How bad do you want it , How bad do you need it, are you eating,  sleeping, dreaming with that one thing on your mind.

..Tim McGraw

PRE-FISH

It’s time to get real serious about making the classic. I spent days fishing the delta looking for new water, better areas and consistently bigger fish. A lot of guys were punching and getting good fish I just wasn’t one of them. The weather had been constant. It was warm and the fish were in the grass out of the heat. Current was a key for the fish I was getting. Any place that had current and shaded areas I could get fish.

TOURNAMENT DAY

I had spots all over the delta to fish. I had found big fish from Turner cut to Sycamore slough. I just had to put together a run that put me on the right spots at the right time of the day. Allowing me to get the five bites I needed to win this tournament.

I started in Holland tract fishing swimbaits along the island tulle’s. Got a bite second cast a short fish but a good sign. I switched between a swimbait ,crankbait and buzzbait most of the morning. My partner Jeff was flipping jigs and senkos. I started catching a few short fish on crankbaits and two on a buzz bait.  No keepers in the first half hour. I was not going to make the same mistakes that plagued me at Clearlake. We got out out of there and went to False river. I picked up my Chatter-bait cast to an isolated grass clump on a tulle point and put our first keeper in the boat. Funny I did not catch another fish all day on that Chatter-bait. Thats ok the crankbait bite turned on nicely for me. I moved from False river over to Potato slough started throwing the lucky craft BDS 2.5 red craw crankbait along the rock walls with isolated tulle clumps. It took about twenty minutes to put three more in the boat, all around two pounds. We packed up and went over to Turner cut picked up a Snag Proof tournament frog made three casts and landed a 3.1 pound fish. She was tucked nicely up under a tulle and grass mat corner. We fished this area for another half hour only getting small fish. We headed to the next spot around Empire cut. Fished here for ten or fifteen minutes caught two short fish then moved on to an area near Columbia cut. This is one of my favorite spots on the delta,  we felt that this was our last real shot to fill our limit and get a kicker. I had been waiting to get here when the tide was coming in, that way the deep points of a particular island were getting hit directly by current. It was all worth it  my second cast landed us a 5.4 pound largemouth. We fished around this island twice picking up small fish and occasionally culling up an ounce or two. No other big fish. We moved one last time to some tulle points near Franks tract. I had caught a couple swimbait fish in practice here, today I only  found small fish. It was time for weigh in.

 I wasn’t feeling over excited about what we had, I did feel as though we had a good limit. We finished the day with 14.8 pounds enough for 12th place. Moving us up in the standings into 28th place. With only Folsom left my confidence was back.  I can make the classic as long as I have a top 30 finish at Folsom.

Wow what a weight lifted off my shoulders. Honestley I was feeling really low going into the delta. The way I have fished there it was up for grabs wether I would do well or fall on my face.