Back home from Michigan and I am happy that event is over.  One of the biggest things you here in our sports is the "Peaks and Valley's".  Your riding high one day and a month later you are low.  That kind of sums up my Tour season overall in my mind.  After four events I was in the top twenty in the points pretty much on cruise control to another FLW Tour Championship then the wheels fell off on the final two events and I ended up finishing somewhere outside the Championship (didn't even want to look).  It has been a frustrating month of fishing to say the least.

Practice went well,  my gameplan was to stay in St. Clair simply because of the consistency of the fishing.  Problem was it just wasn't that consistent for me there.  I spent one day in Erie and the simple quality and even numbers of fish were there so that is where I elected to stay for the event.  I didn't like it simply because of the weather factor and the difficult boat rides each day but when they are there you have to go that is just part of the game.

Tournament day wasn't too bad.  The weather cooperated so it saved a lot of time on the ride out there and back. Ended up with just under 15lbs for the day but that wasn't what I expected.  I really felt like 17-19lbs would be average for what I had found.  My traveling partner Mike Hawkes ended the day in 4th place with a little over 20lbs. in the same area so you can see my frustration with the day.  He found a little swimbait deal that helped him catch a few above average fish in the morning.  Then he tubed and dropshotted the remainder of the day.  The key little areas I fished were all found with side imaging during practice.  They were little rough spots on bottom.  That is all it takes on Erie to hold them.  The tube seemed to catch the better quality where I was at for the event. The end of day one was not a total loss, just needed to catch about 15lbs the next day to make the championship and that should not be a problem.

Day 2 we had a little higher winds and it took a little longer to travel the 50 miles out to my areas.  You do not have a lot of time to make adjustments in that situation so you have to work fast. The day was not one to remember that was for sure.  By 12:00pm everyone around me had already boxed up their $10,000 plus checks and headed back to weigh in early and I was left out there with an empty livewell and about an hour to fish.  If that doesn't get in your head what does.  My partner had a limit and was culling.  It was just one of those days that I can't honestly figure out what happend.  Here I am on one of the best fisheries in the country and I cannot even get a bite.  That will humble you up real fast.  When I practice at home I do what I call two minute drills, they are for situations just like this where you have an hour to go and you need to catch something or anything.  You can sit out there and bob around and get depressed and have a pitty party about how everyone jacked them and your out there on vacation or you can get mad and try to at least do something about it.  I started hustling around for the last hour hitting rockpile after rockpile, zigging and zagging and finally rallied up four in the last hour before I had to head back in.  There is nothing I hate more than driving back to weigh-in with four fish.  It's like you almost made it happen but didn't, so I drove that poor Skeeter like a madman back across Lake Erie and made up enough time to stop on one more spot out on the lake before I had to head in.  Nothing on the last stop so back to weigh in with four which is a pretty hard blow to the chest on a place as good as Erie. 

I was pretty disgusted to say the least. I never looked at the points sheet but my buddy Hawkes told me a 3lber was all I needed to make the championship.  Those are a dime a dozen on Erie.  The thing I like most about this sport is the simple fact that on most occasions when something like that happens you have no one else to blame but yourself.  I look back at the last two events and I see areas in my game that need improvement and little areas where I can get better.  You don't hear many guys out there say that, usually it's the that they didn't bite or someone cut them off or this guy was on their hole.  The simple fact is most times it was up to you to make those correct decisions based on uncontrollable circumstances and you didn't.  I accept the fact that I have to keep working hard to improve and get better if I want to not see the same mistakes happen again.  That is what makes this a wonderful sport, it makes you be honest with yourself!