Wednesday – November 14 – Tournament Day 1
Day 1 was a beautiful looking day for fishing.  My partner Brian Greenwood from Vermont made it to our starting area in the back of Gray’s creek.  Had it all to ourselves, I started throwing my Vixen hoping to draw some fish up and my partner drug a senko behind the boat.  Nothing happening, I then tried a BuzzR Bait, DT6 and an Inchi Wacky Rig, not a bite.  I think we each caught one channel pickerel each.  We then tried some areas in Little Creek, I saw several nice fish cruising in there, but could not elicit a strike from any of them.  I finally broke out my flippin’ stick and started dropping a black neon speed craw on a 3/4oz Tru-Tungsten Flippin’ weight rigged on a 3/0 BMF Hook.  I switched my flipping rig from braid to 20# Fluorocarbon during the tournament hoping to get some more bites.  I quickly got a 12″ keeper on that.  On the way out, my partner caught a small keeper on a white super fluke.  Activity seemed to be picking up, so we headed back to Gray’s.  I quickly caught a decent keeper on my mat punching rig.  I then caught two quick shorts, couple pickerel, and had a few more missed bites, kind of a small flurry of activity.

Time was running a bit short, so I ran to my area in Bussey Recreation area.  I tried the crankbait there and then went back to flipping.  I missed one bite and then lost about a 1.5lb fish next to the boat that I saw.  It was soon time to go, tried cranking near the check in and caught a small perch.  Frustrating day for my partner and I both.  My two keepers weighed 2.61lbs, that left me in 165th place out of 222 guys on the boater side at the end of day 1.

Thursday – November 15 – Tournament Day 2
I had decided that I needed to change things up on Day 2 for my sake and my partner’s sake.  My non-boater Anthony Ferranto was in 4th place after day 1.  He had caught his fishing dragging a baby brushhog on a carolina rig.  I had decided I was going to start the day on main lake points and see where the day took me.  The first two points we stopped at were very rough, winds probably started 15-20mph.  The third point was equally windy, but I did manage to catch one nice keeper that was nearly 3lbs on a parrot colored DT10.  We worked that point for a long while with several baits, nothing more.  We continued to try to work points for several more hours.  All we caught was a small perch and a big gar on DT6.  Towards the end of the day, I revisited some other area including the mat that produced several bites the day before, hauled more water.  We kept fishing points, coves, weeds, docks and anything else that we saw on our way back to the check-in.  Just that one keeper was all we boated.  My single bass weighed 2.88lbs, not good enough.  It did move me up ever so slightly, to 157th after day 2.  Man, I had myself in quite a hole after two days.  I knew I needed to change things up again on day 3.  On a positive note, I was only about 9lbs out of the Top 25 and 6lbs out of the money.  I knew if just boated 10-12lbs, I could make a check.  I spent the evening running ideas through my head and talking with my buddy Billy Harris, as he was in a similar position as I.  After racking my brain all night, my plan was to start on that point where I had caught my nice fish and then keep on the move from there.  I had an idea that I wanted to work some areas that got pounded by Day 2’s harsh winds as I figured there should be plenty of food in there and bass would have likely followed the food in there and also those fish should have seen little pressure with all that wind.

Check back tomorrow to see how Day 3 went.