Day 2 still in the top 10!!!

Well its day 2 and I’m still in striking distance.  I am in 9th place and only 5 pounds out of first and 2 from 6th which is the cut for day 4.   I’m really happy with how I have done so far. I mean my practice wasnt the best and summer time fishing isn’t my strong point.  But I have learned a lot this year about staying true to yourself and fishing your strengths.   I love fishing shallow and that’s what I’ve done this week.  I’m just fishing my strengths. It’s not been easy but it working. Today I never had a bite till 1:00.   Talk about getting worried. Knowing your setting in 7th place and in reach of the leaders, you start to worry about zeroing.  But that’s fishing and it happens, but I was determined it wasn’t happening to me today.   I just kept  at and did a lot of praying on the water. At 1:00 I made a move to another area  and BAM in 30 minutes I had a limit.  Talk about being excited and taking a load off your  mind.  I ended up with 9 pounds and that kept me in the top ten.  I made the first cut of the top 30. Tomorrow they cut to the top 6.  I need a big bag to make it.  There were a lot of guys who caught them today. So there figuring them out.   All I can do is keep plugging away and hope for the best.

 The Frogtape booth at the Fun Zone was a big hit today.  My Parents and my Girlfriend are working it and they had a blast.   They were amazed at the people who came by and had seen the commercials and have used it. If you havnt tried FrogTape and your doing some painting you are so missing out.

Day 1 Forrest Wood Cup 7th place

What a day one. Today was a great day. I didn’t catch alot of fish but I caught the right ones. The day actualy started off pretty good. I went to my first two spots and caught two good keepers.  After that it was a lot of down time. I ran all over the lake, from the river to the dam.  I went out to my deep stuff  for a few hours and never had a bite.  It was 12 and I only had 2 fish, so I decided to hit the banks, it was a good choice.  I ended up catching 3 good ones.  I weighed in 13.02 which put me into 7th place. 

Tomorrow im going for broke. I need another 13 pounds to put me where i need to be. I have a lot of places i still havn’t fished so hopefully I can catch another big bag tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Day 2 practice was a wash

Day two of practice for the cup.  Well  about the only thing I have to blog about today is the rain storms.  Today I went to a different part of the lake and the bite was very slow. We only caught 1 keeper today and a bunch of short fish.  We spent more time running from storms and sitting under docks out of the rain than anything. It rained like crazy here today at times I mean RAIN.   Tomorrow I am heading yet to another part of the lake to test the waters there. Hopefully it will be a more productive day.

Day 1 Practice on Lanier

Today was the first day of practice for the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Lanier. I have been here twice  for practice back before the lake went off limits. Those 8 days I spent down here were pretty slow.  There was only one day that I had a respectable limit.  I did  a lot of looking and learning the lake. Lanier is a big clear lake, dominated by spotted bass. There are large mouth here but most tournaments are won off spotted bass.  This time of year they are mainly deep, like 20 t0 40 feet.  You can catch them on top when they school, but its a early bite usualy.  The large mouth are normaly caught up the rivers or in the back of the creeks. 

My day one practice went pretty well. I had a very good limit by my standards. I would have to say it was around 12 to 13 pounds.  It was by far the best day I have had on Lanier.  Maybe it was a fluke but I caught them all pretty much the same way.  All I can hope for is that I can do that four days in a row.  

Tomorrow is a new day and I am heading to a new part of the lake to see if this patern I found will hold up there too. Check back in tomorrow for day 2 results.

Scratching my head at the Cherokee PAA event

Well I have to say I am clueless at Cherokee.  I have been here before in the fall.  At that time the water is usually 20 to 25 feet low.  So I have been able to make a mental map of the lake.  I have seen the structure in this lake, the rock piles, the brush piles and all the good stuff. Now all that is in the 20 foot range with the lake being full pool.  This time of year with the hot weather and the hot water, you would think the fish should be in 20 foot of water making the things I know good. Well that’s definitely not the case right now.  I had 3 days of practice before our first day of the tournament and I only caught 1 keeper in 3 days.  I will have to say I talked to a lot of guys who never caught a keeper. It’s just crazy tough right now for some reason.  

Today was the first day of the tournament and I managed to boat 2 keepers for whopping 2.33 pounds.  The leaders only have 14+ and 30th place is 7 pounds.  I figure its going to take 13.5 pounds to get a check.  So my goal for tomorrow is to catch a minimum of 13 pounds.  Can I do it? I sure hope so. I have in the past so I’m going to give it my all and see what happens. 

I do know that the people in Eastern TN love them some FrogTape.  I have done 3 Paint Block demos this week at the gas stations. (To see that demo log onto FrogTape.com.) People come up and asked me about FrogTape and some came up and told me their success stories using it.  Once again I have yet to meet a person who hasn’t been satisfied with FrogTape.  I’m telling you, if you are painting and you havent tried FrogTape you need to give it a try. You can get it at Sherwin Williams, Lowes, and Wal-Mart.  If you use it, do me a favor and send in your results and what you think of the product to FrogTape.com

Thanks

Brian

ShurTape’s T-Rex Duct Tape to the rescue

I’m sure most everyone is familiar with Duct Tape.  ShurTape the makers of FrogTape have come out with a new Duct Tape called T-Rex.  This stuff is the strongest tape out there. I don’t think there is a sportsman out there that doesn’t have a role of Duct Tape in his truck, boat or tool box or four-wheeler. I speak from experience, I have used it for just about anything.  

Used T-Rex to hold this together for one of the booths

This week T-Rex and a roll of Black Duct Tape came to the rescue.  I didn’t get a picture of the Black Duct Tape, but it was used to hold an Outboard motor cover together.  These pictures say it all.

blown up nice an tight thanks to T-Rex

T-Rex used to fix a busted Transducer. It held for 6 days of fishing under water

Guntersville Fun Zone

FrogTape booth stealing the show

The FrogTape boat was on display at the Guntersville Fun Zone this week. Again we had a great two days.  It still amazes me at the amount of folks that come by and say they have used FrogTape.  And still I have yet to have one person tell me they didn’t like it.  It seems to be a big hit with the new mom’s in the world.  I have meet so many mom’s that have repainted the nursery in there house or remodled the kids bedroom.   They love it!!  No touch ups  and straight lines is what I hear. Im telling you,  FrogTape is the best painters tape out there, No Questions asked.  It does exactly what it says it does.  It Keeps Paint Out and Keeps Lines Sharp.   You can get FrogTape at Walmart, Lowes and Sherwin Williams.   I think every home in America needs a couple of rolls.

Guntersville Recap.

All I can say if you have never experienced Lake Guntersville you are missing out on the best bass fishing in the country.  Guntersville is an amazing place. There are so many bass in that lake in the 3, 4 and 5 pound range it is truly unreal. 

This week I did stay shallow.  Most all the guys were fishing the ledges and humps and for granted that was the winning pattern.  I tried to fish out deep a few times in practice bust just never got comfortable on any spot.  By heart I am a bank beater and shallow water is where I am comfortable.  So I went with my strengths and stayed shallow.   During practice I had some bream beds that were holding some monster bass. So my  game plan was to run those early and then run shallow docks and grass.  For some reason I could never get a big bite off the bream beds but the docks and grass worked out for me. 

I ended up in 19th place this tournament and I am very proud of that.  The reason being I went out and  fished my strengths and how I like to fish.  In A lot of tourney’s you get caught up in the dock talk and what every one else is doing.  If you listen to all that it will hurt you more than help you. 

The first day I kinda stubbed my toe a little and only had 15.2. I never missed any good ones, just never got a big bite. On Guntersville 15 pounds is nothing.  That put me in 86th after the first day.  I will admit I was a little down on myself.   I knew there were big fish shallow and I was determined to stick to my game plan.  The second day I came in with 22.14 pounds.  I just had an awesome day. I fished shallow throwing a jig and whacked em!!  That moved me up to 26th.  Day three I stuck to my shallow pattern and it was a different day. At 10:30 I only had 3 small fish and I got a little scared the shallow deal wasnt going to pan out. I decided to run hit one deep spot that I found in practice. I ran there and limited out in about 30 minutes and caught one in the 4 pound range.  After that I went back to my shallow stuff.  I ended up catching 2 in the 5 pound range after 1:00, I had to weigh in at 2 so I was cutting it close.  But thats the way they were biting.  It seemed the shallow bite got better for me after lunch time. The reason being is that once the sun got up and the temps hit the 90’s it positioned the fish where I could catch them.  Over all it was a great tournament and I’m happy how things turned  out.

The NC boys represented in this one.  We took 1st,3rd,9th,13th, and 19th place. Not to bad for the  nc gang.

HOT weather and HOT fishing

Hey first I want to apologize for the lack of blogs this week. I have had a little issue with being able to get  logged on to the net.  The signal is not the greatest here. 

But talk about hot weather. WOW has it been hot this week.  Water temps have hit the mid 90’s. I actually found water pushing 96 degrees the last day of practice.  It’s not even worth jumping in to cool off.  It feels like a  hot tub.  Even thought the water is hot the fishing is pretty hot too. We are talking about Guntersville here. This has to be one of the best bass fishing lakes in the country bar none.  It is amazing at the amount of people who fish this lake on daily basis. The fishing pressure is unreal but yet you can still go out and catch 20 pounds a day.  There was a tournament here last Saturday that took 35+ pounds to win.  Yeah that is not a  typo 35+, he had two over 9 pounds.  I’m telling you this place has got some pigs.  We’ve been able to catch them just about any way you  want to this week.  I will have to say that it sounds like you can just go out and catch them by the hundreds, but that’s not the case. The avg bass here will weigh like 3 pounds so catching a bunch of good ones each day is normal.  The fishing is still tough. I make it sound easy but its actually grind each day. But here at Guntersville you just never now what cast that 9 pounder will bite, which makes it exciting all day.

I think this week the tournament will be won doing a mixture of shallow and deep fishing.  There are a ton of fish in this lake and the top ten will take at least 20 pounds a day.  I hope to be part of that. I have found a few good places but once again I have some pretty bad boat numbers. This lake is one you want an early boat number to get on your spot. I’m boat 106 so I’m pretty sure I wont be able to hit my best spot first, but you never know.  If I can get there and get them to bite,  oh man watch out the Frog man could have a serious bag.    I weigh in at 3 pm central so check in to see how my day went.  I truly hope and pray I can catch them. 

This week I knew the weather was going to be hot and the mental part of the game comes into play. If you start thinking negative thoughts and letting the heat get to you, you will eventually just wear down.  I had an idea before I left to make some positive thinking flash cards.  So me and my girlfriend Kristin sat down the other night and wrote out about 10. My mom  gave me a book for Christmas on positive thinking and I took some quotes from it as well as one from Kristin. I have read over those every day, and throughout the day I try  to keep a positive outlook over the heat and sometimes lack of bites.  I will have to say it is a new thing for me and it really has helped out.  It’s definitely something I am going to keep on doing in the future.

Gettin Froggy at Guntersville.

Today was my second day of practice on Guntersville.  I wish I could say that I’m catching 20 pounds a day.   Hopefully tomorrow I can say that.  Guntersville has to be one of the funnest places to fish I have ever been.   You can catch them just about anyway you want.  The key is figuring out where the big ones are.  I have tried to go shallow and deep.  naturally shallow is where I love to fish.  So for me being able to catch them shallow is always fun.  With Guntersville having an abundance of  grass, there are always fish biting shallow. The past two days I have been able to catch them on  a frog and a swim bait.  I have caught a bunch but by Guntersville standards not any big ones.  Now for me, fishing humps and ledges is a bit hard.  I will admit this is where I kinda feel out of my element.  Growing up in NC and around Lake Norman we just never fished that way.  So when I’m out there fishing off shore I am definitely learning.   I honestly think that this time of year on a lake like Guntersville out deep is where the big ones are.  They will be schooled up on the ledges and off the humps.  Usually we try to catch them on deep diving crankbaits, Carolina rigs, jigs and texas rigs. So for tomorrow I’m heading out deep.  I will hopefully find that some productive areas that will pay off during the tournament. 

If I catch any I will take some better photos than in the past.  I ran across a product today called the Picture Pole. It’s a pole with a universal camera mount that fits in  your pedestal seat hole.  Giving you a camera stand.  It’s a great product, if your interested email Rick at picturepole@att.net tell him  I sent ya.