, you know, but that's, that's what's gonna Dominate the top 10, I think.
Speaker 2:That's certainly a skill that I need to, I need to hone in on for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little bit easier when they're not as deep as table rock, though table rocks a Difficult place. I mean, I caught fish back in creeks. I caught fish up the river and I caught fish literally on the main channel around Indian Point. Like there were some trees that were like a hundred feet deep but the channel is, like you know, 200 feet deep and they were just up off the channel in these trees and there was bait everywhere. So I'm around and I think it just makes it difficult because they get so spread out, like this fish have so much water Volume they could be in. You know, it just takes forever to find them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to hit them too in a hundred foot of water, like it's hard to hit.
Speaker 1:Oh, it is yeah, they move so fast so.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I definitely need to get down there, though, and work on it for sure.
Speaker 1:Yep. Well, dude, we covered a lot of good stuff today. Thanks for talking to me for an hour and 40 minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no problem, I like doing these. I've been like I said, I reached out. I wanted to get you, get you on this deal anyway, so thanks for having me. Yeah, I think. I think we definitely.
Speaker 1:I think we should definitely do some more. As the season goes on and you know concepts that we're talking about, because you know it'll change throughout this year and as we get to fish these tournaments that we think we're excited about, we'll see how that actually goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. That'll probably be completely opposite of what we think, but yeah yeah. So now we should do some out on the road or something like that. Maybe that'd be. That'd be fun if we can figure out a way to do it, but I like, I like doing it. So I appreciate you having me and anytime you need somebody on, hit me up.
Speaker 1:All right, thanks, man, appreciate it Well. Good luck this season and I'll be seeing you right.
Speaker 2:Right on man.
Speaker 1:Thank you All right, see you, man.