Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Less than a week away

I just returned from a pre-practice trip to Table Rock Lake near Branson, MO.  This will be the site of our final PAA Tour event.  Based on what I saw during my pre-practice, this will be a tough event.  I need to have a pretty decent finish if I am going to move up above the cut line for the Texas Toyota Bass Classic, Lord willing I'll accomplish that.  Table Rock is a couple of feet high, after reaching nearly five feet high a few weeks ago, the Army Corps of engineers has lowered to the lake level to approximately two feet above normal pool.  Which should make for some good shallow water fishing, provided they don't lower the water level any further.  Of course this is all speculation, I didn't spend any time up shallow, due to the fact at any minute they could begin letting water out of the lake and that would have erased anything i might have found, but I believe in a half-day or for sure in a full day, I can find out if the shallow bite is working.  Like I said, Lord willing I'll figure em out and have a decent tournament. 
God Bless,
Duke

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

And then there was one...

Well two actually.  I currently compete in two different circuits, the Bass Fishing League (BFL) which is operated by FLW Outdoors, and the PAA Tour, ran by the Professional Anglers Association.  In both circuits, we are down to the final event.  In a couple weeks I will head to Table Rock lake near Branson, MO to compete in the 3rd event of the PAA tour, after this event the points will be tallied to see who has qualified for the Toyota Texas Bass Classic (TTBC) to be held in Conroe, TX in early October.  Currently I am 32 points off the cut for making the TTBC, I believe with a decent finish at Table Rock I can erase that deficit and qualify for the Conroe event.

At the end of September I will travel to Shelbyville, IL to compete in the final regular season event for the Illini division of the BFL.  I am currently in third place in the points race, well above the cut-off for qualifying for the regional (the top 40 qualify).  This year our regional will be held at Kentucky Lake, a lake I truly love, but one that normally gives me fits in the fall.  Hopefully, provided I catch one keeper at Shelbyville in September, I can have a good tournament on Kentucky and qualify for my second All-American.  Well that's it for now, I'll keep you updated as the weeks progress and Lord Willing I'll be blogging about a couple of good tournament finishes!
Until then God Bless,
Duke