In case you missed it last week was the FLW Costa Championship on Kentucky Lake, if you missed it, that's ok, I was there and I missed it as well. Kentucky Lake is known for it's spectacular summer ledge fishing...not its fall fishing. It is the most humiliating week I have ever spent on a lake. First the ugly, I had never zeroed in an FLW event before, and not only did I blank on day 1, I followed it with a blank on day 2 as well. What's worse is this was, after my practice, absolutely no surprise.  There was little reason to pre-practice as the fish would have been out deep not long ago, so when I arrived mid-day last Saturday, about 6 hours behind when official practice started, it was the first time I had ever set eyes upon the lake. And it is gorgeous, good water color, leaves on the trees were brilliant, so I dumped my Ranger in and went north, which oddly there is downriver as the lake actually flows south to north. I checked an area a friend had told me about and got no bites, nothing really interesting, so I came about half way back up the lake to about 7 miles from Paris Landing where we were fishing out of and caught a solid 2 and one about 3 1/2 in the back of a creek on a Biffle Bug. That was my action for the day, so next morning I headed south, way up the river to the New Johnsonville area where the BFL regional was won a few weeks prior. Fishing dark til dark, I never had a bite...well actually I caught a skipjack on a squarebill. So Monday I came back south and over the course of a day, again dark to dark, I had one keeper bite, a 5 lber from about 12" of water I saw chasing bait. So Tuesday, my last day of practice I decided that I had to find the bait, as I was seeing very little shallow so I went out and starting in the river idled up a creek until I saw bait, which were piled in a corner, first cast with a C-Rig produced what I surmised was a barfish, second cast the same, third cast similar bite but it held on, a 6 lb largemouth. I didn't make another cast on the spot and fished 20 more similar spots until dark ran me off the water...that was the last keeper bite I saw while I was there (not only did I not catch any, I never saw a keeper caught). I wasn't alone, over 40 of the 193 pros that qualified and fished blanked both days. The FLW Tour angler of the year Bryan Thrift made us all feel small with 27 lbs day one, but Ky Lake bit him the following two days when he could only muster two fish on day 2, and blanked on the final day. One guy caught a limit all three days, of 193 pros only 7 caught limits both the first two days, get this, the 2nd-10th place guys that fished the last day, had the lake all to themselves, they weighed 8 fish, total, 9 guys that had "figured it out" weighed 8 fish with all that money on the line.  I have never seen fishing that tough in my life, and I'm glad to be back in Texas...only problem is I'm going back up there this weekend for the Wildcard, after having seen 4 keepers in 7 days of fishing.

Red River....seriously, enough already. This is, truthfully I can't keep count, but why do they continue to go to places where the fishing stinks. And worst why does everyone continue to follow giving them positive reinforcement by going to places where the fishing is so bad. To go on record, we are competitive on rivers, the last championship we fished was 2013, on, big surprise, the Red River, and we cashed a check. But since then we have either fished, or paid our entry fees to qualify for the championship and not fished another since. This is not our jobs, we take vacation days to go do this, I like to have fun on my vacation days, what you are putting your loyal followers/customers through is not fun (and for the record, we didn't go). 220+ teams, first day, 13 limits, 5.5% of the field caught a frickin limit. A third of the field zeroed, and this wasn't "had fish and turned them back", everyone knew day one how bad the fishing was, if you had a 12"er you weighed it as just over 5 lbs was in the money day one. After two days, two teams weighed 10 fish......32% of the field didn't weigh a fish. And don't tell me "oh the floods", last year at the Sabine, 11 lbs a day wins, and besides bad fishing, how many guys, on their vacations from work, are tearing up their gear hitting stuff at both these places. I realize there are a limited number of places they don't go for regular season events, but I think if they asked us, most of us would WAY rather go to Falcon, yes drive 500 miles, to have FUN, we don't really care that another division fishes it, no matter where you go there are going to be locals. Last time we were there we had 61 lbs for 2 days and got the LAST place check, who cares, we had a ball, we literally culled a 5-2, now that is fun fishing. Just do us this favor...ask us, you have our email addresses already, send us a survey monkey and list 20 lakes and ask us to rank where we would rather have a championship, I think you would be surprised, we just want to go have fun, catch fish, and the bigger the better. Rayburn, Toledo, Amistad, Falcon, Texoma (I know hard to write that), Cooper, Eufaula, Lake O'the Pines, Quachita, Grand, go crazy, send us two emails first asking for suggestions and then the survey monkey. 

Oh and FLW BFL, pay attention here, those guys aren't happy being over this week either.    

I have said for the last 3 years, the years I have been trying through the FLW Costa events, that when I qualified for the FLW tour I would go up and fish it. Been something of a dream for me but I put off trying because I have had a very successful career in the life insurance business for the past 30 years and the time away didn't see to make sense from an economics standpoint. And here, 2017, was my shot. Going into the last event I sat in 8th, I fumbled at Texoma and fell to 16th, I didn't qualify, I hear I can still get in if I want, so I put a pen to it. Everyone on tour talks about making the Forrest Wood Cup, that's the goal, the top 40, the guys that had a great years. Of those 40 guys only 7 guys made over a $100,000 in total winnings, which if you think about it makes some sense, 8 tournaments including the Cup, the top guy in each makes $100k and another $25k if he's in a Ranger, from there it falls off a cliff. Second is $30k, 10th, you make $15,000. From those top 7 money winners for 2017 it falls fast and hard. Even if, from a points standpoint you had a great year, David Dudley finished 5th in the points, but only won $69,000 for the year (likely a net of $30kish, see math below) Of the 40 that made the cup a couple grossed in the $70-$90's, but you have to consider expenses, entry fees alone for 2017 were $31,500, one of the guys that qualified for the Cup didn't even come close to covering his entry fees. Maybe he paid them, maybe he didn't, but I know a bunch of these guys personally, a boat and motor deal is a regular deal for them. But cash sponsors, continued.....

Went down to Rayburn for a little fun fishing and to donate to a good cause for the weekend. We paid-up, even not having been on Rayburn for several weeks, and fished Keith Comb's benefit tournament. The results were extremely impressive, over 28 to win, nearly 21 to get a check. We certainly had our chances even though we hadn't been on the water, we had a couple nice fish dropping a Yamamoto Flappin Hog in the grass on a 1 ounce tungsten weight, I will say, incredibly impressed how well my Lew's rods and reels performed grass fishing. It's been so long since I have done much of it, I paired a BB1 Pro Speed Spool in a 7.1:1 retrieve ratio with two different rods, a 7'4" Magnum Pitching LCLMPS and a 7'6" Magnum Flipping LCLFRH. Both of these are big, meaty rods. I also for the first time flipped Seaguar's 80# Kanzen braid, super strong, super thin stuff. It appears from what we saw, and heard, that the bigger fish were out deeper, mostly on wood. We had our chances, I had two different fish, including one that felt like I hooked a submarine, that I just could not coax out of a 26' deep brush pile late in the day. Really frustrating to know that you had the bites to do well, if not win. But for zero practice, we had the bites, great fun. Also looks like the fish are trying to school some, we didn't chase them as 3 lber's don't help at Rayburn at the moment, but lots of fun if you're just wanting to go fun fishing. If you are heading down you can catch numbers around the abundant grass, I mean matted to the top, we fished from Fire Tower up the west side all the way to the Canyons, and there are acres and acres of beautiful hydrilla, a little more water, and about 60 degree water temp, and it's going to be one awesome trap bite this year!