January 9, 2024 • 34 mins
Wes Logan joins the NPFL while fishing the Bass Elites. We break down mindsets, electronics and how to approach new bodies of water.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Spencer Graves. That's West Logan, It's lines and times.
Let's jump right into it. It's twenty twenty four, New year,
new me, same old stuff. You're changing, though you're doing
a lot of different things this.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Year a little bit, a little bit or might be
more of the same thing.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I guess we'll get into the NPFL and your decision
to join that along with the bass Master Elites and
just a bit. But how was your holiday? Everything good?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It was good. It was good. First first Christmas in
New Year's being a married man, so that was pretty
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Feel any different though, I mean, you and Riley have
been pretty rock Yeah, I made for a while.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, we've been together almost six years. It was good.
We kind of didn't really do anything crazy. We just
kind of enjoyed each other's company with about how crazy
I'm you know, I'll be gone, she'll be working, so
you just kind of with the family or no a
little Yeah, my mom and dad and you know, a
couple of my close cousins and stuff like that, grandparents,
but not really didn't really have a whole big gathering
or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I had such a hard time, like trying to get
back to Virginia to go see my family because you know,
we both live in Alabama. So Birmingham doesn't really have
an international airport where you can just fly direct anywhere.
You always have to connect somewhere. So I was going
to have to go from Birmingham to Atlanta, Atlanta to
Richmond and then drive and I was like, you know,
it's too much.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm not saying it's normally always you got to go
to Atlanta first and then from wherever from there.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, So usually if somebody tells me like, go to Hell,
I'm like, no, I've been to Atlanta. I've gone through
the airport. Yeah, it's fine. I actually like that airport.
There's a lot of people that hate it, but I
dig it.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm just not a fan of the whole city. But
that's a different story for a different day.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I hated it up in Missouri, so I did some
duck hunting in the North Zone before that closed. It's
just been such a terrible duck season. And what really
stinks is they got winter weather right after their duck
season ended, and from what I'm hearing from my buddies
up there, they have got ducks piling in to their
(01:47):
farms and they're getting them all on trail cam and
they're like, you know, I can't do anything about it.
But that's also factoring all the way down. So New
Year's I was in the south zone of a Missouri
which closed is at the tail end of January, and
we didn't get a lot of ducks. We got some geese,
which was really good. We got one duck. This is
actually one of the best stories. So there's six of
(02:09):
us in the blind and this one duck comes in.
I'm like, that's not a duck that's been here before.
He's all by himself. He's Drake Mallard. Yeah. He's like,
oh look there's ducks and there's letters. So that's where
I gotta go. And they're calling to him the whole deal.
He comes right across everybody's barrel and then the guy
on the end he's like take him. I stood up
(02:30):
and I followed him the whole way and bomb first shot.
Everybody else starts blasting. They all miss him because he's
already dropping. We get the bird back in and he's like, well,
whoever shot first got it. I was like, that's me
and they were like, dangs, fence, give everybody else a chance,
and I'm like, y'all saw it came across your barrel though, right,
But it was. It was a cool trip because, you know,
(02:52):
hunting just like anything else, it's time on the time
on the in the blind, hanging out with your buddies.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Absolutely, but it's kind of on it that. You know,
we got the winter weather like right now that everybody
was I don't duck hunt, but I got a bunch
of buddes that they're like, man, it's been too hot,
it ain't got no rain. Well they got it. Now
have you ever been I've been twice duck I wouldn't
call it duck hunting. I went to hunt a duck
in Alabama. In Alabama and oh, so you're going after woodies, Well,
we were just going after something with feathers.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, I hear you.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The one time I went that I saw a duck.
I was with two of my buddies and they said
they I was in this little you know, their little
luminum boat on the side of a creek. It was
in Canoe Creek, a Neil Henry actually. They said, all
if we see one or two, like, don't shoot because
they'll circle back around it. Might bring some more in. Dude,
it just got like you know where you could shoot
and light and one come in and I didn't think
nothing about because they told me not to shoot. Dude,
it got close enough they lit his up. Yeah, and
(03:43):
both of them missed. And as the last duck we
saw so.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
My one buddy's place in the North Zona, Missouri. I
was sitting there just waiting and all of a sudden
these ducks come flying in. He shoots one off the edge.
I mean it was probably ten yards and he's shooting
Boss shy Shells. We couldn't even breast that duck out.
It destroyed that duck.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
It was gone on impact. It was gone.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And of course his boys are nine and seven or
nine and six, and they want to hold up the ducks.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
There's no duck.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And I said to one of the boys, I was like, hey,
we're going to put that one down on the ground,
you know, because that one doesn't look good.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
They held up the other ducks that we got, but man,
that one, I mean, Boss Shotschells did what they were
supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I know a lot of people shoot them for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
All right, let's jump right into it. MPFL. You are
joining that league and you're not walking away from bass
Master Elite. It just kind of works out good where
their schedule matches up well with the breaks that you
have with the bass Master release. Are there any events
you're not going to make for the MPFL because of
the bass Master No.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I'll get to fish. I'll get to fish all of
them on both sides, which I would obviously fish all
of the elites. But that's kind of why I made
the decision. They came out with a schedule and I
saw that there was no conflict and and I just
I felt like I needed to fish more and I
didn't want to go down the opened rout because I mean,
I fished those for two years, you know, trying to qualify,
and I feel like if you're not really trying to
(05:06):
qualify to make the elites, like, that's a hard road
to go down because there's so many talented anglers and
there's so many people fishing them now, and there is
the you know, they do have the little carrot hanging
out there of making the Classic. But my thought process
of rally was, I said, I can either fish the
elites focus on them to make the Classic. The an
easier way and the NPFL just to be on the
water more and try and make some extra money, or
(05:28):
go to the opens and try and get that Classic.
But you know, it's obviously a lot tougher, so I
obviously went with the NPFL deal.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Why did you choose to fish more? What was scratching
you saying you got to fish more?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I just feel like I haven't been on the water.
I feel like the last two years, I haven't had
the greatest of seasons, and I feel like I was
just solely focusing on the elites, and I would go
fishing an elite tournament and I would come home and
I wouldn't even go fishing. I wouldn't fish at home,
I wouldn't do anything. And I feel like I just
needed to be on the water more, regardless of where
I was at or what I'm doing. And I feel like,
you need to just fish more. It gives you some confidence,
(06:03):
it gets your mind working, like I felt like, or
I feel like when I would come home and not fish,
I would kind of not be as sharp.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Basically, I feel like because you were coming off on
one of your worst professional seasons.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, and I think the when you're not doing good
and you like, like, if you're in a slump, like
a baseball players in a slump. Because I played baseball
in high school, a good bit, I'll swing more. You
gotta keep swinging, Like I feel like if you had
a bad game and you just went home and didn't
practice or didn't swing anymore, you're just gonna walk right
back into the game and pick up where you left off.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
It's just interesting when you hear somebody who's deciding to
jump into another league in addition to the league that
they're known for being in. To me, I look at
it financially and I'm like, man, you talk about the
financial situation so many people are in that's got to
be kind of weighing on you a little bit. I mean,
the npfl's five grand, correct, bast Master's five grand.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, we're at a five round and pop. It was
we got nine, we got fifteen tournament, so it's at
five grand a pop. Yeah. And I'm not saying that.
I that I'm financially stable enough to do that, I know.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
But you're hedging your bets. I mean you're literally looking
at it like, hey, I'm gonna get into these tournaments
because one I got to sharpen my tools. I gotta
be ready to go. Yeah, and I feel like I
can still be competitive, whether it's in PFL or bass Master.
You just feel like you're gonna have more of an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean you got to look at it.
Your you got fifteen chances to win one hundred grand,
so I mean, and obviously you're not gonna go out
there fifteen times and win every one of them. But
the odds, you know, you kind of look at the
odds and I had enough. I've obviously had enough money
to pay the Elite Series entry fees. I've you know,
I've worked and worked my butt off in the off
season when I figured out I was gonna do the NPFL,
(07:46):
which is an extra thirty thousand dollars. But again, I
looked at it from a business decision. I just feel
like fishing both of them, I can make my money
back as well as, you know, be a better angler
and be a lot sharper because I'm no, not trying
to be cocky, but I'm a lot better fishermen than
I've been showing like it just something it's mentally and
a lot of fishing is ninety percent mental. And ten
percent everything else. So I feel like you just keep
(08:09):
getting on the water and fishing as much as you
can and let everything work out.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I looked at the schedule last year with the MPFL
and started to think to myself, Man, if I was
a bass Master Elite, or if I was in MLF
fishing the Bass Pro Tour and I was hearing that
Patrick Walters won two tournaments for one hundred grand at
the NPFL, and I'm going up against the best of
the best for one hundred grand in the elites or
(08:34):
the bass Pro I think I would have started looking
at it. Did that factor in where you started to
see some of the success that other pros were having
in the MPFL.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, No, I don't know, not really, because I.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Mean, look at how many pros are now joining the
MPFL well compared to what it was.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Right, That's what I was going to say. I said something,
Something's guys are seeing something at the NPFL, because I
mean what that was maybe two guys to or three
elite guys. I think maybe only two John Cox and
Patrick last year, and then this year, I think there's
like twelve or thirteen of us along with the I
think there's bird is coming over from or MLF from
(09:15):
from the you know, Patrick doing good. Patrick kicks our
butt over on the elite. So it's like it's not
surprising that he wins anywhere he goes, and he's won,
you know, multiple opens. He's probably one of the best
out there right now. But just I didn't even really
look at the field because I know that even if
you don't know the names of the guys, like, you know,
they're you know, probably very good fish catchers. And I
know some of them that fish you know regionally, and
(09:35):
they're they're really good anglers. And it wasn't really about that.
It was basically just wanting to go fishing, and I
thought that was the best bang for your buck money wise,
to you know, for a basically a business investment. Like
I said, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Just I was getting phone calls from friends of mine
that were like, hey, man, I'm thinking about fishing the MPFL.
And I had the same conversation that I would have
with anybody. Take a look at the field that's going
over the MPFL. It's one hundred and thirty anglers or
one hundred and twenty four whatever it might be. Now
you're going up against some tried and true dudes when
(10:08):
it comes to professional fishing and you're trying to get
in the top sixty. Yeah, and you're spending sixty thousand
dollars or thirty thousand dollars whatever it is, five grand
a tournament in order to do it. Dude, My hat
is off to some of those guys because I know,
for me, where I'm at in my fishing game, I'll
stick it out in the Toyota Series. That'll be the
highest level that I go right now.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, And there's nothing wrong with the Toyota Series, and
there's nothing wrong with those guys, you know, spending that
money to come fish, because like I've heard it all
the time and here in the last few years, you know,
it's not a working man's sport anymore. Blah blah blah. Dude,
every guy that's there was a working man. We just
took a chance. Like I mean, I didn't have the
money when I fished the opens or fished the FW Tour.
I didn't have the money, and you weren't given anything, No, dude.
(10:52):
When I started the FW Tour back when it was
the actual fow when the dudes were still over there
in seventeen and eighteen, Like I paid my first first
entry fee to Posit and had five hundred dollars left
in my bank account before I went to the first tournament.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, I mean it's it is literally it's gambling.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
It is one hundred, it's it's it's like, it's literally.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
The World Series of Pokers. Yes, you got a fishing
pole and a boat.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like instead of dealing with cards, you're dealing with a
little green things coming around the brain, the size of
the pea like that. You can't, you know, you can't
make him as good as you want to be, Like
I feel like basketball poker. Poker is a little different
because you don't know how the cards go. But people like.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
You're also not trying to bluff other people. You could
have a bad hand in poker and still will You can't.
You can't bluff him Scales. No, No, definitely not. It's
a whole different game.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like you can't you know, you can't affect the weather,
the fish, and the fish the way they act, like
it's all subject to to not not be the way
you want it to be. So it's gambling, But it's
kind of if you really look at we're kind of dumb. Like,
it's probably one of the stupidest things in the world.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
You and I had a conversation not too long ago,
and it actually resonates really well with this conversation about
tournament fishing and how your mental approach to tournament fishing
compared to just fishing a tournament. Yes, a tournament fisherman.
Walk me through the mindset in the process of how
(12:14):
you approach a tournament compared to how you used to
approach a tournament before you became a tournament guy.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, like so, so I would just like to do
it on two different tournament basis. Like let's say you've
got a Coosa River team trail here at home, so
you got a one day Saturday event. Let's you're fishing
with your buddy or your dad or whoever. You're gonna
go out there and you're gonna try and get you know,
most of the time, I'm gonna fish it. Try and
catch five, get five bytes. I wanna try and win
the tournament. Gets five big a bite, whatever I gotta do.
(12:41):
Put one rod in my hand, put a swim jig
in my hand, a flipping jig, a big spinning bait, whatever,
try and catch five. The biggest ones out there. You know,
flip that to being on the Elite Series to where
you've got nine events you're trying to get to a Classic.
You don't need to try and win every tournament because
it's not gonna So.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
It's point driven for you. At the higher level.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Absolutely, well, it's it's gonna be over the longevity of
the year because my sponsors need me to be in
the Classic to promote them more on the biggest stage
in fishing. So I've got to do everything I can
to try and get to that Classic, which is point driven.
I just had a call. I was on the phone
with the probably one of my best friends coming down there,
and he was like, well, maybe we'll just go out
there and win. Tale to Ben and I was like, dude,
(13:25):
I'm not saying I don't want to win it, but
if that was ever a tournament that I'm probably not
gonna win, it's that one. And he just sat there.
He was like, well, that's not a good mindset to have.
I said, well, you got to look at it from
this I feel like the tournament's gonna get one offshore.
You know. However, on the Football Jig Carolina Rig Big
Crank bait. That's not my deal. Like, I don't fish
like that. That's all your strength. Yeah, that's not what
(13:45):
I like to do. Not saying I couldn't do that,
but like I told him, I said, it may take
me three months to find a winning hole like that.
I don't have three months. I got two and a
half days.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Okay. So when you go to a place like Toledo Bend,
even though you feel like the winning pattern is going
to be something you're not strong at, you're gonna fish
your game, You're gonna grab a jig, you're gonna go
shallow or whatever you like to do.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I would like to that's that's that's gonna that would
be my you know, mindset going into it. And sometimes
that's not even feasibly possible. But I think these last
two years I've been and I feel like I've been
very guilty of knowing how I think the tournament. What's
gonna get one? You know in this section of the
like doing this, Well, I go chase that rabbit hole
for a day and a half and can't find nothing. Well,
(14:27):
then I'm already behind the eight ball because I don't
even know how to go get a bike in practice, yes.
So it's just a it's a game of you know
what you're confident in, And I feel like I need
to get back to how I like to fish, because
back when I like made it in the opens, made
the elites in like twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, when I
was a FLW dude, I just go fish like it
could be June on the Tennessee River and I say, well,
(14:49):
they can go catch them off in ledges all they want.
I'm gonna win the shallow fishing tournament. And you know,
most of the time you'd finished, you know, twentieth or
thirtieth and get real consistent with a check. Well, now
I'm I felt like I'm so great that ant go
try and win every tournament that you see how that's
worked out.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
What about the number of days though, when you go
from a Saturday one day deal on the Coosa River
to a three day knockout, drag out fight, yeah, on
the Saint Lawrence. Yeah, it's a how do you mentally
change from Well, I could go shallow and just fish
that way, but you need to do something to where
you feel like you're gonna catch them and then catch
(15:24):
them multiple days in a row.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, The main thing would be the way I like
to fish is don't try and figure out how to
get a bye in practice, like on a little deal,
on a shallow deal, and try and find as much
old as possible to where like you may have one
creek that you feel like you can fish all day.
You know, day one say I'm gonna go spend my
day one in here, catch everything I send, everything I can,
(15:46):
and then day two go to a new area, and
if you're fortunate enough to make the cut, I'm just
going through a process. If this were to happen, day two,
go to a different area, or maybe start in the
first day one area. If it don't work out, run
to this day too area. And then if you're forced
enough to make the top fifty cut, all the stress
is gone. You've got your ten thousand dollars check, you've
got good points. Then you can maybe gamble a little
bit or you know, sample both areas stuff like that.
(16:08):
It's a whole different mindset.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Is kind of the gamble day.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
If you're back correct, correct if you like, if you
slip into the cut, you know, if you're from fiftieth
to thirtieth, like the chances of you making the top
ten or you know, unless it's really stacked.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
But a lot of the times that changes is the
points because the money, your money is exactly the same.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, where it gets real dicey is if you're around
thirtieth or twenty and I had this happen three times
last year. Actually I would be in like the mid
twenties to thirtieth and have a bad Day three and
end up in the bottom forties. So you've actually lost,
you know, twenty points. So the scary part in the
day three cut to me in our tournaments is being
in the twenties to thirties because you have so much
(16:48):
room to fall.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Now it's something like the NPFL, which is still set
up as a professional tournament, but everything has changed, Like
they do their payouts completely different than how That's does it,
and BASS does it completely different than how MLF does it.
Does your mindset change when you're going to the NPFL.
Are you worried about points there? No, you're worried about payout.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And yeah, I'm I'm not gonna say that, I'm not
worried about the points because they do have an end
of the year championship. It's no entry fee, which is
and they pay out a good bit of money and
they're you know, a good friend of mine, Todd Goad
won the AOI last year. Like it's a big deal,
but I'm probably going to maybe gamble a little bit
more in those like try to figure out a way
to win the tournament. Like we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
You could use that kind of as a platform to
figure out some techniques of fishing that you don't normally do.
If that's the deal for that tournament.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I wouldn't say try and figure it out, but maybe
get confidence in a tournament. Yes, yes, where I would
be you know, I'm fishing against ninety nine of the
other some of the best anglers in the world at
the elites, where I feel like there's guys that are
better at some things that I fish against at the
elites than I am. But I feel like I'm better
at some stuff than they are. You understand what I'm saying.
Where I feel like I could work on that in
(17:59):
a tournament's big money tournament setting at the NPFL, you know,
also trying to get some points, but just have a
little bit more room to gamble.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
My concern when it comes to tournaments is, you know,
I've only been fishing for four years, so I don't
really have like a crew of people that I can
call and contact and just talk about, like, you know,
different ideas about different lakes, because my my, my world
is completely different than your world, right, Like you can't
get information on certain places once the shutdown happened.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
We're not supposed to, right, We've we've we went over
we went over that over the couple of times.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
But you know, for me, like I'm trying to figure
out the tournament fishing thing, and I know I'm doing
a trail this year, and my worry is that I
could potentially go out there and not know anything about
the lake and just kind of throw what I think
they might do. But I feel like without having some
(18:53):
sort of prior knowledge about what fish do at that
time of year and what fish do on that body
of water, you are really really behind. If you're just
trying to put together a practice on a lake you've
never been on. Have you had success where you just
show up to a body of water you've never been
on and boom, you just whack them.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
For some reason?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I do.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I hardly ever have I ever went into a tournament
and just white like just blistered them, like just thought
I just knew I was gonna catch them, and then
go out there and catch them. It's it's normally the
way I like to fish, the way I grew up,
fishings of grind, like I go try and figure out
how to get a few bites and just make basically
chicken salt out of chicken shit. So but I feel
like it was easier to compete that way a couple
(19:33):
of years ago, And I don't know why, Like maybe
it's that information deal that we talked about in an
earlier podcast, Like there's more people getting help than there
used to be. Because I used to think that I
could show up to a lake and within three or
four days figure out a way to you know, have
a very good finish. And now that's being a fiftieth
to seventieth place finish. It very well could be the
(19:55):
life's coat thing too, because that was never a thing.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I do think that that's the biggest table. Well, it
takes people that are like, oh man, I wish they'd
just ban that and blah blah. I think some guy
said to me the other day there was a tournament
that came out. This is like a small mom and
pop tournament, it's a benefit for kids, and they go,
we're banning live scope. You're not allowed to have it.
And I'm like, if there's a tournament that should have
(20:20):
live scope, it's a tournament that benefits kids, because if
I've got a kid fishing with me in my boat,
let them. I want him to see what he's doing
and then try to figure out how he can catch them.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I saw that, and I was like, oh, this isn't
about kids.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
No, No, like this is a munch of egos.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, exactly. And then one guy comes on. He goes,
you shouldn't need live scope to catch fish and blah
blah blah. Go do you have any electronics on your boat?
And he's like, yeah, but I ain't got live scope,
And I go, okay, but you still know where the
fish are and you still know how to try to
catch them. They don't just get on your line because
you threw a bait out to him on live scope.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
No, No, definitely not. But but and again I'm.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Not I'll get off my soap bus.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah it's it's it's a you'll never it'll be a
never ending conversation.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
The things that we talked about in an earlier podcast
about how many units you can have on your boat.
All that stuff's coming out now. I sat talking about,
you know, they're slapping the transducers on the on the
jack plate. Oh, you know, like there. And obviously there's
plenty of electronic guys that are setting all these boats up.
They know all the tricks. Yes, are you doing anything
different with your electronics this year? You just going too
(21:23):
at the back?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Too at the No, I'm two at the back. I
got two humming Bird apex at the back, of humming
Bird apex at the front, and then just my garming
you know, twelve inch with the live scope. I don't know,
I'm not. I feel like I just need to go fishing.
If I was a you know, a big offshore guy
and that's how I was going to fish, and the
closest my boat was ever gonna be to the bank
when I put it on the trailer, I would I
(21:44):
would definitely look into that, you know, lives coats on
the back and just sitting down and you know, looking
around trying to find them. But it's just not my deal.
But I do use it. And there's been days where
I wanted it to go away. Completely, and then you
know I was probably being a little bit irrash, and
then you know you really sit down and look at
it and look at the pros and cons, and like
you said, you're not gonna catch every one of them
(22:05):
you throw at, but it does help. I think, like
we were just talking about the just showing up to
a lake and just whatever, not knowing anything, just go
a fishing. I think it put you could have ten
to fifteen to twenty guys that don't really have a
good practice that maybe they just know to go in
this creek and put their troll motor down and look
for them all day and finally find a group of
(22:27):
fish to where back in seven, sixteen, seventeen eighteen that
wasn't gonna happen. So you still have those guys that
didn't figure them out in practice, that don't have a
lives cup well, they're still just lost. And I've been there,
but I think that Livescope deal makes the weights go
up a little bit, like like our average cut, like
we've gone to term it's last few years and they're like, well,
(22:48):
it's only gonna take sixteen a day, because this is
what it took in twenty sixteen. I'm like, bro, dude,
we had a we had two d there was no livescup.
I said, it's bumping up by three pounds.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Guarantee there's one extra good fish that you can find
because the live scope. Yes, but I mean right, And
depending on the water you're on, Like if you go
to Okachobe, you're fishing shallow water, a live scope might
not be the game changer for you, but the hummed
bird three sixty, yes, that's live. Like if you if
you find good fish and grass, you're gonna be able
to find NX for three or four pounds.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yes, yeah, you know, but it just and I.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Pulled up to Logan Martin and I'd never really been
on the lake before, and I just scanned an area
with my live scope and I found a good pile
a school of fish, and I sat there with a
crankbait and just straight warm them out in a Tuesday night.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Tournament that you'd never know was there, and I would.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Have never known, you know, But I went to that
area because I had a feeling that fish liked to
relate to that at that time of year. And then
when I saw it on the live scope, I'm like
this backs it up, did really well in that tournament.
But here's what's crazy. You were talking about live scopes
impact in numbers. You remember when Hank Parker walked across
the stage in a bass Master Classic on the final
day with fourteen pounds. He needed thirteen and a half
(24:00):
to win. Fourteen pounds, dude, fourteen pounds now gets you
laughed out of a tournament. You're finishing sixtieth or below
with fourteen pounds.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
That's what most of the places, you know, most of
the venues we go. There's a few like you know,
if you get it here on the Coasher River or
like the Sabina most of the time a river system
fishing line. Yeah, but these these bigger, you know, impoundments
we go to. It's like I said, you've you've literally
got to bomp up the agear always on the lava.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Lanier does like a monthly tournament. A guy named Scott
Barnes puts it on. Really good tournament, ran really well.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
A lot of dudes in there that can catch them.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, we're talking twenty four, yeah to twenty one.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Might as well throw them back.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
It's crazy now you listen. I'm happy for those guys.
Because they figured out some deals that really work well
for them. And I've fished that lake. That's where I
kind of grew up and cut my teeth and you know,
for the first three years of my fishing life. But
I'll tell you, you see some of those weights that
come out of that lake. If that lake is not
on a nap sational trail within.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Two I can't believe it wasn't this year.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I was shocked too when the schedules came out. I'm like,
how do you not put it on there? It's got
to be the Gainesville or whoever? Not wanting to pay Yeah,
because we actually my rookie year on FLW, we went
there when Bradley Hallmand won.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, we fished. That's the last major tournament that I
know was that way when all the elites went there.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
That is one completely different fishery than we.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Absolutely there, Absolutely dude like it. It's ten times better too,
And I will, I will. I want to go back
to defend the guys. I don't even know them. The guys,
like you know, most of the top five are probably
in that tournament. They could probably catch them without Livescup.
And We'll be honest, some of them.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Well, I think a lot of the guys that do
really well there their local hands.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
They just know, they know, they know the area, they know,
and they've probably figured out an easier way to catch
them with livescub but they know what to look for.
But it's those sixteen to twenty pound backs that there's
forty of that the guys like if me and you
went out there, didn't know nothing about the lake, Like, hell,
let's just fish this ditch right here.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I think they had twenty twenty five guys in the
last tournament. I think the last place team had like
eleven and a half pounds. You know how pumped I
would be with eleven and a half pounds like I'd be,
I'd be stoked because of who how I am as
a fisherman, young, young in the sport of fishing, not
as accomplished as guys like you have been fishing for years.
You come in with eleven pounds and you're like, what
(26:20):
the hell did I don't even.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Want to show my fights, dude. There's been many times
I'll just put the boat on truck and get in
the truck, don't even strap it, just drive off. So
I don't have to look at nobody because I'm so embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You know, A guy said to me the other day,
he goes, I learned more in tournament fishing by getting
my ass kicked than I do by winning, absolutely, And
I said, if that's the case, man considered me the
smartest man. That's it. Like I've got a doctorate and
getting my ass whipped.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
In some tournament I do too. Lately, what is it
like when.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You're when you're fishing a bass master tournament you find
out that your deal wasn't the deal You already knew
what the winning deal was going to be. I mean
I went to enough tournaments with you guys last year
where you hear the conversations. Yeah, you know you know that,
Like let's take the Classic last year, everybody knew that
Gustifson was going to win. The first day. They all
(27:09):
knew Gussie was gonna win. They were like, he fishes
the right spot, he fishes the right way, and he
fishes the right type of fish. And the day one
of practice, you know, he's down his hole and you
saw maybe fifteen twenty boats come down there. The next
day forty boats are done and well, guys are just
checking it out and all that kind of stuff. There's
(27:30):
some dudes that just go, now, I'm not going over there.
That's where Gussie's been fishing. That's going to be his thing.
There's other guys that are like, no, no, no, I'm gonna
try to get as close as I possibly can. Yeah,
when you guys are hearing all the conversation about what
works well and who's doing what and all that kind
of stuff, do you change a game plan or do
you stay pretty tight to how you like to be.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
I mean, obviously you have to listen to that kind
of stuff, but I am not the guy or will
I ever be the guy that's just gonna go to
an area where somebody just smashed them. You know. Obviously
I wasn't in that classic, but there's been multiple because
we go so many places at the same time of
year on different years, and everybody knows where people called
them or where they wont and I just I try
not to be that guy, but you can't ignore the
(28:12):
fact of how they called him and how they were
able to win the event. So you try and I
try and duplicate that in different areas of the late
but because it should be able to be duplicated. Knox
was a little bit different situation because of where that
all goes down at where it nexts down in that
in that canal. I've actually never seen that canal with
my own eyes, like I've never been I've only fished
one derby that that was the one the elite that
he won. But and obviously there's more fish there than
(28:36):
anybody could ever catch. And then after he won the Elite,
I'm sure it got pounded by local pressure like that.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
So it wasn't really a thing that all those guys
were in there on top of him. But what's really
what you have to understand is when we say it's
the hundred best guys in the world, they are the
best in the world at what they do. Gussie is
the best at moping or whatever they call it, you know,
with the little domeki rig deal. He can go find
that somewhere else, and he did, and that's why he
was able to win. I don't remember exactly where he
(29:02):
caught him, but he didn't catch him all in that canal.
He found a whole different area. And he's good enough
to know to what to look for to go be
able to find.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
That well, and you guys are so good at being
able to needle in on some of the smallest details
of a patas you know, I hear guys say, like
they go into a tournament and they're like, oh, it's
going to be a good dock bite. But then when
you go with a pro, it's not just a dock bite.
It's the third piling that doubles up next to another one.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, on the right hand side, on the right a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Of shade over. You know, like when when I think
about specifics, like I was fishing a tournament on Logan
Martin and buddy of mine went out and we were
throwing a jigger around and throwing a crank bait and
all that kind of stuff. He was catching him on
a jig right where the dock ends. Okay, so you'd
have to go all the way underneath the big platform.
You'd have to drag that thing back, maybe hop it
(29:51):
a couple times, and right where you got to where
that shade line breaks. In the middle of the day,
We're talking eleven thirty twelve noon. As soon as he
break into the sun, boom, he get bit. And we
started to break it down to where we said it's
got to be a dock that's got a good platform.
And every single dock we caught a fish on there
was a pontoon boat in the left. It's not in
(30:14):
the water, actually up And I kept saying to him,
I was like, this is our pattern, Like we're catching
them on docks that have pontoon boats, and we're getting
them right at the edge. He's like, I think you're
going too deep. No one necessarily thinks about something a
bit deeper. You can go, the more dialed in you
can get, man, I can imagine it feels so good
lude to get that dialed in.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, it's about the third bite you get doing the
same thing. Cause two's kind of I heard I and
Eli say this a long time ago. You know, one's luck.
Two maybe three you got it dialed in pretty good.
But I mean I've I can remember situations like around here,
like fishing grass and stuff, like you may be catching
them two foot back instead of on the edge, like
you've been fishing the edge all day, and then you
happen to flip over in there catch one. You're like,
(30:55):
you know what, you kind of like might have been luck,
and then you go twenty more yards and you start
flipping on in the inside it. You catch another one,
and then you catch another one. You're like, oh, it's
game over now.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
But how difficult is that when you go into a
practice and you know you're trying to get that one,
two and then that third. You know, when you're in practice,
if you're trying to relate to a certain area and
you find something that is so definitive. Yeah, Like, I
was fishing a body of water, and for me, I
had to fish the bank because I knew they were
up on this bank and there had to be some
(31:25):
shade on it. But what I was finding on my
map is where those contour lines got super tight. It
was making like this little bit of a drop where
it wasn't just a natural grade. It was kind of
like natural grade funneled into a sharp drop. Man, if
I had a spinner bait, I was wearing them out
on that sharp drop. So I went around on my
map and I started pointing on every little sharp drop
I saw. Is that something that you guys do where
(31:47):
you start to really look at your maps like that,
You go, I'm doing this or do you just do history? No?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I did, because a lot of the places I'm not
old enough yet to have been there, you know, three
or four or five different times from a history standpoint.
But man, lake Master on my homae birds are like
the biggest thing that I used during practice, going to
these places that I'm not that familiar with, to where
when you start getting a buy you can, you know,
really zoom in on that, like you're talking about the
contour lines and with the new premium you know, lake
Master cards, it's got the shading so it kind of
(32:13):
pops at you a little bit color wise, and dude,
I'll just go through there and mark, you know, however
many that I can find, and then then run.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
So it's like if you know that you have fish
in the eight to twelve foot and you can make that.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Your grit zone, you just you just put in there, Dude,
the whole map will just pop at you like, oh
my god. Everything.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
You'll start to see things on maps that you've never
seen on a lake you've been on a million times.
I know, you're a big cousa river guy, and like
Neelie Henry, if you do that shading the right way,
you start to really see things that you're like, Man,
I had no idea about that, or or.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
You look at places like you're talking about history, where
you've caught them over and over and over again, and
you look at your map and you're like, well, that
makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Right of why you were catching them.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, And what's really crazy about tournament fishing that I've
figured out is when you get something really dialed in,
there not near as much of it as you think
there is. Most of the time, like it'll be like
certain little key deals.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Maybe maybe five spots.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It could be it could be one hundred, like who knows.
But most of the time it's when it gets really detailed,
like there's not as much of it as you think
there is.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, it's crazy, all right. Well, best of luck in
the MPFL, and best of luck and bass Master this year.
I mean, obviously, I know personally that you're coming off
of a really rough year and you were not happy
with how your output was definitely not How do you
feel going into this year different than last?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
You know, we'll see when the tournament starts. I fished
a little bit more of this off season. I was
dealing with a little bit of pain in my hand
last year, but that's no it's huge. I had some
hand surgery. So that's good to go. But I don't know.
We just need to get the year started off good.
And like I said, it was it was more of
a business decision to just get my butt back on
the water and fishing more regardless of where I'm fishing,
just in a tournament environment instead of just going and
(33:53):
lolly gagging around when I'm what was wrong with your hand?
I had a trick trigger finger release surgery on my pinky.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And like was it like you? It was super tight.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
They would lock up during the day like it was.
I would be driving down the river, like when my
fingers just locked up?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Do you know? I just overwear? And it probably they said,
just the way I hold the rod, because I just
put the trigger finger between my pinky and my ring finger,
and just the way I work stuff like frog and
you know, swim dig and chatter bait and all that
good stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Do you miss the pistol grip style rids?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Then no, I need to learn how to fish left
hand is what it looked like. But yeah, I'm I'm
ready to go. Maybe to this year it'll be a
little bit better. Get my head straight and everything's everything
will work out for itself.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
First tournament of the year for him MPFL that is
at the tail end of January on Lake Logan, Martin,
West Logan. Thank you buddy.
I'm Spencer Graves. That's West Logan, It's lines and times.
Let's jump right into it. It's twenty twenty four, New year,
new me, same old stuff. You're changing, though you're doing
a lot of different things this.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Year a little bit, a little bit or might be
more of the same thing.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I guess we'll get into the NPFL and your decision
to join that along with the bass Master Elites and
just a bit. But how was your holiday? Everything good?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
It was good. It was good. First first Christmas in
New Year's being a married man, so that was pretty
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Feel any different though, I mean, you and Riley have
been pretty rock Yeah, I made for a while.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, we've been together almost six years. It was good.
We kind of didn't really do anything crazy. We just
kind of enjoyed each other's company with about how crazy
I'm you know, I'll be gone, she'll be working, so
you just kind of with the family or no a
little Yeah, my mom and dad and you know, a
couple of my close cousins and stuff like that, grandparents,
but not really didn't really have a whole big gathering
or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I had such a hard time, like trying to get
back to Virginia to go see my family because you know,
we both live in Alabama. So Birmingham doesn't really have
an international airport where you can just fly direct anywhere.
You always have to connect somewhere. So I was going
to have to go from Birmingham to Atlanta, Atlanta to
Richmond and then drive and I was like, you know,
it's too much.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm not saying it's normally always you got to go
to Atlanta first and then from wherever from there.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah, So usually if somebody tells me like, go to Hell,
I'm like, no, I've been to Atlanta. I've gone through
the airport. Yeah, it's fine. I actually like that airport.
There's a lot of people that hate it, but I
dig it.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm just not a fan of the whole city. But
that's a different story for a different day.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I hated it up in Missouri, so I did some
duck hunting in the North Zone before that closed. It's
just been such a terrible duck season. And what really
stinks is they got winter weather right after their duck
season ended, and from what I'm hearing from my buddies
up there, they have got ducks piling in to their
(01:47):
farms and they're getting them all on trail cam and
they're like, you know, I can't do anything about it.
But that's also factoring all the way down. So New
Year's I was in the south zone of a Missouri
which closed is at the tail end of January, and
we didn't get a lot of ducks. We got some geese,
which was really good. We got one duck. This is
actually one of the best stories. So there's six of
(02:09):
us in the blind and this one duck comes in.
I'm like, that's not a duck that's been here before.
He's all by himself. He's Drake Mallard. Yeah. He's like,
oh look there's ducks and there's letters. So that's where
I gotta go. And they're calling to him the whole deal.
He comes right across everybody's barrel and then the guy
on the end he's like take him. I stood up
(02:30):
and I followed him the whole way and bomb first shot.
Everybody else starts blasting. They all miss him because he's
already dropping. We get the bird back in and he's like, well,
whoever shot first got it. I was like, that's me
and they were like, dangs, fence, give everybody else a chance,
and I'm like, y'all saw it came across your barrel though, right,
But it was. It was a cool trip because, you know,
(02:52):
hunting just like anything else, it's time on the time
on the in the blind, hanging out with your buddies.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Absolutely, but it's kind of on it that. You know,
we got the winter weather like right now that everybody
was I don't duck hunt, but I got a bunch
of buddes that they're like, man, it's been too hot,
it ain't got no rain. Well they got it. Now
have you ever been I've been twice duck I wouldn't
call it duck hunting. I went to hunt a duck
in Alabama. In Alabama and oh, so you're going after woodies, Well,
we were just going after something with feathers.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, I hear you.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The one time I went that I saw a duck.
I was with two of my buddies and they said
they I was in this little you know, their little
luminum boat on the side of a creek. It was
in Canoe Creek, a Neil Henry actually. They said, all
if we see one or two, like, don't shoot because
they'll circle back around it. Might bring some more in. Dude,
it just got like you know where you could shoot
and light and one come in and I didn't think
nothing about because they told me not to shoot. Dude,
it got close enough they lit his up. Yeah, and
(03:43):
both of them missed. And as the last duck we
saw so.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
My one buddy's place in the North Zona, Missouri. I
was sitting there just waiting and all of a sudden
these ducks come flying in. He shoots one off the edge.
I mean it was probably ten yards and he's shooting
Boss shy Shells. We couldn't even breast that duck out.
It destroyed that duck.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
It was gone on impact. It was gone.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And of course his boys are nine and seven or
nine and six, and they want to hold up the ducks.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
There's no duck.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
And I said to one of the boys, I was like, hey,
we're going to put that one down on the ground,
you know, because that one doesn't look good.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
They held up the other ducks that we got, but man,
that one, I mean, Boss Shotschells did what they were
supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I know a lot of people shoot them for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
All right, let's jump right into it. MPFL. You are
joining that league and you're not walking away from bass
Master Elite. It just kind of works out good where
their schedule matches up well with the breaks that you
have with the bass Master release. Are there any events
you're not going to make for the MPFL because of
the bass Master No.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I'll get to fish. I'll get to fish all of
them on both sides, which I would obviously fish all
of the elites. But that's kind of why I made
the decision. They came out with a schedule and I
saw that there was no conflict and and I just
I felt like I needed to fish more and I
didn't want to go down the opened rout because I mean,
I fished those for two years, you know, trying to qualify,
and I feel like if you're not really trying to
(05:06):
qualify to make the elites, like, that's a hard road
to go down because there's so many talented anglers and
there's so many people fishing them now, and there is
the you know, they do have the little carrot hanging
out there of making the Classic. But my thought process
of rally was, I said, I can either fish the
elites focus on them to make the Classic. The an
easier way and the NPFL just to be on the
water more and try and make some extra money, or
(05:28):
go to the opens and try and get that Classic.
But you know, it's obviously a lot tougher, so I
obviously went with the NPFL deal.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Why did you choose to fish more? What was scratching
you saying you got to fish more?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I just feel like I haven't been on the water.
I feel like the last two years, I haven't had
the greatest of seasons, and I feel like I was
just solely focusing on the elites, and I would go
fishing an elite tournament and I would come home and
I wouldn't even go fishing. I wouldn't fish at home,
I wouldn't do anything. And I feel like I just
needed to be on the water more, regardless of where
I was at or what I'm doing. And I feel like,
you need to just fish more. It gives you some confidence,
(06:03):
it gets your mind working, like I felt like, or
I feel like when I would come home and not fish,
I would kind of not be as sharp.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Basically, I feel like because you were coming off on
one of your worst professional seasons.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, and I think the when you're not doing good
and you like, like, if you're in a slump, like
a baseball players in a slump. Because I played baseball
in high school, a good bit, I'll swing more. You
gotta keep swinging, Like I feel like if you had
a bad game and you just went home and didn't
practice or didn't swing anymore, you're just gonna walk right
back into the game and pick up where you left off.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
It's just interesting when you hear somebody who's deciding to
jump into another league in addition to the league that
they're known for being in. To me, I look at
it financially and I'm like, man, you talk about the
financial situation so many people are in that's got to
be kind of weighing on you a little bit. I mean,
the npfl's five grand, correct, bast Master's five grand.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah, we're at a five round and pop. It was
we got nine, we got fifteen tournament, so it's at
five grand a pop. Yeah. And I'm not saying that.
I that I'm financially stable enough to do that, I know.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
But you're hedging your bets. I mean you're literally looking
at it like, hey, I'm gonna get into these tournaments
because one I got to sharpen my tools. I gotta
be ready to go. Yeah, and I feel like I
can still be competitive, whether it's in PFL or bass Master.
You just feel like you're gonna have more of an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean you got to look at it.
Your you got fifteen chances to win one hundred grand,
so I mean, and obviously you're not gonna go out
there fifteen times and win every one of them. But
the odds, you know, you kind of look at the
odds and I had enough. I've obviously had enough money
to pay the Elite Series entry fees. I've you know,
I've worked and worked my butt off in the off
season when I figured out I was gonna do the NPFL,
(07:46):
which is an extra thirty thousand dollars. But again, I
looked at it from a business decision. I just feel
like fishing both of them, I can make my money
back as well as, you know, be a better angler
and be a lot sharper because I'm no, not trying
to be cocky, but I'm a lot better fishermen than
I've been showing like it just something it's mentally and
a lot of fishing is ninety percent mental. And ten
percent everything else. So I feel like you just keep
(08:09):
getting on the water and fishing as much as you
can and let everything work out.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
I looked at the schedule last year with the MPFL
and started to think to myself, Man, if I was
a bass Master Elite, or if I was in MLF
fishing the Bass Pro Tour and I was hearing that
Patrick Walters won two tournaments for one hundred grand at
the NPFL, and I'm going up against the best of
the best for one hundred grand in the elites or
(08:34):
the bass Pro I think I would have started looking
at it. Did that factor in where you started to
see some of the success that other pros were having
in the MPFL.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, No, I don't know, not really, because I.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Mean, look at how many pros are now joining the
MPFL well compared to what it was.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Right, That's what I was going to say. I said something,
Something's guys are seeing something at the NPFL, because I
mean what that was maybe two guys to or three
elite guys. I think maybe only two John Cox and
Patrick last year, and then this year, I think there's
like twelve or thirteen of us along with the I
think there's bird is coming over from or MLF from
(09:15):
from the you know, Patrick doing good. Patrick kicks our
butt over on the elite. So it's like it's not
surprising that he wins anywhere he goes, and he's won,
you know, multiple opens. He's probably one of the best
out there right now. But just I didn't even really
look at the field because I know that even if
you don't know the names of the guys, like, you know,
they're you know, probably very good fish catchers. And I
know some of them that fish you know regionally, and
(09:35):
they're they're really good anglers. And it wasn't really about that.
It was basically just wanting to go fishing, and I
thought that was the best bang for your buck money wise,
to you know, for a basically a business investment. Like
I said, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Just I was getting phone calls from friends of mine
that were like, hey, man, I'm thinking about fishing the MPFL.
And I had the same conversation that I would have
with anybody. Take a look at the field that's going
over the MPFL. It's one hundred and thirty anglers or
one hundred and twenty four whatever it might be. Now
you're going up against some tried and true dudes when
(10:08):
it comes to professional fishing and you're trying to get
in the top sixty. Yeah, and you're spending sixty thousand
dollars or thirty thousand dollars whatever it is, five grand
a tournament in order to do it. Dude, My hat
is off to some of those guys because I know,
for me, where I'm at in my fishing game, I'll
stick it out in the Toyota Series. That'll be the
highest level that I go right now.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah, And there's nothing wrong with the Toyota Series, and
there's nothing wrong with those guys, you know, spending that
money to come fish, because like I've heard it all
the time and here in the last few years, you know,
it's not a working man's sport anymore. Blah blah blah. Dude,
every guy that's there was a working man. We just
took a chance. Like I mean, I didn't have the
money when I fished the opens or fished the FW Tour.
I didn't have the money, and you weren't given anything, No, dude.
(10:52):
When I started the FW Tour back when it was
the actual fow when the dudes were still over there
in seventeen and eighteen, Like I paid my first first
entry fee to Posit and had five hundred dollars left
in my bank account before I went to the first tournament.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, I mean it's it is literally it's gambling.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
It is one hundred, it's it's it's like, it's literally.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
The World Series of Pokers. Yes, you got a fishing
pole and a boat.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like instead of dealing with cards, you're dealing with a
little green things coming around the brain, the size of
the pea like that. You can't, you know, you can't
make him as good as you want to be, Like
I feel like basketball poker. Poker is a little different
because you don't know how the cards go. But people like.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
You're also not trying to bluff other people. You could
have a bad hand in poker and still will You can't.
You can't bluff him Scales. No, No, definitely not. It's
a whole different game.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like you can't you know, you can't affect the weather,
the fish, and the fish the way they act, like
it's all subject to to not not be the way
you want it to be. So it's gambling, But it's
kind of if you really look at we're kind of dumb. Like,
it's probably one of the stupidest things in the world.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
You and I had a conversation not too long ago,
and it actually resonates really well with this conversation about
tournament fishing and how your mental approach to tournament fishing
compared to just fishing a tournament. Yes, a tournament fisherman.
Walk me through the mindset in the process of how
(12:14):
you approach a tournament compared to how you used to
approach a tournament before you became a tournament guy.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, like so, so I would just like to do
it on two different tournament basis. Like let's say you've
got a Coosa River team trail here at home, so
you got a one day Saturday event. Let's you're fishing
with your buddy or your dad or whoever. You're gonna
go out there and you're gonna try and get you know,
most of the time, I'm gonna fish it. Try and
catch five, get five bytes. I wanna try and win
the tournament. Gets five big a bite, whatever I gotta do.
(12:41):
Put one rod in my hand, put a swim jig
in my hand, a flipping jig, a big spinning bait, whatever,
try and catch five. The biggest ones out there. You know,
flip that to being on the Elite Series to where
you've got nine events you're trying to get to a Classic.
You don't need to try and win every tournament because
it's not gonna So.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
It's point driven for you. At the higher level.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Absolutely, well, it's it's gonna be over the longevity of
the year because my sponsors need me to be in
the Classic to promote them more on the biggest stage
in fishing. So I've got to do everything I can
to try and get to that Classic, which is point driven.
I just had a call. I was on the phone
with the probably one of my best friends coming down there,
and he was like, well, maybe we'll just go out
there and win. Tale to Ben and I was like, dude,
(13:25):
I'm not saying I don't want to win it, but
if that was ever a tournament that I'm probably not
gonna win, it's that one. And he just sat there.
He was like, well, that's not a good mindset to have.
I said, well, you got to look at it from
this I feel like the tournament's gonna get one offshore.
You know. However, on the Football Jig Carolina Rig Big
Crank bait. That's not my deal. Like, I don't fish
like that. That's all your strength. Yeah, that's not what
(13:45):
I like to do. Not saying I couldn't do that,
but like I told him, I said, it may take
me three months to find a winning hole like that.
I don't have three months. I got two and a
half days.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Okay. So when you go to a place like Toledo Bend,
even though you feel like the winning pattern is going
to be something you're not strong at, you're gonna fish
your game, You're gonna grab a jig, you're gonna go
shallow or whatever you like to do.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I would like to that's that's that's gonna that would
be my you know, mindset going into it. And sometimes
that's not even feasibly possible. But I think these last
two years I've been and I feel like I've been
very guilty of knowing how I think the tournament. What's
gonna get one? You know in this section of the
like doing this, Well, I go chase that rabbit hole
for a day and a half and can't find nothing. Well,
(14:27):
then I'm already behind the eight ball because I don't
even know how to go get a bike in practice, yes.
So it's just a it's a game of you know
what you're confident in, And I feel like I need
to get back to how I like to fish, because
back when I like made it in the opens, made
the elites in like twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, when I
was a FLW dude, I just go fish like it
could be June on the Tennessee River and I say, well,
(14:49):
they can go catch them off in ledges all they want.
I'm gonna win the shallow fishing tournament. And you know,
most of the time you'd finished, you know, twentieth or
thirtieth and get real consistent with a check. Well, now
I'm I felt like I'm so great that ant go
try and win every tournament that you see how that's
worked out.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
What about the number of days though, when you go
from a Saturday one day deal on the Coosa River
to a three day knockout, drag out fight, yeah, on
the Saint Lawrence. Yeah, it's a how do you mentally
change from Well, I could go shallow and just fish
that way, but you need to do something to where
you feel like you're gonna catch them and then catch
(15:24):
them multiple days in a row.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, The main thing would be the way I like
to fish is don't try and figure out how to
get a bye in practice, like on a little deal,
on a shallow deal, and try and find as much
old as possible to where like you may have one
creek that you feel like you can fish all day.
You know, day one say I'm gonna go spend my
day one in here, catch everything I send, everything I can,
(15:46):
and then day two go to a new area, and
if you're fortunate enough to make the cut, I'm just
going through a process. If this were to happen, day two,
go to a different area, or maybe start in the
first day one area. If it don't work out, run
to this day too area. And then if you're forced
enough to make the top fifty cut, all the stress
is gone. You've got your ten thousand dollars check, you've
got good points. Then you can maybe gamble a little
bit or you know, sample both areas stuff like that.
(16:08):
It's a whole different mindset.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Is kind of the gamble day.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
If you're back correct, correct if you like, if you
slip into the cut, you know, if you're from fiftieth
to thirtieth, like the chances of you making the top
ten or you know, unless it's really stacked.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
But a lot of the times that changes is the
points because the money, your money is exactly the same.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah, where it gets real dicey is if you're around
thirtieth or twenty and I had this happen three times
last year. Actually I would be in like the mid
twenties to thirtieth and have a bad Day three and
end up in the bottom forties. So you've actually lost,
you know, twenty points. So the scary part in the
day three cut to me in our tournaments is being
in the twenties to thirties because you have so much
(16:48):
room to fall.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Now it's something like the NPFL, which is still set
up as a professional tournament, but everything has changed, Like
they do their payouts completely different than how That's does it,
and BASS does it completely different than how MLF does it.
Does your mindset change when you're going to the NPFL.
Are you worried about points there? No, you're worried about payout.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
And yeah, I'm I'm not gonna say that, I'm not
worried about the points because they do have an end
of the year championship. It's no entry fee, which is
and they pay out a good bit of money and
they're you know, a good friend of mine, Todd Goad
won the AOI last year. Like it's a big deal,
but I'm probably going to maybe gamble a little bit
more in those like try to figure out a way
to win the tournament. Like we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
You could use that kind of as a platform to
figure out some techniques of fishing that you don't normally do.
If that's the deal for that tournament.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
I wouldn't say try and figure it out, but maybe
get confidence in a tournament. Yes, yes, where I would
be you know, I'm fishing against ninety nine of the
other some of the best anglers in the world at
the elites, where I feel like there's guys that are
better at some things that I fish against at the
elites than I am. But I feel like I'm better
at some stuff than they are. You understand what I'm saying.
Where I feel like I could work on that in
(17:59):
a tournament's big money tournament setting at the NPFL, you know,
also trying to get some points, but just have a
little bit more room to gamble.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
My concern when it comes to tournaments is, you know,
I've only been fishing for four years, so I don't
really have like a crew of people that I can
call and contact and just talk about, like, you know,
different ideas about different lakes, because my my, my world
is completely different than your world, right, Like you can't
get information on certain places once the shutdown happened.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
We're not supposed to, right, We've we've we went over
we went over that over the couple of times.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
But you know, for me, like I'm trying to figure
out the tournament fishing thing, and I know I'm doing
a trail this year, and my worry is that I
could potentially go out there and not know anything about
the lake and just kind of throw what I think
they might do. But I feel like without having some
(18:53):
sort of prior knowledge about what fish do at that
time of year and what fish do on that body
of water, you are really really behind. If you're just
trying to put together a practice on a lake you've
never been on. Have you had success where you just
show up to a body of water you've never been
on and boom, you just whack them.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
For some reason?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I do.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I hardly ever have I ever went into a tournament
and just white like just blistered them, like just thought
I just knew I was gonna catch them, and then
go out there and catch them. It's it's normally the
way I like to fish, the way I grew up,
fishings of grind, like I go try and figure out
how to get a few bites and just make basically
chicken salt out of chicken shit. So but I feel
like it was easier to compete that way a couple
(19:33):
of years ago, And I don't know why, Like maybe
it's that information deal that we talked about in an
earlier podcast, Like there's more people getting help than there
used to be. Because I used to think that I
could show up to a lake and within three or
four days figure out a way to you know, have
a very good finish. And now that's being a fiftieth
to seventieth place finish. It very well could be the
(19:55):
life's coat thing too, because that was never a thing.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I do think that that's the biggest table. Well, it
takes people that are like, oh man, I wish they'd
just ban that and blah blah. I think some guy
said to me the other day there was a tournament
that came out. This is like a small mom and
pop tournament, it's a benefit for kids, and they go,
we're banning live scope. You're not allowed to have it.
And I'm like, if there's a tournament that should have
(20:20):
live scope, it's a tournament that benefits kids, because if
I've got a kid fishing with me in my boat,
let them. I want him to see what he's doing
and then try to figure out how he can catch them.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I saw that, and I was like, oh, this isn't
about kids.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
No, No, like this is a munch of egos.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, exactly. And then one guy comes on. He goes,
you shouldn't need live scope to catch fish and blah
blah blah. Go do you have any electronics on your boat?
And he's like, yeah, but I ain't got live scope,
And I go, okay, but you still know where the
fish are and you still know how to try to
catch them. They don't just get on your line because
you threw a bait out to him on live scope.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
No, No, definitely not. But but and again I'm.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Not I'll get off my soap bus.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah it's it's it's a you'll never it'll be a
never ending conversation.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
The things that we talked about in an earlier podcast
about how many units you can have on your boat.
All that stuff's coming out now. I sat talking about,
you know, they're slapping the transducers on the on the
jack plate. Oh, you know, like there. And obviously there's
plenty of electronic guys that are setting all these boats up.
They know all the tricks. Yes, are you doing anything
different with your electronics this year? You just going too
(21:23):
at the back?
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Too at the No, I'm two at the back. I
got two humming Bird apex at the back, of humming
Bird apex at the front, and then just my garming
you know, twelve inch with the live scope. I don't know,
I'm not. I feel like I just need to go fishing.
If I was a you know, a big offshore guy
and that's how I was going to fish, and the
closest my boat was ever gonna be to the bank
when I put it on the trailer, I would I
(21:44):
would definitely look into that, you know, lives coats on
the back and just sitting down and you know, looking
around trying to find them. But it's just not my deal.
But I do use it. And there's been days where
I wanted it to go away. Completely, and then you
know I was probably being a little bit irrash, and
then you know you really sit down and look at
it and look at the pros and cons, and like
you said, you're not gonna catch every one of them
(22:05):
you throw at, but it does help. I think, like
we were just talking about the just showing up to
a lake and just whatever, not knowing anything, just go
a fishing. I think it put you could have ten
to fifteen to twenty guys that don't really have a
good practice that maybe they just know to go in
this creek and put their troll motor down and look
for them all day and finally find a group of
(22:27):
fish to where back in seven, sixteen, seventeen eighteen that
wasn't gonna happen. So you still have those guys that
didn't figure them out in practice, that don't have a
lives cup well, they're still just lost. And I've been there,
but I think that Livescope deal makes the weights go
up a little bit, like like our average cut, like
we've gone to term it's last few years and they're like, well,
(22:48):
it's only gonna take sixteen a day, because this is
what it took in twenty sixteen. I'm like, bro, dude,
we had a we had two d there was no livescup.
I said, it's bumping up by three pounds.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Guarantee there's one extra good fish that you can find
because the live scope. Yes, but I mean right, And
depending on the water you're on, Like if you go
to Okachobe, you're fishing shallow water, a live scope might
not be the game changer for you, but the hummed
bird three sixty, yes, that's live. Like if you if
you find good fish and grass, you're gonna be able
to find NX for three or four pounds.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yes, yeah, you know, but it just and I.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Pulled up to Logan Martin and I'd never really been
on the lake before, and I just scanned an area
with my live scope and I found a good pile
a school of fish, and I sat there with a
crankbait and just straight warm them out in a Tuesday night.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Tournament that you'd never know was there, and I would.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Have never known, you know, But I went to that
area because I had a feeling that fish liked to
relate to that at that time of year. And then
when I saw it on the live scope, I'm like
this backs it up, did really well in that tournament.
But here's what's crazy. You were talking about live scopes
impact in numbers. You remember when Hank Parker walked across
the stage in a bass Master Classic on the final
day with fourteen pounds. He needed thirteen and a half
(24:00):
to win. Fourteen pounds, dude, fourteen pounds now gets you
laughed out of a tournament. You're finishing sixtieth or below
with fourteen pounds.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
That's what most of the places, you know, most of
the venues we go. There's a few like you know,
if you get it here on the Coasher River or
like the Sabina most of the time a river system
fishing line. Yeah, but these these bigger, you know, impoundments
we go to. It's like I said, you've you've literally
got to bomp up the agear always on the lava.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Lanier does like a monthly tournament. A guy named Scott
Barnes puts it on. Really good tournament, ran really well.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
A lot of dudes in there that can catch them.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, we're talking twenty four, yeah to twenty one.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Might as well throw them back.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
It's crazy now you listen. I'm happy for those guys.
Because they figured out some deals that really work well
for them. And I've fished that lake. That's where I
kind of grew up and cut my teeth and you know,
for the first three years of my fishing life. But
I'll tell you, you see some of those weights that
come out of that lake. If that lake is not
on a nap sational trail within.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Two I can't believe it wasn't this year.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I was shocked too when the schedules came out. I'm like,
how do you not put it on there? It's got
to be the Gainesville or whoever? Not wanting to pay Yeah,
because we actually my rookie year on FLW, we went
there when Bradley Hallmand won.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, we fished. That's the last major tournament that I
know was that way when all the elites went there.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
That is one completely different fishery than we.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Absolutely there, Absolutely dude like it. It's ten times better too,
And I will, I will. I want to go back
to defend the guys. I don't even know them. The guys,
like you know, most of the top five are probably
in that tournament. They could probably catch them without Livescup.
And We'll be honest, some of them.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Well, I think a lot of the guys that do
really well there their local hands.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
They just know, they know, they know the area, they know,
and they've probably figured out an easier way to catch
them with livescub but they know what to look for.
But it's those sixteen to twenty pound backs that there's
forty of that the guys like if me and you
went out there, didn't know nothing about the lake, Like, hell,
let's just fish this ditch right here.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I think they had twenty twenty five guys in the
last tournament. I think the last place team had like
eleven and a half pounds. You know how pumped I
would be with eleven and a half pounds like I'd be,
I'd be stoked because of who how I am as
a fisherman, young, young in the sport of fishing, not
as accomplished as guys like you have been fishing for years.
You come in with eleven pounds and you're like, what
(26:20):
the hell did I don't even.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Want to show my fights, dude. There's been many times
I'll just put the boat on truck and get in
the truck, don't even strap it, just drive off. So
I don't have to look at nobody because I'm so embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
You know, A guy said to me the other day,
he goes, I learned more in tournament fishing by getting
my ass kicked than I do by winning, absolutely, And
I said, if that's the case, man considered me the
smartest man. That's it. Like I've got a doctorate and
getting my ass whipped.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
In some tournament I do too. Lately, what is it
like when.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
You're when you're fishing a bass master tournament you find
out that your deal wasn't the deal You already knew
what the winning deal was going to be. I mean
I went to enough tournaments with you guys last year
where you hear the conversations. Yeah, you know you know that,
Like let's take the Classic last year, everybody knew that
Gustifson was going to win. The first day. They all
(27:09):
knew Gussie was gonna win. They were like, he fishes
the right spot, he fishes the right way, and he
fishes the right type of fish. And the day one
of practice, you know, he's down his hole and you
saw maybe fifteen twenty boats come down there. The next
day forty boats are done and well, guys are just
checking it out and all that kind of stuff. There's
(27:30):
some dudes that just go, now, I'm not going over there.
That's where Gussie's been fishing. That's going to be his thing.
There's other guys that are like, no, no, no, I'm gonna
try to get as close as I possibly can. Yeah,
when you guys are hearing all the conversation about what
works well and who's doing what and all that kind
of stuff, do you change a game plan or do
you stay pretty tight to how you like to be.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
I mean, obviously you have to listen to that kind
of stuff, but I am not the guy or will
I ever be the guy that's just gonna go to
an area where somebody just smashed them. You know. Obviously
I wasn't in that classic, but there's been multiple because
we go so many places at the same time of
year on different years, and everybody knows where people called
them or where they wont and I just I try
not to be that guy, but you can't ignore the
(28:12):
fact of how they called him and how they were
able to win the event. So you try and I
try and duplicate that in different areas of the late
but because it should be able to be duplicated. Knox
was a little bit different situation because of where that
all goes down at where it nexts down in that
in that canal. I've actually never seen that canal with
my own eyes, like I've never been I've only fished
one derby that that was the one the elite that
he won. But and obviously there's more fish there than
(28:36):
anybody could ever catch. And then after he won the Elite,
I'm sure it got pounded by local pressure like that.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
So it wasn't really a thing that all those guys
were in there on top of him. But what's really
what you have to understand is when we say it's
the hundred best guys in the world, they are the
best in the world at what they do. Gussie is
the best at moping or whatever they call it, you know,
with the little domeki rig deal. He can go find
that somewhere else, and he did, and that's why he
was able to win. I don't remember exactly where he
(29:02):
caught him, but he didn't catch him all in that canal.
He found a whole different area. And he's good enough
to know to what to look for to go be
able to find.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
That well, and you guys are so good at being
able to needle in on some of the smallest details
of a patas you know, I hear guys say, like
they go into a tournament and they're like, oh, it's
going to be a good dock bite. But then when
you go with a pro, it's not just a dock bite.
It's the third piling that doubles up next to another one.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, on the right hand side, on the right a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Of shade over. You know, like when when I think
about specifics, like I was fishing a tournament on Logan
Martin and buddy of mine went out and we were
throwing a jigger around and throwing a crank bait and
all that kind of stuff. He was catching him on
a jig right where the dock ends. Okay, so you'd
have to go all the way underneath the big platform.
You'd have to drag that thing back, maybe hop it
(29:51):
a couple times, and right where you got to where
that shade line breaks. In the middle of the day,
We're talking eleven thirty twelve noon. As soon as he
break into the sun, boom, he get bit. And we
started to break it down to where we said it's
got to be a dock that's got a good platform.
And every single dock we caught a fish on there
was a pontoon boat in the left. It's not in
(30:14):
the water, actually up And I kept saying to him,
I was like, this is our pattern, Like we're catching
them on docks that have pontoon boats, and we're getting
them right at the edge. He's like, I think you're
going too deep. No one necessarily thinks about something a
bit deeper. You can go, the more dialed in you
can get, man, I can imagine it feels so good
lude to get that dialed in.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah, it's about the third bite you get doing the
same thing. Cause two's kind of I heard I and
Eli say this a long time ago. You know, one's luck.
Two maybe three you got it dialed in pretty good.
But I mean I've I can remember situations like around here,
like fishing grass and stuff, like you may be catching
them two foot back instead of on the edge, like
you've been fishing the edge all day, and then you
happen to flip over in there catch one. You're like,
(30:55):
you know what, you kind of like might have been luck,
and then you go twenty more yards and you start
flipping on in the inside it. You catch another one,
and then you catch another one. You're like, oh, it's
game over now.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
But how difficult is that when you go into a
practice and you know you're trying to get that one,
two and then that third. You know, when you're in practice,
if you're trying to relate to a certain area and
you find something that is so definitive. Yeah, Like, I
was fishing a body of water, and for me, I
had to fish the bank because I knew they were
up on this bank and there had to be some
(31:25):
shade on it. But what I was finding on my
map is where those contour lines got super tight. It
was making like this little bit of a drop where
it wasn't just a natural grade. It was kind of
like natural grade funneled into a sharp drop. Man, if
I had a spinner bait, I was wearing them out
on that sharp drop. So I went around on my
map and I started pointing on every little sharp drop
I saw. Is that something that you guys do where
(31:47):
you start to really look at your maps like that,
You go, I'm doing this or do you just do history? No?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I did, because a lot of the places I'm not
old enough yet to have been there, you know, three
or four or five different times from a history standpoint.
But man, lake Master on my homae birds are like
the biggest thing that I used during practice, going to
these places that I'm not that familiar with, to where
when you start getting a buy you can, you know,
really zoom in on that, like you're talking about the
contour lines and with the new premium you know, lake
Master cards, it's got the shading so it kind of
(32:13):
pops at you a little bit color wise, and dude,
I'll just go through there and mark, you know, however
many that I can find, and then then run.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
So it's like if you know that you have fish
in the eight to twelve foot and you can make that.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Your grit zone, you just you just put in there, Dude,
the whole map will just pop at you like, oh
my god. Everything.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
You'll start to see things on maps that you've never
seen on a lake you've been on a million times.
I know, you're a big cousa river guy, and like
Neelie Henry, if you do that shading the right way,
you start to really see things that you're like, Man,
I had no idea about that, or or.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
You look at places like you're talking about history, where
you've caught them over and over and over again, and
you look at your map and you're like, well, that
makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Right of why you were catching them.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, And what's really crazy about tournament fishing that I've
figured out is when you get something really dialed in,
there not near as much of it as you think
there is. Most of the time, like it'll be like
certain little key deals.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Maybe maybe five spots.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It could be it could be one hundred, like who knows.
But most of the time it's when it gets really detailed,
like there's not as much of it as you think
there is.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, it's crazy, all right. Well, best of luck in
the MPFL, and best of luck and bass Master this year.
I mean, obviously, I know personally that you're coming off
of a really rough year and you were not happy
with how your output was definitely not How do you
feel going into this year different than last?
Speaker 2 (33:32):
You know, we'll see when the tournament starts. I fished
a little bit more of this off season. I was
dealing with a little bit of pain in my hand
last year, but that's no it's huge. I had some
hand surgery. So that's good to go. But I don't know.
We just need to get the year started off good.
And like I said, it was it was more of
a business decision to just get my butt back on
the water and fishing more regardless of where I'm fishing,
just in a tournament environment instead of just going and
(33:53):
lolly gagging around when I'm what was wrong with your hand?
I had a trick trigger finger release surgery on my pinky.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
And like was it like you? It was super tight.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
They would lock up during the day like it was.
I would be driving down the river, like when my
fingers just locked up?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Do you know? I just overwear? And it probably they said,
just the way I hold the rod, because I just
put the trigger finger between my pinky and my ring finger,
and just the way I work stuff like frog and
you know, swim dig and chatter bait and all that
good stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Do you miss the pistol grip style rids?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Then no, I need to learn how to fish left
hand is what it looked like. But yeah, I'm I'm
ready to go. Maybe to this year it'll be a
little bit better. Get my head straight and everything's everything
will work out for itself.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
First tournament of the year for him MPFL that is
at the tail end of January on Lake Logan, Martin,
West Logan. Thank you buddy.
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