AZ Head to Head Bracket Tournament - Round 5 - Championship - June 29th - Lake Pleasant

Down to the final 3, and Lake Pleasant was the lucky draw. I had fished the previous weekend and decided to run the same pattern and areas. It produced a great bag Sunday and was hoping for a repeat. Unfortunately, the big fish didn't cooperate.
I started in the back of the launch area and had two fish in minutes but were both small keepers and couldn't get a big bite, so moved to a few other areas had hit. I noticed that the water had cleared up and dropped 2-3ft in the last few days. I downsized my bait and proceeded to catch fish after fish culling up my limit at every spot but just not solid bites. I caught over 70 fish and all came on a dropshotted worm. At the end of the day I could only total up to 5 fish for 7lb 12oz. Second place edged me out with two late fish that pushed him up to 8lbs 5oz. The winner had a small bag until hooked into a 7+ and a 4.5lb largemouth that pushed him up to a great 16lbs 12oz.
I had an absolute blast and am looking forward to the series next year, it is one of the most fun series that I am able to compete in.

AZ Head to Head Bracket Tournament - Round 4 - June 20th - Lake Pleasant

The 4th round was a debacle as opponent slept in and didn't show for the first few hours. At 4:30am I decided to run around and just look at spots I normally wouldn't go to. A few hours later I find out he is fishing and I am now behind the 8-ball as I threw those hours away figuring on a DQ for no show. I didn't want to win that way so I went back to a previous pattern. I was targeting isolated islands and humps in the main lake with 4.5 inch worms on dropshots. I caught 50+ fish and culled the next 3 hours of the day in the brutal 110+ heat. It was the closest weigh-in ever in the series. I took the win with 11.08 to 11.06, we weighed 3 times just to make sure. Now on to the finals for the second straight year hoping to win again.

AZ Head to Head Bracket Tournament - Round 3 - June 14th - Bartlett Lake

Well Round 3 was at Bartlett Lake, which has been fishing great for numbers but not for size. I figured out a few patterns and decided to run with them to see how they would turn out. I started towards the river throwing a crankbait and wobble head and had 3 small fish until finally caught one over 3lbs on the crankbait. I limited out very quickly and proceeded to catch more small fish. I had to make a move to where I could usually get one or two better bites. It worked and caught a few upgrades but nothing great. I continued to rotate spots and hitting deeper reefs with a carolina rig the rest of the day. With a few minuted to go I caught two fish that culled including another 3.5lb fish. It was enough to take the win, 11.44 to 8.73. One more round to go then the finals again.

AZ Head to Head Bracket Tournament - Round 2 - May 10th - Lake Pleasant

With the random draw system, round 2 was at Lake Pleasant. It isn't one of my favorite lakes, but it does have a few predominate patterns. So my game plan was to hope I guessed right on a starting area and then bounce around the rest of the day. I was going to stick with topwater early then dropshot for the most part later. I threw a whopper plopper most the morning covering water looking for spawning fish while covering water. I caught one on the plopper early and made a move to an area had caught them on in previous years. While throwing the topwater I saw a fish holding in tree limbs, I decided to toss a dropshot out and it was instantaneous. I caught that fish as well as the next fish in a scattered tree as well. I stuck with that pattern for awhile and had 4 fish. I moved into Castle to find active fish in the stained water but it ended up being a waste of time. I decided to run the tree pattern again all over the main lake and it produced fish after fish. I the decided to try some shallow reefs and kept catching them as well. I ended up with 9.5-10 lbs and it was good enough to take the win.

JML Outdoors Weekend Warriors Championshp - April 28th/29th - Roosevelt Lake

Well Fred and I qualified for the JML Championship and I was able to get some prefish in and found some areas but hadn't found the winning fish in practice. We were boat 34 out to launch and reverse order the next day.
Day 1 was a blast. We started on an area had found practicing and threw whopper ploppers and small crankbaits. That topwater bite was on fire, as we caught 2 pound fish one after another just burning bank. Later in the day after it slowed we moved around to main lake cuts with some deeper dropoffs and it produced our best fish of the day, a 4.13 lb largemouth. We finished the day in 10th place with 14.40 lbs. We were looking forward to the next day and with the patterns that were emerging figured we could duplicate or better our day 1 weight.
Day 2 was a completely different day. The wind was blowing 15-20+ and there was a full moon that night and when we got to our spot, there was a full on shad spawn that had been going most the night. The first cast of the day was a heartbreaker as we watched a giant smallmouth explode my topwater 3 feet into the air and miss it. We continued to throw it and caught a few smaller fish, but could tell the bite had changed due to the wind and full moon. With some quick thinking we changed up tactics for the wind and threw jerkbaits and spinnerbaits. We were able to start catching fish again but we never got a big bite. With 5 minutes to go we found a monster school of smallmouth that followed in a 2lb smallmouth that caught but we ran out of time being in the first flight. We finished the day with 9.22lbs and a total of 23.62, which was good enough for 15th place. It was a bitter sweat ending to the season, we had a great pattern and it fizzled due to mother nature but we hung in to figure out options  C,D, & F. Looking forward to next season.

AZ Head to Head Bracket Tournament - Round 1 - April 18th - Bartlett Lake

This is the first round trying to defend my championship. I drew Bartlett Lake in the random draw and my competition and I agreed to fish 2pm-7pm. I hadn't been out to Bartlett in awhile and definitely haven't fished in the afternoons to dark at all since last year. My game plan was to keep it simple and throw a carolina-rig and crankbait most the time and mix in a dropshot etc. when needed. I caught a few small keepers early and kept burning bank all afternoon until they really started biting before dark. From 6-7pm I culled 7 or 8 times and caught my biggest fish all on crankbaits super shallow. I ended up getting the win with 8.5lbs, it was ugly but efficient. On the bright side, the new Ultrex had made fishing certain areas in the wind a little easier.

Century Marine Demo Days - April 6th - Lake Pleasant

Had a blast at the Century Marine Demo Days at Lake Pleasant. We had the new Bass Cat Boats on display along with the new Lynx for demo. These boats are absolutely gorgeous and showed extremely well on the water and off. We were out at the lake from 4pm-dusk.