February 8, 2012

2nd and O for 2012–Lake Okeechobee FLW Tour Open Preview

The House of the Rising Son: Okeechobee. Line thru, ball knobber boot tails, braided line and a trap hook rigging that brought me back to my days on San Vicente in the early 2000s. The 3:16 Rising Son, excellence is buoyancy and a thing I call, Rate of Stall---which are key to the grass fishing conversation--well, shallow grass anyway. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm still a Vortex head, and Florida has other Vortexes that do damage besides hurricanes and tropical storms!!!

Alright, tournament time again, FLW Tour Open, Lake Okeechobee.   I haven’t said a whole lot since the Everstart.  Trying to manage information…This FLW Tour Open is my one Tour Event for 2012, and I dang sure don’t need to be helping out the list of guys who already are household names I’m fishing against!   So let me walk you thru my Everstart a little.  Day 1, I planned on throwing the bigbaits all day.  However, we had an unforecasted 15-20 MPH Wind from the NNE, that wrecked my major areas.  The wind not only seriously mucked up the water color, it was causing my bait to run funky.  Side wind and braided line swimbait fishing is no bueno.  Your bait tends to drag with the big bow in your line and there was no getting away from it.   I only had 2 fish for Day 1 and wanted to jump off the Kissimmee Bridge and just die.  My friend Roger Ray showed up at the house out of nowhere that evening.  He was down to fun fish, and it was a blessing to have a friend around and just snap me out of complete misery.  My only comfort was reading how many other guys sucked on Day 1, phew.   I mean, I drove straight home (was in first flight) fueled up the boat, and went to bed at 6:30.  Just so disgusted and angry, didn’t even check the standings until later that night.   Thanking Rodger once again for his use of time and timing.   So Day 2, I started in an area I’d seen a couple big ones hanging around beds, but not locked on, and wouldn’t eat.  Much better, calmer weather and conditions made things a little more normal and fishable to say the least.    I stopped short, set up, and made long casts to where I’d seen her and got a big bite in the first 2 minutes of fishing.  Solid 6+ pounder in the boat.  Hooray.   We moved a little further and fished on, and I made another long cast to another area a big one had been hanging around and BLOOSH, another solid 5+ pounder in the boat.  Hell yeah.  One hour in, I was back in the money and had plenty of time to fish.   I kept chunking the bigbaits the rest of the day, got another one 4+ and one about 2.5 just committing to the bigbaits all day.    Finished 21st place, and only weighed 6 fish for the entire tournament.  24 pounds in 6 fish.   Was 6 pounds from the Top 10 cut.  Kicking myself for being so one dimensional, because I could have easily made up 6 pounds in 4 fish if I knew what I know today.

There is a huge difference between the Gambler BB Cricket and the Beaver. The BB Cricket is probably 30% smaller which means it punches that much better, and the Beaver already rocks the house in the flipping and punching department. It's similar to the difference between the 6" and 8" Huddleston baits, big difference, but in small baits, the difference isn't so noticeable, unless you really stop and look and fish. The BB Cricket can be fished where few baits will punch thru, just due to simple design and super small profile.

So, to the Tour Event.  I have to credit my good friend and fellow angler, Casey Martin for helping me out a ton during off limits.  We did a bunch of fun fishing and filming on some other lakes around, and Casey showed me the finer things to grass flipping and punching. I needed to see how the latest and greatest stuff was being done.  Casey whacked ‘em pretty good and showed me the advanced things about picking casts, where to hit, and how to choose and rig baits and the adjustments he made during a day.  Casey can compete with anyone out there.  Don’t let the fact he is fishing the Tour (and won 2 Tour Events and the AOY in 2011 as a Co-Angler) as a CoAngler fool you.  He fishes the Everstarts as a Pro, and is solid as a rock.

Thanking Casey for helping me with my grass flipping and punching. Casey has been living with Derek Remitz and Craig Dowling most of the last few years on Lake Guntersville, and has honed his grass fishing on the mighty G'Ville. I found myself for the first time in a long time, having to adjust the basic mechanics of what I was doing. Casey is so efficient when he flips, he mathematically beats most guys. More pitches, more clean punches, less time changing over hands (he uses a left handed reel) and keeps the rod in his right hand 100% of the time, and has mad skills in picking out the right stuff to hit. In exchange, I've been lecturing Casey on perfect proportions, Vitruvian Man, and fractal geometry. Poor Casey!!!

The things Casey helped tune me into, combined with some old skills I used to use on Lake Havasu back in the day before it was a smallmouth fishery have come back to me.  I’m fishing a healthy combination of flipping and pitching and punching and swimbait fishing tomorrow.  We have bad wind and weather, however, I’ve found an area I believe, if I can get to it (meaning if the wind isn’t so bad we cannot run to it) I can get in, and be safe from the wind.   So, one major swimbait area, and a lot of places I’m flipping and pitching and punching.   I’ve gotten into a pattern to narrow down the endless amounts of grass and overwhelming nature of Okeechobee, with regards to flipping and pitching, and can sorta bounce around and just fish the moment with that deal and feel good about catching some fish, and some of them can be good ones.   I needed a good way to fill up a limit because the Everstart showed me that even on a good day, I won’t get 5 in the boat, and I cannot afford to make any mistakes like that at the Tour Level.  These boys are incredible anglers and have whipped me badly before, and I cannot beat myself by being one dimensioned out there, especially since we have 15-20 MPH NNE  (just like on Day 1 of the Everstart where I struggled with the bigbaits so badly) forecast for tomorrow.   I need 5 and tomorrow is my long day, so I gotta use that time wisely.

The mighty Medlock Jig, double weed guard, 1 ounce and a the biggest baddest hook you ever seen on a jig. Brandon won the Okeechobee Everstarts the last 2 years in a row on this jig. I think it's safe to assume they are eating it.

I am boat 147 tomorrow.  Due in at 5 pm!  Long day, but the weather is going to be brutal windy and rough, but heck, I feel a whole lot better about catching a limit and maybe getting 1-2 big bites, no matter what happens with the weather or wind tomorrow.   Please know I am so overwhelmed and behind on so many things that I’m paralyzed at times.   I spend my daylight hours fishing, and evening hours getting the footage off the cameras and haven’t even hardly gotten to the editing.  The editing is the major heavy lifting, and I’ll be honest, I just haven’t had the focused time to spend on it all, yet.   I spent the majority of off limits fishing, filming, working on the boat, doing normal stuff, and some days just resting.    I have been filming A LOT since I’ve been down here. I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to be doing with the all footage.    Thinking of working on another DVD project, thinking of just some mid-length YouTube series, and definitely have commitments to various business partners I’m obliged to fulfill, so therein lies my challenge.  So, when I don’t know what to do, the best decision is no decision, meaning, hang loose and the right paths will eventually reveal themselves.   Time’s a Revelator.    So bare with me, have a lot to share and show, bigbait fishing and grass flipping and punching stuff.  First things last, I’ve got to focus, keep it simple, make good decisions, and make the most of this event.

Okeechobee will not be won on the Alabama Rig, not even the Trip Jig, the modified castable rig, with 2 blades, a skirt, and 3 wires. I enjoyed 'field testing' multi-rigs for grass applications, and my work is not yet done, but it wouldn't be right to not mention that the Alabama Rig WILL NOT WIN on Okeechobee. More to come on the Trip Jig and various weedless setups I've been using (vs. exposed jig head and Hammers). Underwater photography and video is so filthy awful sickening.

Posted by on February 8, 2012 in 2012 Tournament Fishing, 3:16 Lure Company, Huddleston Deluxe, Rate of Stall, The Alabama Rig, Weedless Swimbaits and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

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January 18, 2012

4th and O

Boot&Vortex Tails, weedless and not, braided line and 5 good bites a day, is that too much to ask for?

This is my 4th year on Okeechobee.  The lake is fishing WAY differently than in years past.  The lake is choked out.  The vegetation so thick in most areas, you simply cannot get to a lot of areas that we used to fish.  The fish are more main lake/outside edge of the grass line, where they’ve never really been when I’ve bee here.   What that means is new locations, and new ways to catch them.  You can actually fish hanging trebles and non-weedless baits, but with the water falling, weedless is better than not most times.  Still, new lake to me, fishing pretty old school I imagine, lots of flipping and punching going on, and just light pitching.   But unless you know where the big ones are, that is a brutal way to go about Okeechobee, and the zillions of miles of shoreline grass, mats, and edges.

Guys are going to smash them. I mean, 25-30 pound sacks.  Flipping and punching.  I’m not doing either. I’m going with the swimmers.  I have a small-medium-large approach, and let me be clear, I’m fishing the Everstart and FLW Tour Event, so this is the first of two events I’ll be fishing, so I’ve got reason to not fully disclose everything, until after the Tour Event (Feb 12th).  I’ve had some big days on the grass swimmers.  I’m fishing new baits, new water, new techniques and taking my bigbait approach to the grass, and some days, it works.  However, the last 2 days of practice have sucked.  I haven’t been catching them quite like I want to be at all.  They aren’t eating the bigbaits right now for some reason.  They sorta bump it and I’m talking 5-7 bites on a GOOD day, more like 1-2 bites some days.    This isn’t the Okeechobee where you catch 20-40 fish no problem.   I could come in with 1 or 2 fish tomorrow, but I’ve made up my mind to fish my game, fish my strengths and sorta let this be a test run for the Tour Open.

Braided line, bigbaits, and 8 foot rods can be killer.  Okeechobee can give and Okeechobee can take.  This place flip flops from whipping my butt and stoking me out.  Tomorrow, I’m boat 12, which wasn’t what I wanted, but whatever, first flight, early weigh in, gotta go for it.  I know I’m around some quality fish, and God willing, I get 5 bites in the boat.    Have a long day on Friday, and our weather has been pretty much gorgeous, but again, the lake is different.  In year’s past, I’d be putting 75-100 fish in the boat per day with 80 degree air temps.  It’s just not that way, despite the good weather.   The flippers and punchers are going to get ‘em, but only a handful are going to get the big ones.  Too many guys are struggling and scratching.  I’m way better at focusing on 5 bites with a swimmer in my hand than punching a Beaver with the rest of the world.  You want to talk about overwhelming, try tackling Okeechobee with a flipping rod.    So thick and choked this year too.

Wish me luck, I’m going to need it.   Gonna take all my powers and skills to get 5 fish in the boat tomorrow. I’m not fishing for 2 pounders and fishing the safe and conservative route. I’ve never had fish eating the baits I’m throwing, leading up to a tournament and I gotta go for it.  This could be a big disaster for this Everstart, but even so, I’m considering this a sort of dress rehearsal for the Tour Event.   I just don’t feel like compromising and playing it conservative.  I’m tired of fishing every game but my own.  I’ve had as many as 12-15 bites and 25 pounds easy on my better days.   The weather has been warming things up and I expect boys to catch ‘em, just not everyone is going to have 20+ pounds. I guess it will take 12 pounds per day to get a check. I think I can get 12 pounds in 2-3 of the right bites per day.   No bed fish going, but that too might change come Tour time.    Anywho, gonna try and have some fun, fish my strengths and my game, and if Day 1 doesn’t pan out, even more reason on Day 2 to go back and do it all over because I’m not gonna get 30 pounds fishing texas rigged trick worms, which is a good bait right now!

 

Posted by on January 18, 2012 in 2012 Tournament Fishing, Weedless Swimbaits and tagged , , , , , , .

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January 13, 2012

Trout Eaters of Winter

Here is an attempt to post an article that was recently published by Bass Angler Magazine (BAM), in their Q1 2012 Winter Edition.   Bass Angler Magazine is kicking butt with really good articles that are full of excellent content.   The articles are contributed by anglers who range from KVD and Elite/Tour Super Stars, to the AAA level guy like me, to women, amateurs, co-anglers, and regional and technique specialists.  Refreshing reading material, not overly edited and polished, but that’s what makes it real and the content genuine.   BAM comes out 4 times year, a subscription is $7.95 and available via Tackle Warehouse by clicking here.

Page 1, Trout Eaters of Winter, Bass Angler Magazine, Q1 2012

 

Trout Eater of Winter, Page 2, Bass Angler Magazine, Q1 2012

 

Trout Eaters of Winter, Page 3, Bass Angler Magazine, Q1 2012

 

Trout Eaters of Winter, Page 4, Bass Angler Magazine, Q1 2012

 

Bass Angler Magazine, Cover Shot, Q1 2012

Posted by on January 13, 2012 in Huddleston Deluxe, Rate of Stall, Themes from our Southern Trout Eaters DVD and tagged , , , , , .

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December 22, 2011

The Amazing 50/50 Formula

Please excuse the extra cheeseball performance in the above video clip.  This is seriously a good tip to make yourself up a bunch of cleaning solution to clean your sunglasses, fish finders, etc.   I couldn’t keep a serious face when I was trying to put together the square and normal version of the video, so I went with the “Sham-Wow” style.

Here are the secret ingredients to the Amazing Magic 50/50 Formula:

  • 50% White Distilled Vinegar
  • 50% Distilled Water
  • Spray Bottle
  • Micro Towel

It’s not just swimbait fishing here folks,  we clean, we wax, we polish and we shine.  We pride ourselves in providing solutions to the visually impaired, and are applying for a government grant!   Exactly one out of one person (me) that we interviewed said the Amazing Magic 50/50 Formula was safe, effective and chicks dig the vinegar smell.    We scored it a 9.4567  (would have been 9.4572 but the spray bottle wasn’t as ergonomically friendly as we’d preferred, but still a good spray bottle)!!!!!!!!

The Amazing 50/50 Formula cleans, shines, waxes, finishes, puts your boat on the trailer, cooks you dinner, and if you call in the next 20 minutes .... hahahahahaha.

Posted by on December 22, 2011 in Marine/Boating, Polarized Fishing Glasses and tagged , , , , , .

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December 20, 2011

The Steve Jobs Effect

Steve Jobs Biography

When you read about Steve Jobs' life, you realize you should be taking notes because there are so many subtle business lessons woven into his life's story. Apple and Steve Jobs are to be studied, whether or not you have an Android phone or run a Windows laptop. The brand, the products and contributions to the world are second to none, and they (Steve for sure) broke all the rules to get there.

Okay, now I’m really going to annoy some people.  A book review?   A bass fisherman doing a book review?  First he does a DVD, and now we are talking about books?  The horror!!!  No this isn’t a book review, but let me put my Steve Jobs in action:  BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT.   I give this book an A+.  Great read, very insightful and I found myself laughing out loud reading it.  You have to put yourself in my shoes and take my appreciation for this book with a grain of salt.  Steve and Apple are familiar and resonate with me because the stories and tales in the book remind me so much of my former career, the folks I went to college and high school with, my brother, his wife, and his friends who live in and around the Silicon Valley who are all Standford grads, and the life lessons I’ve become aware of at 34. I have a personal connection to much of what I read about, have been to many of the places mentioned, been part of classic hardware/software/open vs. closed source/ sales vs. techy conversations in my former career, so this book strikes a chord to my soul.

Here is the Steve Jobs Biography I’m referring to:  The Steve Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson

Our Southern Trout Eaters DVD was filmed mostly on a Sony Handycam Camcorder in Standard Definition.  The film was edited on a MacBook Pro using iMovie.   Southern Trout Eaters, to me, is a perfect example of the genius of Steve Jobs.  Making technology usable, and keeping things simple.    A fisherman can create a DVD out of the back of his truck with Steve’s technology.   Besides usability and simplicity, the brand and what is ‘imputed’ by Apple are incredible.  Amazing marketing, amazing design, amazing products coupled with a culture and style that are so Californian.     There are a lot of subtle business lessons woven into this book that I found awesome.  There are no rules in business.  You add the Internet and social networks, and we are literally in the wild west again when it comes many things business.   Steve was willing to “Think Different”, and did, and as that campaign points out, “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, often are the ones who do.”   Swimbait fishing, southernswimbait.com, the Southern Trout Eaters DVD, and my ongoing work are in lots of ways an attempt to think different, fish different, and not align myself with things in the sport that I clearly see as “complete shit”, to quote Steve.

Here are the quotes and points that really resonated with me,  from the book:

  • “Simplification is the ultimate sophistication”  (borrowed from Leonardo DaVinci, but what an excellent quote)
  • “He believed that great harvests came from arid sources, pleasure from restraint,” she noted.  “He knew equations that most people didn’t know:  Things led to their opposites.”
  • Jobs told Egan, as he had a few other friends, about his premonition that he would not live a long life.  That was why he was driven and impatient, he confided.  “He felt a sense of urgency about all he wanted to get done,” Egan later said.
  • Her boss, tried to get her to stay at Goldman, but instead she decided the work was unedifying.  “You could be really successful,” she said, “but you’re just contributing to capital formation.”
  • Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
  • So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
  • Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?
  • The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people

My former career selling software with eEye Digital Security taught me some valuable business lessons, but it was the lessons where technology intersected human nature I found most profound.  For example,  eEye Digital Security lost 100s of enterprise accounts back in the early 2000s to Foundstone (which was soon after acquired by McAfee).   The number one reason we lost so many deals to the big boy enterprise clients was because Foundstone had a simple “stop light” on their dashboard where all the information, all the data from all the stuff both our respective tools did rolled up into an aggregate score.  Green = good or secure, Yellow = Caution, you have some security risks that need to be addressed, Red = Alert, major holes and security breaches happening.    We basically vomited up all this information and could tell a customer that a printer on the 3rd floor of their building was running HP-UX that had a known vulnerability, had this IP address,  and all this machine info,  but to the executive, to the enterprise level accounts, they just want to know, hey, are we good bad happy or sad at a very very high level?  Net this stuff out for me.  So what if our printer has a flaw?  What is the worse thing that happens if our HP-UX printer has this flaw exploited by the ‘bad guys’?  How likely is that to happen?  Things our engineers and executives failed to recognize—the business impact of the flaws, not just ability to find the flaws.   I had a prospective client from a very large insurance company in Cleveland ask my team, “So, what does this all mean?”  My engineers and executives couldn’t answer and I knew we were done.    eEye Digital Security has gone on to become a major player at the enterprise account level (ie DoD Wide Contract, how is that for enterprise class comeback?), but those early years were painful, because we had a shot at being a 100-500 million dollar company, going public, and all of us retiring early.   That was not our path though, our path took me and my career  to Atlanta in January 2005.  I caught my first Southern Trout Eater on an 8″ Rainbow Trout Huddleston in March 2005, and that’s where all this started.

Steve Jobs, I appreciate your life’s story and your work.  I’m not sure if I would be on your “A” List or on the list of complete shit, but I sure have been inspired reading your biography.   I want to do incredible things.  I want to do things in fishing, different than how they are being done.  I want my legacy to be what I’ve created and contributed, not what I’ve consumed.   I said it online in a Facebook post recently, I’d like to be an ‘aloha’ version of Steve, less a tyrant, less an asshole, but on the same wavelength of focus and drive to do things in a space that I know and love, and am willing to ‘break the rules’ of traditional fishing (including talking about things like books and music) to get there.

Posted by on December 20, 2011 in Culture and tagged , , , , , .

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