Bassmaster Elite Pros Top the Field at Douglas Lake

I am very proud to be a life-time member of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (BASS), and extremely proud that BASS Elite Pros top the field on Day 1 at the Professional Anglers Association (PAA) tournament on Lake Douglas. The PAA tournament attracts the best pros of all tournament trails, and the fact the BASS Elite pros were on top supports the well known notion that BASS is the best in the business! 

As I finish my packing for my trip to Dandridge, TN  to fish Lake Douglas TN in the Bassmaster Southern Open #2,  I continue to check on lake conditions and the results of the on-going PAA event.  The water level is down about 25ft, but the lake is fishing good.  Many limits of bass were weighed-in yeasterday in the PAA event and a good number of five-pound average stringers. 

BASS Elite Pro Guy Eaker fishing Lake Douglas (Photo by FishPAA.com)

As 150 anglers ascend on Lake Douglas this week, and another 200 anglers arrive over the weekend for the Bassmaster Southern Open event, the bass fishing is expected to get tough.  The good news is that a warming trend is predicted to hit over the weekend and hopefully it will refresh the bass and get them actively feeding despite all the fishing pressure.

I'm ready to test my fishing ability as well as mental skills against a species of fish that is extremely attuned to its aquatic environment.  With sound traveling 4 times faster in water, Lake Douglas bass will know I'm coming before I ever make a cast.  Still, they are fish, with a tick for reflex striking, something I hope to exploit as part of my game plan.  

I want to thank Millers Boating Center, Triton Boats, Mercury Marine, and Power-pole for their continued support and I hope to represent them strong in this next event.  AERF, Casselberry Hooters, and Kids-In-Support-Of-Soldiers continue to be the backbone of my angling career and I always represent them proudly in my events. 

If pre-tournament excitement earned you a paycheck, I would be rolling in the money right now!              

Jeff

Beginning A New Tour Season 2013

The City of Kissimmee hosted the first Bassmaster Southern Open event of 2013 on Lake Tohopekaliga.  I must say it was nice to spend nights at home since the lake was in my home town only 45 minutes away. Still practice was typical for February in Florida with bass spawning and windy cold fronts hitting every few weeks to challenge the anglers. FWC plant management efforts were providing anglers miles of hydrilla edges to fish throughout the chain. 

Nearly 200 pro bass anglers visited Kissimmee Florida for practice on Monday and a shot at winning a berth to the Bassmaster Classic.  Both Monday and Tuesday practice days held nice weather, partly sunny cloud cover and a mild February breeze out of the north.  Then Mother Nature realized this was the first tournament of the year and she wanted to remind everyone who was boss. She hit the area with Gail force winds over 32mph from the South none the less.  Extremely unusual for the month of February.  Needless to say, the winds muddied up a lot of water the night before the tournament, leaving many anglers unsure of whether they had areas to fish on day 1 or not.

My name was randomly drawn as boat #31 on Day 1, flight #2 with a weigh-in time of 3:15pm.  This meant the early morning bite that I had discovered in practice had a chance to help me as it was in a wind protected area.  Luckily the area held up and produced two nice keepers in the first 45 minutes while the tournament director was still launching out the other anglers one at a time.  No more old fashion shot-gun starts like in the 80s.

The four pound bass I had found in practice had vacated the area and I probably spent too much of my morning searching for them.  As the sun peaked higher in the horizon I headed over to some shallower spawning areas and used a soft swimbait to pick up my limit by 10:30 am.  One of my personal goals of catching a five-fish limit of bass was accomplished, but I was still short of my other goal of having fish that averaged over three pounds. My research had shown that fifteen pound limits each day would give an angler a top 20 fish on Lake Toho, while an eighteen pound limit each day would make the third day’s cut of the top 12 anglers. 

Fishing the 2012 tour taught me that a small limit of bass only makes an angler feel good, it does nothing to help in the tour standings. To be successful on this tour, anglers must have larger than average bass and a big bass each day.  Knowing this I spent the afternoon chasing the ghosts of big bass I had found in practice.  Over 30% of the water I practiced on was muddied by the unusual Gail force winds. I was able to get two good bites flipping, one four pound bass I pulled to the surface of a cattail mat before it came off, and the other I lost when my braided line slipped out the eye of my flipping hook, another rare occurrence.  All the other big bass I had found under floating plant mats either scattered or were not biting.  The sport of fishing is very hard when you can’t see your targets, e.g. bass.  Imagine shooting basketball in a room with an invisible hoop that only showed up when you made a basket!  That’s bass fishing.  There could be 40 bass under a floating island and if you don’t entice them to bite a hunk of metal and plastic, things we call fishing lures, then you don’t even know they are there.   

My first day's limit of five bass weighed 9lbs 9ozs, averaging only 1.91 lbs/bass which put me in 53^rd place.

 photo by James Overstreet, BASS

On day 2, I was drawn as boat #168, flight 9 with a 5:00 pm weigh-in time.  This late draw was going to prove beneficial as the bass were getting more active in the afternoons when the sun was high.  With an over night cold front dropping air temperatures down to 36 degrees F, I was going to need that sun to get my bigger bass active again.  I launched out in the morning with hopes that the cold front would improve my flipping bite again.

I started day 2 in the same early morning area as day one, got two nice keepers on a jerkbait, a dozen short bass, and then a nice three pound fish.  I flipped the mats around this area to no avail.  Next, I ran the same stretch of spawning flats in Lake Toho and finished out my limit by 11:00 am.  With a limit in hand I ran to south Toho and pitched floating hydrilla mats to cull up with another nice three pound bass.  On my next pitch I lost a good bass of nearly four pounds. I spent the next four hours pitching and flipping mats trying to catch a big bass but all I could do was upgrade my limit by ounces.   I found the big bass were no longer under my mats, but my stubbornness kept me wishing instead of fishing.   I picked up my jerkbait and starting working a little deeper water around my areas and again picked up a half dozen bass that only gained me ounces. 

    

With twenty minutes left until weigh-in, I made a cast next to some spatterdock lilypads. I ripped that jerkbait past the pads and enticed a reaction strike from a bass.  My line jumped, so I swept the rod to my right side to set the hook.  It was then that I saw the bass, a solid six pounder!  When I set the hook it turned her sideways to me and I could see she hit the jerkbait in the middle, with only one treble hook having a chance to hook her.  That chance was slim, and when she opened her mouth out came my bait.  I made many more pitches in the area knowing she never really got hooked, but I never could entice her to bite again.  I fished down the bank and nailed another solid three pound bass, culled up a few ounces, then headed to weigh-in.

My second day weight of 10lbs, 14ozs put me in 45th place overall; 10 ounces sky of making a paycheck, 5.5 lbs out of the top 20 list, and only 7.2 lbs out of the top 12 cut to fish the third day.  The lost four pound bass on day one and lost six pound bass on day two would have pushed me way up the leader board and given me the dream of fishing on the third day. 

So there you have it, my best finish, yet the worst tournament execution of my professional fishing career.  The yin and yang of fishing.  I felt good about finding the fish it took to win, just could not get them in the boat.  I can’t wait to try it all over again in April on Lake Douglas in Jefferson County, Dandridge, TN. 

2013 Kissimmee Hydrilla and Lake Maps Now Available!



Map of abundance and location of hydrilla on Lake Kissimmee

 

Reduced-risk Herbicides & More Access to Maps

Most recreational users of our nation’s lakes admit that invasive plants and animals cause problems.  These accidental invaders infest our waterbodies, often clogging waterways and impacting the balance of the ecosystems. 

Hydrilla is one of those invaders, and widely managed because of its ability to overtake native plants at uncontrollable rates. 

Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Foundation (AERF) and several natural resource agencies have been actively evaluating several new, reduced-risk herbicides.  The results are expected to help guide water resource managers for selective Hydrilla control in lakes, rivers, canals, and reservoirs.  By being plant-specific, these herbicides will continue to support past practices of managing invasive plants while limiting impacts on non-target plants. 

As part of the herbicide evaluation process, mapping techniques are being improved.  These techniques are allowing resource managers to gather faster and more detailed information on plant locations, effectiveness of controls, and overall biomass reduction rates.  This highly detailed process gives plant managers something they did not have in the past, a nearly precise measurement of plant control. 

One example is the work being conducted by the Fish andWildlife Conservation Commission and University of Florida.  They evaluated the submersed plant communities on the four main Kissimmee Chain lakes in January, 2013.  From this information they were able to gage the impacts and regrowth potential from previous hydrilla control efforts.  These details will help them better plan where future hydrilla management may be needed in spring of 2013. 

The submersed plant images are posted with bathymetric maps for each of the four lakes of the Kissimmee Chain on the UF / FWC website.  Navigate down the webpage and select the first letter of the lake you are interested in viewing.

Pre-practice Comes to a Close

Father Time caught up with me and I had to end my pre-practice session for 2013 on Kissimmee Chain of Lakes.  The past two months have been nice, allowing me time to examine the conditions of the lakes and moods of fish at a leisurely pace. Now it’s late January, and my tournament season is fast upon me.  The first event, Bassmaster Weekend Series, is scheduled on the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in two weeks, immediately followed by the Bassmaster Southern Open event Jan 31-Feb 2.
   
The Kissimmee lakes are acting very typical, with bass in all three phases of spawning.  Professional anglers like Chris Lane are predicting good weights.  Weed control efforts against the overgrowth of nuisance Hydrilla have taken affect.  Some lakes are fishing easy, giving up ten pounds limits within minutes, others were difficult at best.  The new lake maps that Florida's fish & wildlife agency has been placing on the Internet were very helpful to my practice.

Taking advice from Gary Klein I plan on fishing to my strengths.  That is, I plan on keeping a spinnerbait in my hand and slow rolling my bait through the deep, open waters of the chain.  Over the years I have been able to catch many bass six to nine pounds with this technique and for the Southern Opens I know that I have to concentrate on quality fish, not just limits. 

In pre-practice I had to slow down even more and occasionally cast a worm to a submersed plant bed to check if bass were present.  As you see, they were!

Kissimmee Chain of Lakes pre-practice bass, 2013

End of A Rookie Season



My largest tournament-weighed spotted bass (3.93lbs)
October 5, 2012 on Smith Lake, Alabama

While I was not new to fishing Bassmaster-sponsored tournament trails, I was new to the Bassmaster Southern Open trail in 2012, a trail which offered a level of competitive fishing like no other.  My final outcome was a 79th place finish in Angler of the Year points (top 32% of the field) and a decent year on the trail. 



In my first year on the tour we traveled from Florida, to North Carolina, to Alabama.  The types of lakes we fished ranged from southern grass lakes to upland reservoirs dominated by rocks and docks.  I traveled over 5,000 miles and provided my sponsors over one half-million impressions of their boat-wrap logos.  In addition, I was able to catch a limit a bass in all but one day of fishing, which allowed me to walk across the stage and be interviewed live on Bassmaster.com website. This brought another estimated quarter-million impressions to my sponsors.  Lastly, I was honored to be a guest speaker for AERF at the Bassmaster Federation Nation Conservation Directors meeting at the 2012 Bassmaster Classic in Shreveport, LA. 

Aquatic plant dominated lakes in the south



Rock dominated lakes in upland reservoirs

While I felt great about the ability to represent my sponsors, I did miss out on several key opportunities to finish better in the tournaments.  Reflecting back, I can list specific bass I missed because I made incorrect retrieve changes as they followed my baits, changes that caused them to shy away instead of hitting. In golf every putt counts, and similarly in fishing, every retrieve, twitch, or turn of the reel handle causes different reactions to the bait and determines whether or not a following-fish will hit.  The details of fishing are amazing and so important to the outcome.

Information Overload

It has been a while since my last post and I apologize to me followers.  I wrote several blogs but apparently never posted them.  While I continue to pursue my passion of knowledge, I've neglected my goal of sharing what I've learned.  Please accept my apology.

My second Bassmaster Southern Open event on Lake Norman in Charlotte, NC was amazing.  I caught 40-70 spotted bass a day in practice under sunny skies and calm weather.  What a fantastic fishery!  However, the tournament weather was rainy and overcast.  Fish changed and I failed to adapt.  Afterwards I learned the error of my ways.  I learned two valuable lessons that I wish to share:  1) spotted bass are very color-specific depending on the weather conditions,  2) the shakey-head worm is an amazing bait in reservoirs.

I finished just shy of the top-100 in that Southern Open event so I have a lot of work to do for the future.  I wrote a detailed summary and failed to post it but I will send it out as soon as I locate the file.

To get ready for the last Southern Open event on Lewis Smith Lake, AL, I've been working on tackle and techniques.  This is another amazing fishery with spotted bass and largemouth.  The water averages, get this, over 200 feet deep.  One of the clearest fisheries I've ever had the pleasure of fishing!  It is common to be casting a lure to the shoreline while your boat is sitting in over 90 feet of water!  Simply out of this world!

Mark my word, fishing technique, casting accuracy, and efficiency are going to win this upcoming event.The angler who can figure out the right lure/speed combination, be most efficient, and make accurate casts is going to win.  It's just that type of fishery where every ounce counts.

Look for my Smith Lake details very soon.  Thanks for joining me in my fishing adventures...
Jeff 

View of the Bassmaster Classic from Southern Open-Colored Glasses

This year I was able to attend the Bassmaster Classic and it was a great event and great to see Florida angler Chris Lane win.  But instead of viewing the event purely as a spectator, I actually had the feeling that I was taking a training class on how to act as a Classic angler.  You see, I am now fishing the Bassmaster Southern Opens, and each tournament I fish I will have a shot at winning an entry into the next Bassmaster Classic.

I watched the 2012 Classic anglers organize their equipment in their boats with the utmost efficiency.  In the Classic, time is extremely limited, so the better Classic contenders have learned not to waste one precious moment.  Disorganization can cost valuable time, maybe not the one time you have to search in your boat to find a bait, but add up all the times you had to search for baits in the tournament and it could mean the difference. 

I watched how the anglers expressed themselves, both with fans and when alone in their boats with their thoughts.  Focus was key, and even during press conferences each day I could see the top contenders processing and thinking about the words their fellow anglers were saying when questioned by the media. 

There are very few secrets in the Classic, and everyone knows what each angler is doing.  The media questions make the anglers reveal small pieces of information about the success each day.  Not enough information for the average angler to grasp, but enough tidbits for their competitors to pick up on.  For instance, I watched Alton Jones’s eye light up when day one leader Keith Poche answered media questions about his fishing area and how the bass were biting his baits.  While Keith never revealed the color or kind of baits he was using to take the lead on day one, he told enough to unknowingly help his competitors.  The next day Alton apparently used the information to his advantage and jumped up into 3^rd place while Keith fell down the leaderboard.

I watched how the anglers managed spectator’s boats, who fished well in crowds of other anglers, and who ran away from the crowds to seek isolated fishing holes.  I learned first-hand in the Southern Opens that once you achieve a boat wrap, other anglers will follow you more, mark your fishing areas, and take notice of the lures you are using.  To excel at the level needed to fish professionally anglers have to be able to handle crowds and recognition.  

The message is clear, to be successful you must be able to use ordinary lures in magical ways, not rely on secret fishing hole or secret lures.  Understanding how bass react to presentations and lure techniques becomes the focus of Elite anglers.  Every one of the Bassmaster Classic anglers were using fishing rods, reels, lines, and lures that everyday anglers can purchase and use. 

The Bassmaster Classic is truly as sport where knowledge and experience win.

Handling Misfortune

My big chance to finish high in the Bassmaster Southern Open tournament was lost when random misfortunes caused a shortened tournament day.

After six weeks of scouting the Harris Chain of Lakes and finding bass holding in a pre-spawn stage, I just knew that I had a mid-depth fishing pattern that would allow me to catch enough bass to place well in the event. 

My pre-tournament preparation began with maintenance items being checked off and completed, rods rigged and baits carefully tied.  I had a solid state of mind and a series of game plans depending on the weather and my boat number.  I was relaxed at the partner pairing meeting and felt in control of my destiny.

On the first day of the tournament I launched out as boat number 175, so when I motored into a my small cove it surprised me that I had the area all to myself.   The other 196 competitors overlooked my fish I knew I was onto a solid winning pattern.  I fished the area and caught a nice little limit of bass that weighed 10.10 pounds.  It was under my goal of 13 pounds but solid enough to place me in 53^rd place. 

On day two I was boat 24 and with an early start I was going to fish my best spot in another lake where I had found an abundance of larger bass.  I figured I needed about 15 pounds to make the third day cut of top-12 anglers; which should have been an easy task given the conditions and the pre-spawn group of bass I had located. 

Lady Misfortune had another idea for me and I never made it to my primary fishing area.  Something on my outboard motor broke first thing in the morning.  It was a random mechanical failure that could not have been prevented and I was forced to fish around the launch ramp on my trolling motor. 

My plan to reach my fishing spots and my dreams of earning a large paycheck vanished.  To say I was disappointed would be an under statement.  Yet, I still felt in control of my destiny and remained in a positive frame of mind.  I used my Bass Pro Shops AGM gel-cell batteries and Motorguide Tour Edition trolling motor to fish through 15 mph winds and catch two more bass.   

Even though I lost the tournament, I ended up earning 105 points for a 93^rd place finish. I beat over 50% of the field which included several well known professional Elite BASS anglers.  All in all, not a bad finish given my misfortunes.

I was proud that I never lost my temper or got discouraged. During my downtime on the last day I had a chance to meet with many of my product representatives, and the seeds of friendship planted that day have already begun to grow.  I look forward to a great year on the Bassmaster Southern Open trail in 2012!

ABA American Fishing Tour Nationals

- Price of boat gas in South Carolina - $3.34 per gallon;
    - Number of anglers I had to compete against - 315;
        - Cost of experiencing a lake turnover during a national championship - PRICELESS.



October was a month of change on Lake Murray in Columbia, South Carolina. Warm seventy-degree air temperatures kept the trees believing that summer was still present and leaves remained green. Two small cold spells dropped water temperatures into the high sixties and set the stage for a major lake turnover, when oxygen and water temperatures mix throughout the 200-ft deep reservoir. Local anglers were hardest hit by the devastating effect of this sudden water quality change. The dominate topwater pattern disappeared as schools of striped bass, blueback herring, and largemouth bass scattered and became unpredictable. This turnover leveled the playing field and this Florida angler took advantage of the tough situation and ever changing conditions.


Practice:


Our practice began on a Sunday, with clear sunny skies and a light west wind. Daily air temperatures reached the high 70s F. Hordes of bass and blueback herring were swimming the clear-water shallows near the lower end of the dam. Schools of shad were easily found by any observant angler boating up the stained Saluda River. The tournament was setting up to be a slugfest with local knowledge of offshore brush piles having the advantage.




That all changed when a cool night breeze dropped the surface temperature of the lake lower than the deepest water, causing the oxygen-rich surface waters to sink. United States Geological Survey data confirmed that the oxygen levels on the bottom jump from 1 to 7 part per million (ppm). This over night change allowed fish to roam the entire 200-foot water column. Shad and herring took advantage of this new feeding opportunity and quickly relocated to the food-rich deeper water. Anglers woke up to an entirely different lake system on Monday morning.





My Monday was no different. The fish that followed my topwater lures on Sunday no longer chased the baits. Every bass in my area seem to be sulking, swimming listless, or simply cruising the barren shorelines with bored interest in lures. Rocks, docks, and boat marinas became my dominant pattern for holding bass and a few coves still held herring.


Tuesday marked our last day of practice and I continued to discover and mark waypoints of coves that held good boat docks. I felt that having a large selection of coves was important to get me through a three-day event as the weather was expected to change and the wind was going to blow hard. Tuesday’s practice also gave me a clue to a second behavioral change in the bass: suspending. I noticed several times during my practice bass would follow my bait when I reeled it in to make another cast. To catch these semi-active fish I planned on adding a jerkbait to my lure selection for the tournament.


Tournament:


Day 1: I traveled 30 minutes to my best cove and it remained loaded with the last remaining blueback herring schools and wolf packs of 3-4 pound bass. A topwater lure quickly caught my first bass weighing about 2.5 lbs. Throughout the morning bass would strike my topwater baits but not fully commit to eating them. Something was off and I could not figure it out. I slowed down and began throwing a drop-shot worm around any nearby docks. This proved to be the right move as I landed a good 3.5 lb bass and many short bass. When winds began to blow I used a Rapalla Glidin' Rap over a wind-blown rocky point to catch my last keeper. I ended the day with three bass that gained me 30th place.


Day 2: Armed with the knowledge of a slow bite I threw my drop-shot worm almost exclusively on the second day and caught five good bass along with many short fish. I moved up two places in the standings to 28th. Topwater lures and jerkbaits continued to only produce short strikes, and again I noticed a lot of bass following my bait as I reeled them in for another cast. This experience mentally ate at me all night long. I did not sleep well as I kept waking up and contemplating on how to catch those 2 and 3 pound bass that followed my baits.


Day 3: After a night of restless sleep I settled on rigging up a Zoom fluke jerkbait for getting a reaction bite. When I arrived at my fishing cove on the final day I used the low-light morning hours to fish the jerkbait, but to no avail. I never did figure out the key to getting reaction strikes out of those semi-interested bass. When I finally picked up my drop-shot worm I only caught small sunfish around the docks.


By 10 am I had not caught a single bass and I began to have second thoughts about my entire pattern. I made a cast with the Zoom jerkbait and let it sink next to a dock while I took a mental time-out to think about what to do or change. That’s when it hit me, literally, a small bass hit the jerkbait on the fall and I landed my first keeper. I picked up the drop-shot and started dead sticking the bait next to every boat dock in my area. My dead sticking method consisted on letting the worm lie on the bottom a full minute after each cast. If nothing picked it up, I would cast to the next dock. With time running out I hooked and lost a nice 3-lb bass. I landed one last keeper and headed into the final day weigh-in with only two small bass for the day.


In the end I finished 42nd out of the 316 of the best ABA American Fishing Tour anglers in the US and received a small check. I learned first-hand what a lake turnover would do to bass in the fall. The cool part about the tournament was that I finished highest among the Florida anglers in the Championship, bragging rights that I will cherish for a long time with my Florida friends.


Check out my video on drop-shotting to see the technique I used. http://www.jeffhollandfishing.com/


Jeff

Powering Up for ABA Nationals

When I first began straightening out my tackle in preparation for the upcoming 2011 Nationals, I thought it would be a smaller task than it turned out to be.  Tackle was the easiest part, but checking out my boat’s power supply proved I was not ready for Nationals yet. 

First, I pulled all four batteries out of my boat.  Wow, what a filthy mess.  Grime seemed to cover everything.  My three Bass Pro Shop AGM 175 Deep Cycle batteries were going on four years old and holding strong.  Yet, I wanted to computer test them to make sure I did not have any bad battery cells.  My Motorguide Tour Edition 36v trolling motor was going to need all the power I could supply.  The local Advanced Auto Parts store tested my batteries and showed the battery cells were just fine.  When re-installing them I found the battery straps to be loose and in need of adjusting.  A loose battery can do some series damage in the bilge compartment of your boat when you are navigating six foot waves. 

Two items down and more maintenance to go.

Next, I went over my trolling motor wiring system connections.  I was amazed at how loose the wires had become.  Although I only tighten the connections a smidgen, the slack was enough to cause reduced power to my trolling motor.  Both the front plug connection and the stern breaker connections needed adjustments. 

With my batteries and wires in good shape, next I needed to verify the charging systems.

Looking over my XPS on-board battery chargers made me realize that I did not have any spare fuses for the three battery leads.  Each positive and negative battery lead is fitted with its own fuse for safety.  I do not remember ever reading about these fuses in a modern day boat-check list!  I visually checked each fuse and re-seated the connections.  Spares are now kept stowed.

Lastly, I replaced all my battery wing nuts with stainless steel marine locking nuts I purchased at my local ACE Hardware.  Locking nuts are easier to tighten and stay secure. 

Finding five items that needed maintenance reinforces the need to go over my boat's power supply system more often.  Doing it myself gave me the peace of mind knowing that my boat is ready and the knowledge that I have spare parts and the know-how to quickly replace them.   

This pre-tournament prepartion will allow me to focus on finding fish and avoid worrying about my equipment. 

When ever you get the opportunity check out the power connections on your boat do so, it will help avoid any on-the-water mishaps.