Most of my fishing friends might be surprised to find that I am a numbers geek. And when you get a numbers geek that should be fishing, but is instead at work, and doesn't want to be at work, you get this. Top 10 going into the points race for AOY at Ft Gibson, 5 Texan's (including 1-2 & 3), 3 from Oklahoma, a Louisiana and wait for it, Wisconsin native Jesse Wolfe. The first 3 guys, well they had a rough day one, 4th place Oklahoman Kyle Cortiana needs to make up 20 points on Cecil to win AOY, and he was ahead of him by 45 spots after yesterday and Zack Birge, a young local from Blanchard Ok made a serious move up from 8th in AOY in 3rd after day one. However nipping at their heels, in 5th place is a guy named Jesse Wolfe from Nelson Wisconsin....seriously, this guy drove 1,097 miles, one way to fish the Rayburn event...over 16 hours, one way. Now granted Ft Gibson is WWWWAAAYYYY closer to Nelson Wisconsin, only 708 miles. My best calculation is Jesse (who I don't know, but have to meet) has spent over 70 hours covering over 5,000 miles to fish three tournaments. Since, as a transplanted Texas, it is hard to cheer for the local Oklahoma boys, I'm rooting for a Badger from Wisconsin to make up the ground on Cortiana today and capture AOY. By the way if they finished today OK local Zack Birge would have jumped from 8th to AOY with 697 points, followed by Cortiana at 691, then Sprague, Dobson and Wolfe....but I just gotta cheer for Wolfe.     

Wow, I mean...wow. Ft. Gibson Rayovac first, you have Cecil and McCall go in last tournament of the year 1-2 for AOY and they can't catch a limit between them, that guys is brutal fishing. Nick LeBurn (congrats on the twins) has been able to catch 15-17 lbs from a mud puddle in a parking lot anywhere this year and I think he had 2-3 fish. Just brutal, let's see if my prediction of most that caught them today struggling tomorrow holds up. Over to the Regional on Chick in TN, not much different, little bird tells me Jeremiah Kindy, day 1 leader had a couple of fish at 1:00 and got 2 8 lb fish late in the day on a ....yeah can't do that to him. I think my prediction of low 20's making 3rd day cut are dead on. Funniest comment of the day, I text Ed Klobas, who had 1 at Gibson today how happy I was that I stayed home vs that kind of brutal fishing and he responded simply "I was lucky to catch that one"...

In case you are not following closely there are two significant events happening this week. Closest to home is the 3rd of 3 of the Southwestern Division of the Costa FLW Series on Fort Gibson in Oklahoma. This is the first of the series that I have set out in the last few years but paying the bills takes precedent in this case and with my overall standings for the year staying home, especially being out most of next week at the Bass Champs Championship, seemed to make sense. From talking with buddies this is going to be a have and have not tournament beyond what we normally see. Lots of "spot" fishing, probably some pretty interesting encounters between anglers day to day. Prediction is some guys will have big stringers on one day and basically no show's on others. Sounds from the 6-7 guys I'm hearing from that high 20's makes the 2 day cut, low 40's wins going away, but we shall see.

About 600 miles east in central Tennessee the second of the BFL regionals starts tomorrow on Chickamauga. Per buddies up there huge expanses of shallow grass, some blow up's, some pull-down's, but overall really, really brutal fishing. Dead in the middle of the transition summer to fall, have to think this little cool front heading that way helps some, but I'm hearing 20 lbs may make the cut and mid 30's will win. Should be entertaining to watch.  

If you haven't been on Rayburn recently the fishing has been pretty good, and in some places great. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I found one of those great places the Sunday before Labor Day. In the span of about 3 hours I probably boated 40 fish up to about four and a quarter. Although I knew I couldn't catch the 31 lbs that Clayton and Albert caught a few weeks earlier, I also knew something in the high teens with a chance to get lucky with a big fish or two and get into the 20's was worth an entry fee. My fish were north and if you haven't been up there recently the awfully invasive giant salvinia (its scientific name is better, Molesta Salvinia) has covered up vast shoreline and bays all the way down below the 147 bridge. I happened to be on the phone with Albert on Thursday and he knew the area I was fishing, and he gave what can only be described as an evil chuckle. When I pressed him as to the chuckle he warned me to be careful depending on that area as he had witnessed the Corp spraying the area trying to kill the salvinia on Wednesday. Unfortunately I was familiar with what happens when defoliant gets sprayed on the area you are fishing as it happened to me in a Bass Champs championship on the Red River several years ago. Even more unfortunately I was only able to find one other small group of fish on Friday, so with one 3 lber in the bag after a pass on the fish I found Friday I went up there and spent almost 3 hours trying to coax those fish into biting. What was really strange is there were still numbers of small fish in the area, but alas only one over the 3 lb mark landed on my carpet. Add a 4 1/2 on a frog off the other fish late in the day and that's how one gets their butts kicked at Rayburn in September. Can anyone say skake bitten in 2016?