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!

Back home from Tennessee.  It wasn't what I would call the best week from me.  I never really found much that I could work with the entire event.  I spent a lot of time out deep on the ledges and never found anything out of the way, every place I had a quality bite was getting drilled during practice so it wasn't even worth stopping on during the tournament.  Judging from what I saw on tournament day it seems I simply pulled up the trolling motor 50 yards too early after fishing a mile of ledge.  There would be 2 or 3 boats fighting over a spot that they were bunched up on and I never fished through any of the good spots it seemed, so I can't be too upset about that.  Just bad fishing location choices.  I get upset when I fish through them and don't realize it but this time it wasn't the case.  I ended up getting more bites in practice shallow than anywhere else.  The jig was the deal over anything else.  The problem was that is was random, could be a dock, tree, seawall, etc.  It was very frustrating because I never could dial into a right jig color.  I knew I had on that they would bite but not the "right" one.  After two tough days of grinding the shallow bite I ran into a friend of mine Matt Herran who was basically running the same water I was for two days.  He showed me his jig he was flipping with one hour to fish.  He had already caught several limits.  Within one hour I had seven bites and lost a four pounder.  It was like a light switch was turned on.  He went on to finish well in the tournament.  That is how it is this time of year, there is always a strong shallow bite going on but it is very specific generally.  I felt like I was 90% there but the color was not right and I couldn't find it the whole week.  Lesson learned.

It's been a busy few weeks since Norman.  The win was a great feeling and I want to thank everyone for all their support and kind words since the event.  After Norman I stopped off to visit my friend Terry Grimes who works at Hendrick Motorsports.  He has been inviting me up for a long time to come and tour the Hendricks facility and it was unbelievable!  As most of you know if it has wheels and you can race it then I'm interested in it.  That was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed meeting all the guys in the shop.  Thanks guys!
Made it home for a few days spent most of them on the phone with media and friends, did manage to sneak an afternoon in on the Yamaha 450 and play in the dirt a while.  Riding is really my true stress outlet.  A few hours on the bike and I feel brand new again.
The next day it was off to Lake Texoma for the FLW Stren Series event.  I figured I would hit this event just because it was on the way to Beaver from my house and I always enjoy fishing Lake Texoma for some reason.  Texoma was a little behind from usual due to the late spawn this season.  I ended up finding a mediocre dock pattern but there were still many fish left on the banks, I was hoping the docks would get stronger throughout the week but it never really did materialize.  I ended up pounding the docks for two days struggling outside the money cut, I had a couple key bites that would have really helped but it wasn't where I thought I could be so on the final day I scrapped everything and started over.  Since I wasn't in for the points I was simply there for the top ten cut and I knew I needed at 15lbs the last day to make it so I started from scratch and just went fishing.  I ended up flipping pieces of wood in spawning pockets and had my best day and finished in the money when it was over.  Didn't make the cut like I would have liked but I did manage enough bites the last day to get me there I just didn't get the breaks to get me inside the top 10 so I can't complain too much.  Off to Beaver...
Drove all night to make it Beaver for the first official practice day of the FLW Tour.  I was like a kid in the candy store when the sun rose the next morning.  Finally!  A Beaver lake that doesn't look like a fish aquarium in a dentists office!  Yes!  Maybe I can fish an FLW Tour event without a spinning rod in my hand.  I kind of forgot what that would be like.  I broke practice up into two variables: Clear and Dirty water.  Spent two days in the clear and two in the mud.  Mud was by far the winner in that category after practice.  The fish were right on the bank in about 8 inches of water and when that happens I'm not going to miss out because it's too much fun.  It seemed in practice as if the fish were suspended, not really on the bottom so when you would flip it was more productive to swim the bait rather than just a straight up and down presentation.  My traveling partner Mike Hawkes clued me in on swimming the jig up in the water column and that helped me bigtime in the event.
Day 1 was overcast/rainy and that led to trying a spinnerbait most the day, I didn't catch much on it in practice but that day it seemed like it was the deal.  I caught 15+ keepers the first day just never could get a big one.  Day two was totally different.  The sun popped out and I never even picked up the spinnerbait, I flipped all day and that is what they wanted.  I caught a limit doing that and then started running around fishing the dead shore grass swimming the jig, ended up catching a 4lb+ Largemouth on the jig and that gave me a shot at the cut if I could manage one more 3lber with 2 hours to go.  Ended up finding a little stretch that had them on it, caught a few more and manged two more 3lb bites but just couldn't keep them on the jig, they weren't eating it too good, the 4lber I caught earlier was on the trailer hook on the jig and the others came off on the way back to the boat.  That's just the way it is though.  I had my chances 2 weeks in a row to fish the final day but it just didn't work out.  Don't think I'll complain too much after Norman though.  Ended the tournament 21st and put myself in good position for the FLW Championship at Lake Murray this summer and that is the main goal for the remainder of the season.  Next event is up in Knoxville, I'm looking forward to it should be a blend between off shore structure fishing and even some shallow stuff too. See ya. 

First off I would like to say thank you to everyone, it has been overwhelming the last few days with all the positive feedback from everyone.  I don't think you realize how much that means to me.  It is truly an honor to realize how many people support me in this crazy game that I love to play.

The last two weeks have been a great time.  First we fished the Toyota Texas Bass Classic at Lake Fork.  That event is sanctioned by the PAA and it was an unbelievable tournament.  I really think that event is becoming the highlight event of most of our year's events.

I drove straight from that event over to North Carolina for the FLW Tour event.  I knew driving over there that it would be a spawn/post spawn deal on Lake Norman.  I only had two days to practice so I broke it down into sight fishing one day and post spawn the other.

The first day of practice I tried to locate a shad spawn bite around marinas/docks.  I ended up only getting one bite off a dock that day swimming a white Hoern Toad tackle jig but it was a 4 pounder.  I didn't get the bite till around noon so I had a good feeling if I arrived early when the shad were still spawning that I could get a few more bites in there.

The second day of practice I spent looking for sight fish.  I really didn't lock a lot of fish on the GPS on beds just a few simply because I felt that a lot of those fish would be gone two days later after the off day and in that situation I felt I was better off just running "fresh" fish I found during the tournament rather than wasting time force fishing a bed fish I found two days prior that may or may not be there or want to bite.  They had already come up in a big wave many days prior so I knew it was going to change during the event and I hate to get locked in on specific fish.

Day 1 of the event went smooth as can be.  Started on the main lake marina and busted 12+ pounds right off the bat on the white jig.  That gave me the ability to fish real "loose" the rest of the day.  I started getting pickier on my sight fish and covering more water quicker.  I realized real quick that if you simply hustled and only fished for the better quality fish that there were enough quality fish out there to catch 5 each day.  I ended up culling 4 of my 5 fish that I caught from the marina and ended the day with 5 clone 3 pound fish @ 15lbs and finished the day in 2nd.

Day 2 of the event my goal was to simply make the cut and worry about the rest later.  The shad didn't spawn on the docks so I ended up with only one small keeper that I later culled out.  I hustled all day sight fishing and ended the day with 12lb 11oz. and finished the day leading the event.

Day 3  My goal for this day was to simply put myself in position for a chance to win on Sunday.  Started off on the docks and the shad were not spawning again this morning.  I really felt that any day they would fire again since they were spawning so good the first morning but they never did the rest of the week.  I did notice a 3+ suspended up under a house boat that I snuck up on and caught on the white jig so that did put me one good fish up starting off the morning before I had to go sight fishing.  The sight fishing was getting tougher simply because it was tailing off from the major wave of spawners earlier in the week.  My game plan each day was to run new water and leave most of the old stuff behind.  I ended the day with 13lb 5oz and leading the event after day 3.

Day 4  This is the day that matters.  I try to just think of the other days as just qualifiers, this is the day that counts.  The weather was also different from the previous three days so I knew I would have to change up a little also.  My goal for the day was to catch the best stringer I had caught all week.  The night before I had looked over my maps and located several places that to me looked like they were not convenient to access.  After 200 boats pounded the lake for a week the lake was getting a little stingier.  I looked for places with No Wake zones and off the wall places that were off the beaten path and that was the key for the final day.  There were several "fresh" fish in these places and that really made the difference on the final day.  The other deal I learned was that they would not react to the Porky's Revenge shaky head like they had in the past three days so I settled on a weightless wacky worm and that was the deal for the final day.  I had a good limit that I felt gave me a chance until with about five minutes to fish I caught a 4 pounder and it became one of those classic "last minute" seal the deal finishes.  The most common question I get asked by people in everyday life is "Why?"  Why do you do it?  When I caught that final fish and had that adrenaline rush and was filled with emotions during the run back in to weigh-in the answer was pretty clear to me why I play the game!

The most positive thing I can say about the two Florida events this year is at least I came away from them without a terrible year ending finish.  After being in the top 10 at Okeechobee and crashing hard followed by a solid first day at Toho followed by a crash again it can make you want to scream sometimes.

I spent about half my time in practice in Toho and the other two days split between Cypress/Hatchineha and Kissimmee.  After practice I pretty much found most of my fish in Hatchineha and some in the south end of Kissimmee.  Going into the tournament I figured I would spend my time in the Hatch and use Kissimmee as a backup simply because I had more bites in the Hatch.

First day of the tournament I ended the day with 13 pounds and 18th place, all the fish came out of the Hatch on a Senko around isolated cover either reeds or pads as long as it was away from everything else and isolated it had a fish on it.  Felt comfortable about the second day because there were plenty of fish around in the areas I was fishing.

Day 2 was a colder night and for some reason they simply did not bite in the areas I was fishing in the Hatch like the first day, even the few guys fishing around me didn't catch them the second day either so the bite simply died in their.  That is the problem you get when you fish your tournament in that lake, it is very inconsistent. 

Made a run down into Kissimmee and simply could not get bit in any of the areas I found in practice and the day was done.  The frustrating part of fishing Florida is most of the time it is the area that is special.  The hotspot this year on Kissimmee was Osceola slough.  That is where a lot of the big bags came from and the tournament was won.   I have fished that area for the past 7 years I have been down there and I've caught them here and there but no one ever has done that well there in our tournaments.  This year I was running low on time in Kissimmee and fished 90% of the lake except Osceola Slough.  I intended to go there the next day in practice to finish up th e lake but the winds were howling that day so I opted to go somewhere else.  That was a big mistake.  It seems like in Florida areas are such an important thing that you have to cover everything available or else you run the risk of missing it like I did here.  I still managed to draw a check but never really had the right deal going or even found the right deal, that is why I opted for Hatchineha because I simply received the most bites in that lake vs. the other areas and that is all you can do at the end of the day is do what the fish tell you to do with the bites the give you.

Got pretty mad and remotivated after the event so I spent a day on Wheeler before it went off limits and the fishing was pretty good, so I'm looking forward to a decent tournament there.

Haven't updated in a while simply because it's been wide open lately.  Figured I would write a little something before Toho.  The winter break was nice but not enough time.  Three weeks after Baja I finally admitted that my left wrist was toast.  Went to the specialist and ended up with a cast on my arm till last week.  No big deal but it does make it a little difficult for a left handed caster.  So the good news is I finally managed to learn how to cast right handed like most of the world. At least something good came out of the deal.

Okeechobee was a tough deal.  Long story short was I located a similar area to eventual winner J.T. Kenney's area.  This spot was also located on the main body of the lake.  It was LOADED,  the first day I caught twenty in twenty consecutive casts in one small area.  There were so many in there your lipless crankbait would literally bounce off of two fish before the third one would cream it.  It was crazy!  The first day I made about twenty casts in there and the second day I made six casts in there and had over 15lbs.  It was loaded with three pounders.  Later that afternoon I located a second school about 100 yards away from the first school but these were 4+ pound fish, the better ones.  I found these because they were a little harder to get too and off the beaten path.  I found them with about 20 minutes to go and lost three good 5+ pound fish. (one jumped off, one straightened split ring, and one weld came undone on a Gamakatsu Treble, just bad luck stuff)  No problem though ended the day in 7th and it was time to blast them the third day because I haven't even fished a total of one hour on them both days.  Next morning the front came through and trashed the main lake, no game.  No big deal because I would just fall back into the rim canal with everyone else and shoot for a limit and when the winds died on the fourth day make up ground.  I ended up getting a little greedy and cranking most of the day trying to catch one or two quality fish on the crank before settling on the shaky head like everyone else.  Bad mistake!  I had a good cranking deal working in practice but it died in the tournament.  I was throwing a normal sized square bill and the fish were beat on so bad they wouldn't eat it.  A few friends of mine ended up catching them on crappie cranks and one even made the cut.  Should have been all over that but missed the boat.   Finally fell back on the old Porky's but never got in the right groove with it and only managed two.  I was pretty dissapointed simply because I should have layed up earlier and just played it conservatively but I still wanted to go for the win and try to nail two good ones before laying up and it just didn't happen.  That's the price you pay for that attitude, about a 90% chance of bombiing and 10% of success.  This year I need to lay up more often because generally it's all you need in these situations.  I like to play very aggressive and it costs me sometimes.  I hate fishing if I don't feel like what I'm doing can win, and a lot of times that will kill you in multiple day events.

Stopped at Toho on the way home for an afternoon of driving around.  The lake look good, lots of grass and especially hydrilla.  I expect it to be like a lot of Florida events, giant weights for the top few guys and a struggle for the rest. 

The pictures & blog from the recent Baja 1000 have been posted.  Access here:
http://www.seanhoernke.com/id75.html

Sean finished sixth out of 58 teams at the recent Baja 1000.  Details and pictures of the race will be posted soon here and on the images section.  Way to go!  We have had a ton of response and apologize for the delay in pictures and race update, technology in Baja is not quite there yet.  We will get a full race report and pictures up later this week when Sean gets back to the States.  Thanks for the support everyone!

On November 13th Sean will set his sights on challenging the rugged Mexico Baja terrain as part of a five man team on a motorcycle.  This year is the 40th anniversary of the historic running of the Baja 1000 with special festivities and one of the longest courses in the history of the event.  This year's event will span 2000km that will start in Ensenada and finish at the southernmost part of the peninsula in Cabo San Lucas.

Sean has spent his whole life around off-road racing and the Baja.  Sean's father actually raced the event five times and finished each time with a win in the Sportsman's Class in 1995.  So it is no surprise that Sean has a passion for the Baja, "I really enjoy just riding now for fun more than racing but there is one thing left that I want to accomplish on a motorcycle and that is to finish the Baja 1000.  When I saw that this year was the 40th anniversary and it was almost twice as long as the usual race I thought that is the one I want to race"!

The race will begin at 6:30 am on November 13th and will continue non-stop to Cabo San Lucas with an estimated finish time of around 32 hours.  Check the Images section of this website for pictures and to find out more. To check results on November 15th go to www.score-international.com or simply Google 2007 Baja 1000 results.  Sean will be competing in the Over 250cc Sportsman's Class.

I couldn't head back to Texas without fishing one more tournament before the season ended.  The Lake Wheeler Bassmaster Open was the next week after Pickwick so I headed up there for the week.  I've never fished Wheeler in the fall so I looked over my maps and started hitting the backs of creeks in a typical fall pattern.  I located a few creeks that were holding fish but nothing real exciting.  I fished the Decatur flats and river ledge for a few days and founds some fish out there but nothing better than I found in the backs of creeks.  So when the tournament came I committed to fishing the back of one creek and grinding all day for a limit.  I ended the first day in 20th place and climbed to 8th place to finish the tournament.  I caught almost of my fish on a Hoern Toad Tackle 5/8 ounce spinnerbait with colorado/Indiana blades and a chartreuse/white skirt.  I learned every inch of that creek over the three day event.  The key that the other anglers overlooked in that creek was the little flats in that creek.  Most of the time when you are fishing the back sections of the creeks there are mostly steep banks with wood and laydowns.  This creek was no different but I noticed the fish were only around the bend areas not the straight sections.  The fish also seemed to prefer the inside bends on the upper bend areas.  Once I figured that out I had them pegged.  I started only keying on those flat little areas, not big sections but flat spots that came off the bank about 5 feet or so and then dropped off.  Also little feeder drains that fed into the creek that formed flat spots on the bank.  Each one of those areas would hold a potential for a bite so it really saved tons of time not fishing miles of unproductive water.  I would just key on those areas and it seemed to work well.  The spinnerbait allowed me to cover a ton of water and put it in front of more fish than flipping.  If I did find a good log around those areas I would make a few flips with a small creature bait.  I did catch a few fish on the creature bait but the spinnerbait was the key.  It was a nice way to finish off the season.  I like to finish my last events each year with that positive vibe, for me it helps keep me motivated and looking forward to the next season.  I am going to take some time off now and pursue some of my other interests in the off season.  I going to spend some time riding my Yamaha WR450 motorcycle and hanging out in the woods pursuing Elk and Deer.  I cannot wait!