Beaver lake has never been one of my favorite lakes on tour.  I think every competitor has one of those places that they just have a hard time mentally with.  Beaver has been that place for me.  It seems if they are on the beds then I do well but when they are not then I struggle.  This year I was determined to start overcoming that mental block.  I think in the past some of that downfall has been from strategy and the other part from negative thinking.  It seems that the main strategy always involves juggling your time between the smaller spotted bass and the better quality largemouth/smallmouth population.  So my goal for this event was a top 50 finish which would be a drastic improvement for me at Beaver lake.

After practice I basically had two ways to catch fish.  The one way was on the lower lake fishing points and docks for spots with a shakyhead.  The other was some mid-lake areas with points and schooling fish in the morning.

Day 1 I started off the tournament fishing on the lower lake for spotted bass.  I had an early limit of 5lbs. 11oz.  so that gave me the rest of the day (about 4 hours) to try and upgrade to get a few largemouth/smallmouth.  I spent the rest of the day fishing deep points on the lower lake with no luck in getting a better quality bite to upgrade my limit.  I was very disappointed.  It seemed to me that I capitalized early to give myself the day to get healthy on a bigger limit but failed to make it happen.  That was a big bust for me so it really motivated me for day 2.

Day 2 I started in the mid lake area around some schooling fish that I had found in practice.  Come to find out I was in the same pocket as my friend Andy Morgan who eventually won the event in the same exact spot.  Andy started out drilling them just about every cast, there was an exact sweet spot in the area that he dialed in.  I ended up catching a few small keepers in the area but nothing like Andy had going.  It was really driving me nuts because he was doing the exact same thing with wake baits and fishhead spins that I was except they were just in that one small area.  Basically we watched a good ole' fashioned butt whoopin' for about an hour.  I was really happy for him because he deserved a good win and he is an excellent friend and angler.  For me I started to get a little negative for the first time, I have been in this situation several times on Beaver and never seem to capitalize.  So I cleared my head and really just ground out a limit the rest of the day that weighed a little more than the day before catching all my fish on a Porky's Revenge shakyhead. The bite fell off good the second day overall so I moved up to grab a small check and get out of Beaver in one piece.  Overall I am not really proud of my finish here but I did feel like the second day was a good indicator that things might be changing.  For the first time since last fall I really dug deep and started fishing like I'm capable of.  I feel like this year I have not been as focused and really haven't had that intenseness about me that I usually have.  I've realized that and the second day was proof that I made some clutch moves that paid off in finishing out a limit.  Sometimes it's not the top 10's that you are most proud of it is the tournaments where you are rock bottom and you claw your way out of it to salvage an event that you get satisfaction from.  I am really looking forward to the Potomac.  I had a good finish last time we where there and I like the way the river fishes.  I am ready to go!

I am sitting in the Chicago O’Hare airport waiting to get back to Lake Dardanelle.  We just wrapped up the Chicago area regional of the Field & Stream Total Outdoorsman Challenge.  This was the fourth of six events held across the country.  It has been a busy last few weeks.  In the past four weekends we have been to Ft.Lauderdale, Dallas, Las Vegas, and now Chicago for the events.  There has been some great competition and it has been exciting to watch it all unfold.  This weekend Tommy Dutcher of New York won the event with a very solid performance in the finals.  He was in the national finals last year and will now be going back in August in Springfield, Missouri.  It was a great time and I look forward to watching the final two events unfold in the coming weeks.  We still have Baltimore and Nashville left in the schedule.  If you are interested in competing go to www.fieldandstream.com and click on the Total Outdoorsman link.  Entry is free for these events.

Plane lands at 11:00p.m. tonight at Northwest Regional Airport in Arkansas and then a two hour drive to Dardanelle and back on the water by tomorrow morning to prepare for the upcoming event.  It’s been a little frustrating the last few weeks fishing, but that is part of the game.  I am looking forward to this event.  I have only been on Dardanelle one time several years back in college for a Redman Regional tournament but it treated me very well with a qualification to the All-American.  I like the way the lake/river fishes so I am really pumped to get out there in the morning!