AZ Head to Head Bracket Tournament - Round 2 - May 11th - Canyon Lake

Having not fished Canyon Lake much in the last 10 years, I went into the day completely blind. I decided to start throwing a dropshot in old areas but after a few minutes I gave up on it and decided to throw a topwater. It was the best decision I ever made fishing. A few minutes later I had my first fish, a 7lb largemouth and 2 other blowups. I went back down the bank and hooked into a 5lb largemouth. I ran with that bait all morning fishing similar banks and had 4 fish for 20lbs by 7am, and a limit for 24.5lbs by 8am. I was able to cull once and moved my limit over 25lbs. I continued to catch fish after fish all morning and throughout the day. I had fish chasing the bait, blowing up on it, and choking it, was just a perfect storm for me. I even caught a few I saw on beds as was covering water. It was hands down the best day for average size, and bites that I have had. The weigh-in was interesting as my competitor caught over 21lbs late in the day, but I took the W.

AZ Head to Head Bracket Tournament - Round 1 - April 23rd - Roosevelt Lake

With a decent tournament the day before at Apache Lake, it was time for my first round of head to head bracket style tournament. My competitor and I decided to fish Roosevelt Lake since was so close to Apache, and we were both there. I had heard the bite was extremely tough but a sporadic shad spawn bite was out there. It was a breezy morning to start and got insanely windier as the day went on. I missed a few on topwater early but got on the board throwing a small swimbait. That was my only bite until almost 11am. The winds picked up, 20-35mph, and fighting 3-6ft waves, I made a move to wind blown bank that wasn't getting as pounded as hard as other. Grabbed a jerkbait and proceeded to catch 3 keepers and a few shorts. They were enough to get the win, and move me into the second round.

ABA Central Arizona Teams - April 22nd - Apache Lake

This was the last ABA day time tournament of the season. With the weather we have had the bed fish were hard to find so we just decided to hit some of our normal areas and see how it played out. We had a rough morning throwing jerkbaits, carolina rigs, dropshots, topwaters, etc. and just couldn't get them to go. Our first fish didnt come until around 10:30 and happened to be a solid fish. We decided to move to a spot that produced earlier in the year and it once again paid off with our biggest fish of the day, a spawned out female that weighed 5.49lbs. We finished our day there and filled out our limit and culled a few times throwing carolina rigs. We finished in 8th place with a total of 14.12lbs.
With the season over, now comes night tournaments which are always a blast. Looking forward to them and the championship at Lake Havasu at the end of the year.

ABA Central Arizona Teams - March 18th - Roosevelt Lake

Was really looking forward to this tournament. For the first time in years the water level was up at Roosevelt Lake and was a spawn time tournament. The bad news came a week before the tournament, we had a massive storm come in and further dirty the rising water. With clarify of .5-1ft, bed fishing was out but prefish went well and had a few ideas to get a few fish.
We started in the main lake throwing topwater, crankbaits, and flipping into the brush and trees. We went about an hour before we found a shallow point that the fish were pushing shad onto to feed. We proceeded to catch 4 keepers and numerous shorts off the area, mainly smaller smallmouth. We continued throughout the day throwing crankbaits and soft plastics. We culled throughout the day and got on a great flip bite later in the afternoon. We culled up to 9.17lbs for our 5 fish and caught 35-40 fish for the day. We finished in 14th but had an absolute blast, they were all cookie cutter size fish, just never had a kicker fish.

ABA Central Arizona Teams - Feb. 18th - Apache Lake

This is our third tournament of the season, fifth overall, after missing the first two due conflicting schedules. The weather has been crazy as of late, but the fish should be moving shallow. My partner and I prefished the week before and decided to start where we got a decent fish the week prior. The short run was welcomed on the cold morning.
We started the day off right away with a good fish, and then another, and another. We caught our forth fish a 6.37 largemouth a few minutes later in the same area. A few casts later my partner broke off, on the hookset, one even bigger, we unfortunately got to see it roll a few times. After that lost fish the area went cold. We fished it off and on for a little while longer trying to give it time to rest. With 4 fish in the livewell we had a great start but should have been well into the 20lb range. We moved down lake and as we did the wind and rain started. The wind was blowing 25-30+ and was hard to stick to any open area, so we went back by the backside of the marina, which produced our fifth keeper. We hit a few more areas and culled once or twice and caught a few short fish.
We finished the day with 15.33lbs, 6.37 kicker, and finished in 7th place. Three tournaments and three top 10's, looking forward to the last two tournaments of the season before the night series start.

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ABA Central Arizona Teams - Dec. 3rd - Roosevelt Lake

My partner and I decided last minute to finish the rest of the ABA Central Arizona Teams series in order to try to qualify for the October Championship at Lake Havasu. We hadn't been to Roosevelt in nearly a year and the water had dropped a ton since last seen it. We had no expectations except to go have some fun. The morning was a cold one but we had fun all day.
We started off mixing it up between jig and crankbaits and produced a keeper quick, a 3.11lb largemouth. Within the hour we had 3 fish in the livewell and had missed a few other bites. We made a move across the lake to a flat which produced our fourth keeper. A few minutes later we found some fish stacked on a dropoff and we filled out our limit and proceeded to cull as we moved down the bank. When it slowed we went back to the drop, if we didn't get hungup on the deep rocks it would be a fish every cast. We fished it until the breeze stopped and the fish completely disappeared. We moved around the lake catching and culling a few more times. We finished the tournament in 6th place with 5 fish for 9.16lbs and our big fish was 3.11lbs. It was a great day of fishing and we caught our fish on deep crankbaits, carolina rigs, and dropshot. Looking forward to the next ABA in January at Apache Lake, could be some monstrous weights.