Douglas Lake PAA practice report

I think its spring...I know I heard someone say it was, but apparently no one told the area around Douglas lake.  For the first two days of practice we have endured 20+ mph winds (gusting over 30), near non-stop snow/sleet/snow, with numerous white-out conditions reducing visibility to under 200yds.  How's the fishing you ask?  T-O-U-G-H!  Or at least it has been for me.  That's not a sour grapes statement, just a statement of fact.  I still have tomorrow to try and get some work done, but unless something changes, this one is shaping up as a tough one!  Lord willing, I'll get a few things figured out tomorrow. Only time will tell.  If nothing else, at least the sun is supposed to shine tomorrow, that'll be a welcome sight!
God Bless,
Duke

It all starts tomorrow...

Official practice starts tomorrow for the first event of the 2013 PAA Tour on Douglas Lake in Dandridge, TN.  It's going to be an interesting day for sure, after raining nearly all day today, the weatherman is calling for rain, sleet and snow with temperatures topping out in the mid 30s!  Doesn't that sound like some awesome fishing weather! lol.  All I can say is thank the Lord for Gore-Tex clothing.  By judging the surrounding terrain, a lot of trees have budded out since I was here two weeks ago, so apparently they have had some warm weather.  Hopefully that has warmed the water temps up a little bit.  Tomorrow will tell the story that's for sure. Check back, I'll try to update as the week goes on.
God Bless,
Duke

2013 PAA Tour Kicks off Next Week

Douglas Lake will play host to the inaugural event of the 2013 PAA Tour.  Competition is set for March 28-30th.  Results can be found at www.fishpaa.com   Results will be updated daily!

Finally on the water...

I spent Friday and Saturday on the water, and I've got to admit that it felt darn good.  The PAA Tour is getting ready to start, so I did a little riding around on Douglas Lake in east Tennessee.  Having never been there before, I spent the majority of my time just looking.  I fished a little bit on Friday, and a little more on Saturday, but most importantly I managed to get a handle on how the lake lays out.  It's definitely going to be an interesting tournament.  It looks like the weather is going to play an important role in how this derby shapes up.  Lord willing when I get back over there, I'll be able to get 'em figured out.  Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this one pans out.  I'll keep ya posted!
God Bless,
Duke

The Bassmaster Classic

The name almost says it all...for competitive fishing enthusiasts it is often labeled the as the pinnacle of the sport.  If you're not familiar with the Bassmaster Classic it is the fishing equivalent to Nascar's Daytona 500, football's Super Bowl, and horse racing's Kentucky Derby.  To a fishing fan or competitor it is as the well worn cliche' goes..."The Greatest Show on Earth".  I spent last week at the Bassmaster Classic working for Phoenix Boats. Working?? Yes working, as some know, alongside the whole competition aspect of the Bassmaster Classic there is an outdoors expo, loaded with anything and everything imaginable that can be related to the fishing world.  It is a fisherman's dream, or nightmare depending on the current balance of your credit card!  I was able to snap a few pictures of our booth as we put on the finishing touches, and a pic or two when we had a minute to breathe.  Did I mention that at times we were overrun with visitors to the booth? That's not a bad thing, it's an opportunity to meet some great people who share a common passion...FISHING!  I've attached a couple pictures below, unfortunately I wasn't able to get very many and being in a hurry didn't help the picture quality, but I'm sure you understand.  We were busy, due to the fact that apparently there are a lot of Phoenix Boats fans out there! 
God Bless,
Duke

Adding the finishing touches right before the show opens

In a brief moment where I got to exhale, I snapped a quick pic of the booth and a couple visitors

I am terribly behind on my blogging...

My apologies, as mentioned in earlier posts, waterfowl season absolutely wipes my blogging abilities.  With that said, waterfowl season is over for me and I am ready to get back into fishing mode.   We had another incredible waterfowl season this fall, The last half of the season was as good if not better than the first half.  For those of you who came and hunted, I'd like to thank you, and we hope to see you back this coming fall!  Believe it or not I've got all of my hunting equipment cleaned up and put away, safely stored until next season.  I'm currently in the process of sorting through the fishing equipment and getting ready for what Lord willing will be another great year on the water! Check back, now that I'm back home, I'll be checking in more frequently,
God Bless,
Duke

We're Halfway through...

We just crossed the halfway mark of waterfowl season. Like all good things there should be a halftime break, but duck hunting doesn't come with one...so, I took it upon myself to do just that, take a break.  Actually, it's only going to be a one day break but I've enjoyed it.  All kidding aside, celebrating Christmas is an important part of life, it shouldn't be missed, it's the birthday of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (not just a reason to buy give and get presents).  With that said, I'll give the first half of the waterfowl season a B, there have been some tough days, but there have been some darn good ones also.  The first part of season was a little rough, especially during the full moon cycle, but as of late it has been fantastic!  I look for the second half to be better yet.  We're under a blizzard watch for my part of the country, and that should have the ducks running wild, with more cold weather forecast this weekend, it should make for some fun times in the duck blind!  I know my blogging has suffered during duck season, you can also follow me on twitter...  @Duke_Jenkel is my account name, so until next have a Merry Christmas, and take some time to remember the reason for the season!
God Bless,
Duke

Out of the frying pan and into the fire...

I'm sure when you read the title of this post you immediately recognized it as a well-known, often repeated one liner.  I couldn't think of a better way to describe the last three weeks.  I fished a BFL regional event on Lake Cherokee in early October, rather than bore you with mundane details, I'll give you the cliff notes version...I finished tied for 125th...with a total weight of 0lbs and 0ozs.  Yup, 0-0, your eyes have not deceived you.  It will go down as the second worst event of my career to date.  What did I do wrong?  I found a good dock pattern up river, never attempted to apply it to the docks on the lower end of the lake.  the fish up the river didn't cooperate very well and presto magic...0lbs-0ozs.  There ya go, its a not so subtle reminder that you can never work too hard, and you have to keep an open mind.  And with that the fishing season ended. 
Round two: Off to the races...well not literally, but I parked my boat and started my tractor.  I help my uncle farm, I missed a little bit of the harvest season due to my last two events, so I had some catching up to do.  During the harvest, we managed to plant close to 300 acres of wheat.
The final turn: As our harvest season ended it has allowed me enough time to start getting ready for duck season.  The season starts for the club that I guide at on Thanksgiving day, season in the area where I live starts this Saturday....I'm still behind, but I'm gaining on it.  We've got a pretty decent corn crop at our club, a little bit of water in the field (a few ducks are already using it) and more to be added any day now (the pump is in and ready). The pits are ready, all but a little camouflaging and we've got to check a few decoys and that'll be it!
Shew!!...this fire is hot.  Although it's a long season (nearly 80 days counting goose season) I'm ready for a single focus, no running around, just get up, go to the club, go home, sleep, repeat.  I'm getting excited just thinking about it!  Check back, as season nears and during season I'll be providing some updates on how it's going! We're all hoping it'll be a great season!
God Bless,
Duke

PAA Finale...Arkansas River-Muskogee, OK

The Arkansas River PAA event looked to be pretty interesting to me.  I enjoy fishing river systems, I've had some of my better successes on rivers.  This one had the make up of the type of tournament I like. for starters, in the summer/early fall weights are not usually real high, secondly, the AR river is not known for producing giant weights when its good.  Couple these two things together, and if you happen to figure anything out you can put yourself in a good position to do well.
As you read in my last post I finished 3rd at Illini Division BFL on Lake Shelbyville, I left there immediately after weigh-in and headed for Oklahoma.  I was on the water and practicing by 11:00 am Monday morning!  Not too bad for a cross-country commute.

Having never been to this river, and not knowing much about it. I chose to focus my first day of practice on the pool we were launching from.  I spent one more full day in this pool before driving up and looking around in the next pool up. Based on the practice I had, I felt like it was definitely going to be a low weight event, or at least I hoped so, because I wasn't catching them very well.  I had put together a little pattern running the mouths of creeks and sloughs, fishing any available wood cover located in these areas.  I had my best success throwing a SPRO Fat John Square-bill crankbait (Citrus Shad color) on the wood cover.  I had also caught several on a Lunker Lure buzzbait. It was apparent that the shad had begun to congregate at the creek mouths to begin their fall migration, which in turn had the largemouth grouped up pretty well in these areas.
The first day of the tournament was pretty below average.  I caught a small limit, managed to lose the best fish of the day, right at the net.  My limit weighed 8.61 lbs which had me in 29th place.  Not really how you want to start off the derby.  Day 2 was much better, between my co-angler and I, we boated 23 keepers for the day, my limit weighed 10.59.  I moved up to 20th place for the event, missed the top ten by a pound and a half.  That lost fish still haunts me a little bit but I can't change anything about it now.  I will say this, if ever you doubt the readiness of a lure, by that I mean sharp hooks, good not, split rings in good shape, stop right then and address the situation, bar none! That's advice I need to remember.
All in all minus the one lost fish, I had a decent tournament as far as execution goes. Without a doubt I had a good pattern identified, I believe had I adjusted to flipping a bait with a swimming tail on day one instead of a jig, I would have cracked the top ten.  The reason is this, my co-angler was getting 4 bites to my one flipping a Zoom Baby Brush Hog, when I switched, it was just about a complete reversal of those stats.  Which brings up another key bit of information, when the fish are feeding heavily on shad, it has been my experience that a "swimming tail" bait will generate more bites than a jig or other soft plastic baits.  Again, more information I need to remember.
The PAA season is over for me, I missed qualifying for the 2012 Toyota Texas Bass Classic.  Lord willing I'll have the opportunity to compete at the national level again next year.  Only time will tell.  Until then, keep your hooks sharp and your line tight!
God Bless,
Duke

Shelbyville, Oh Shelbyville...

The regular season for the Illini division of the BFL is over, it almost ended with a bang!  I pulled off a very respectable 3rd place finish.  Which moved me up another 15 places in the points race and qualified me for the BFL regional on Lake Cherokee the first week of October.  Despite having what I considered a very poor practice, I was fortunate enough to put together a pattern that at best I thought had "some potential".  As it turns out, the more I fished on day one of the tournament  and expanded on what I had found, I realized that I was definitely on to a little bit of something.  I managed to catch four keepers on day one that weighed 6lbs 7ozs, good enough for 8th place.  The top ten finishers from day 1 qualified to fish again on day two.  I expanded further on my little pattern on day 2 and managed four more keepers that weighed 7lbs 3ozs.  I jumped an amazing five places on day 2 to finish the event in 3rd place.  That's a great finish for me on Lake Shelbyville, I've always said it's my arch nemesis of lakes.  Looks like I won this round! Hallelujah!  lol. 
Here are few pics form the event. I'd like to show you more pictures of the baits I used to catch them, but I had one rod in my hand for this whole event, minus a few failed attempts to get a bite on other baits. So, here is a pic of the one and only I bait I caught them on:

Yep, you guessed it, the ol' Shakee head, a 1/8ths oz fished on 8lb Seaguar
fluorocarbon using a Powell spinning rod model 703 MEF

Hardware!!

 Always remember, in a tough tournament (low weight or tough bite) a finesse approach is hard to beat, it may not be the way to win a tournament, but it will definitely generate bites!

God Bless,
Duke