Fishing The Trail

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com

I love bass fishing in early summer! It’s not really that good for my business or family, because it is hard for me to focus on anything else. Bass are mad and hungry and in big schools competing for your bait. It just doesn’t get any better in my mind. In my last blog I told the stories of a couple of tournaments I’d fished on Kentucky Lake. This blog will be no different, so if you don’t want to hear more about fishing on Big KY, tune in next time!

A couple of weeks ago, I fished the Music City division of the Wal-Mart BFL on Kentucky Lake. As I mentioned, I’ve been spending alot of time on this pond in recent weeks, so needless to say, I was very excited to get back up there. I scheduled two practice days on Thursday and Friday prior to the event. The two days were not so much because I felt like I needed all that time, but more because it’s just so fun fishing this time of year. I’ll summarize my two days of practice relatively succinctly. I was catching them, but they weren’t as big as they needed to be. On Thursday, I found three schools of fish: two good schools with a bunch of fish in them. On both of the better schools, I caught fish on 3 or 4 consecutive casts and pulled off of them. The fish were solid, 2-3 pounders, but not the type I needed to win. On Friday, I did more of the same, checking some places where fish had been, and looking for new stuff too. I found 4 more schools of fish, three that were very promising. On one, I caught 4 pounders on back-to-back casts, on another I caught 3.5s on 3 casts in a row, and on the third, I caught 4 fish in four casts and one of them was a four pounder. As I put the boat on the trailer that evening and worked on my tackle, I was very pumped to get back out there tomorrow. The thing about finding fish for a tournament this time of the year, is that you really never know what you’ve got until you actually let loose on Saturday. Had I just scratched the surface on these places, or was today the best they’d bite? You just don’t know. I felt confident I could catch 17 pounds. I really hoped I could put together enough to win, which I figured would be 21-22. I was a little disappointed that I had yet to catch a big one. It’s really hard to catch 22 pounds without a 5 pounder or two or three.

One of the hardest decisions I had to make that night was deciding where to start on Saturday morning. I knew that I wouldn’t be the only one who found those fish, so it was important to me to get on a good school early and catch a decent weight. I decided to start on the last school I found at about 4 PM on Friday. They were close to the take-off and I felt very confident that I could catch a quick limit and perhaps a couple of big ones. At the pre-tournament meeting I met my co-angler and did the usual exchanging of numbers and meeting place. He was excited to hear that I’d be fishing ledges. I slept on the floor in my fishing partner, Jason Sain’s, father-in-law’s RV. Jason, Scott Brummett and I were all crammed in there and I didn’t sleep much in anticipation of what Saturday would hold.

We were up at 3:45 and I met my co-angler at 4:15 for the 5:00 take off. We really took off early. It was safe, but barely light. Schooling fish don’t tend to be really active until the sun hits the water. It seems to activate the bait fish and put the fish into feeding mode. We arrived at my first spot and I could barely see my line. It was about 5:20. I told my co-angler that these fish probably wouldn’t get active until the sun got up. I caught a 3 pounder in about the first 10 minutes we were there, but that was about it. Nothing was happening. I convinced myself to wait it out about an hour to see what happened when the sun got up. As we bobbed around out in the middle, waiting for the fish to get going, my co-angler told me that he really wanted to catch a limit. A limit? I told him that I didn’t think a limit would be a problem. He explained that he had never weighed in a limit. Ever. He was 50 years old and fished tournaments for 15 years and never once weighed in a limit. Once again, I reassured him that we would be around some fish today. If he fished well, he’d get a limit.

We caught a couple of little ones in the next 50 minutes, but no keepers. At 6:19 I caught my second keeper and just like that, it was on. It’s called igniting the school. When they get going, you have to do everything you can to just make another cast as fast as you can. At 6:22 I was culling. For about the next 30 minutes it was wild. I was catching one on about every cast, culling as fast as I could and running back up to the trolling motor to make another cast. There were bass flying everywhere. Unfortunately, most of them were between 2-3 pounds. My co-angler couldn’t buy one. I started to feel bad for him. I was catching them every cast on a crankbait, but he just couldn’t throw one far enough to get it down to the fish. He caught a couple little ones on a jig and finally decided to try a carolina rig. He caught a keeper about 7:00 AM and I could tell he was relieved. Meanwhile, I’m whacking them on a crankbait. The action slowed somewhat, but I was still catching one every 5 minutes or so. It got to where none were helping me. I had about 14 pounds in the box and everyone I was catching was a throw back. I had two 3 pounders and 3 about 2.75. My co-angler set the hook on a fish with his C-rig and hollered for the net. I figured it would be another 2 pounder, but this one was much bigger. I netted it and it was close to 4. Here I was feeling sorry for the guy and he catches the biggest one in the school.

About 7:45 I decided to call it quits and hit some of my other places. I ran to my next spot and to my surprise, there wasn’t a boat on it. I was so fired up. We were going to kill ‘em! But we didn’t. We caught three or four 13 inchers. Now it was go time, I had three other good schools of fish found, unfortunately, they were spread out over 30 miles of the lake. I headed north about 8:00AM. I ran about 15 miles to my first school, there was a boat on it. I ran another few miles to my next school, there was a boat on it. I tried to fish close by for a little while to wait on them to move. Afterall, I had two four pounders in two casts yesterday, but they didn’t look like they were going anywhere. That voice in my head told me not to waste anymore time. We strapped everything down and ran another 20 miles. To my relief, there was not a boat on this spot. I eased in there and got the boat lined up for the perfect cast to the sweet spot when my co-angler set the hook. Both of us could immediately tell that this was a good one. I had mixed emotions when the fish jumped. Naturally, I was a little frustrated that the 5 pounder didn’t bite my bait, but I was happy that they were here. I netted the fish for him and he was reasonably excited. I quickly began catching them, but with every hookset, I was getting a little more frustrated. They were all little- keepers, but not big enough to cull anything. I was fighting that negative voice in my head lambasting me for running 45 minutes to not improve what I had. I kept catching fish and kept getting mad at myself. Meanwhile my coangler caught a couple more keepers and finished his limit. He was so pumped to just have a limit to weigh-in. After we had been on the spot about 45 minutes, I threw my jig in a different direction, hoping that the bigger ones had moved a little. It never hit the bottom. When I set the hook, it was almost more a sense of relief than excitement. Finally, I had a good one. The fish immediately jumped and I could see it was a five pounder. She made a viliant effort, but the Loomis whipped her pretty quickly. I culled a 2.75 with 5 pounder. Good cull. I breathed deeply. That made the run worth it. I figured I had about 16 pounds now. Not what I needed, but it was getting a little better. We sat there for another 30 minutes and caught some more. My co-angler even culled one. I could tell the culling experience was a new one for him and offered my scale and culling tags. It was 11:00AM. It was time to start heading back south and hope that boats have gotten off of those other places.

I fired up the Mercury and took off. 15 minutes later I could see a boat sitting right where I wanted to be. Such is ledge fishing on Kentucky Lake. I ran a little further and fortunately, there was nobody on the 4 pounder hole. As I sat the boat down, I just prayed that they were here, big and biting……and they were.

They were there alright. Within two minutes, the backseater set the hook on a good one. The fish jumped. 5 pounder. Once again, I had mixed emotions. Hopefully there’s a school of those down there, but once again, he caught the bigun. I netted the fish and he struggled to cull a 2.5 pounder. Now he’s got a 4 two 5s and two 2.75s. I’ve caught 30 keepers, he’s caught 7. This is crazy!

I jumped back on the Motorguide and my jig never hit bottom. Oh yeah, we’re on ‘em! But the fish didn’t pull that hard. What gives here? I slung a 2.5 aboard. “That one won’t help.” Next cast, same result. I sat in that spot and caught another 7-10 keepers, but none that helped. Meanwhile, on the back deck, my co-angler sets on a fish. “Is it a big one?” I asked. No, it’s little. The fish gets half-way back to the boat and realizes she’s hooked. It turned into a big one. When I saw the fish, I about threw up- it looked like a six pounder. I netted it and all he could do was giggle. Now I know he’s knocking on the door of 22 pounds. I really struggled with the cull this time, because he just couldn’t believe he was going to throw back a fish pushing 3 pounds. I know I’m starting to sound bitter. I know what you’re thinking, “Dang, David G hates his co-anglers.” On the contrary, I usually do everything I can to help them catch fish, as almost any of them will tell you. But here I am getting beat like a drum, but catching 4 times as many fish, I was just beside myself. He even had the nerve to hook another giant, but the fish pulled off.

OK. OK. I got out my stupid carolina rig rod, and sheepishly asked “ole big fish” if could use one of his stupid lizards. I half-heartedly chunked it 20 times and went back to my jig. It was getting time to go. I wanted to hit my starting spot again on the way in and we had about an hour to fish. I announced last cast and of course, I caught a fish. 3 pounder. It culled one, but only by a couple of ounces. Now I had 3 3’s, a 5 and a 2.75. I didn’t even make another cast there. Maybe I should’ve stayed and tried to catch one of those biguns for myself, but I was so mad at that spot, I just decided it might be better if we parted ways.

I pulled up on my starting spot with about 45 minutes to fish. I immediately started catching fish, but it wasn’t on like it was that morning. They were there, but were much more spread out. I got ahold of a decent fish, over 3, but it swallowed the crankbait. It was bleeding, so I decided to just let her go and not risk killing her in the livewell. With about 15 minutes to go, I felt a solid thump, and set the hook hard. This felt like a better fish and, once again, more to my relief than elation, it was a 4 pounder. I culled the 2 something and only had time for a couple more casts.

As we idled in, I gave my co-angler a sincere congratulations. I really was happy for him. Here’s a guy who had never caught a limit, never culled, and rarely cashed a good check and he’s got 22 pounds in the box. I could tell he was thrilled and nervous at the same time. I told him there was no need to worry, he had it won, which made him even more nervous, because that meant he’d have to talk on stage. Something I love to do with my verbose tendancies, but something that the less narcissistic among us dread. I told him not to worry, I had a catalog of pre-written speeches for co-anglers praising the skills, kindness, selflessness, and uncanny abilities of his boater for putting him on unbelievable schools of fish. For some reason, he declined.

I crossed the scales with 18,9. Not bad. About what I felt like I could do. Not really what I wanted to do, but it was a good limit. His fish weighed 21,14. I was watching everybody’s eyes as I took my fish to the release boat and they announced his weight. All eyes went straight to me, or at least that’s what it felt like. I just shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. I ended up in fourth. He won of course. Scott B. was second and Jason was seventh, so our little RV slumber party put on a pretty dominate showing.

I’m surprised the ringer on the cell phone didn’t burn up on the way back to Mt Juliet. All my buddies wore me out pretty good over this one. Especially some guys I ate dinner with last night. We were joking about our co-anglers catching big ones and saying, “Excuse me sir, I think I’m hung. Could you back up? No wait, I got one!” Serves me right! At the same time they were ragging me, my friends seemed to respect the fact that we had weighed-in 40 pounds in 10 fish. All in all, I really fished well. I didn’t lose a fish all day. I caught 35+ keepers. I’d obviously been around some good ones and I got to help a guy win his first tournament.  Who knows, maybe next time those biguns will bite my offering.

Before I sign off, I have got to give props to my fishing partner, Jason Sain. After finishing 7th in the BFL this week, he won the BASS weekend series on the next Saturday with 22 pounds and won the ABA tournament on the next Sunday with 21.5. He also finished second the LBL BFL the week before. He had a rough start to the year, but I think he’s won 12 thousand dollars in June alone. What can I say, I taught him everything he knows. Just not everything I know!

Until next time,

He ain’t got it in his hands.

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com

Sorry it took me a couple of weeks to get back to my blog. I’m sure it’s been difficult for many of you to sleep, waiting to hear the unbelievably exciting conclusion to the Triton Owner’s Tournament! Or maybe not…. (By the way if you are reading this blog and haven’t read the last one, go back and read it first, or this won’t make any sense.) I’ve been fishing a bunch in the last couple weeks, so that will have to be the subject of future blogs. (wait til you hear about my BFL last week!)

May 31, 2008-

Back to our story… Jason and I decided to fish Barkley on the 2nd day of the 342 boat tournament. Triton was paying 60 places and with 17 pounds the first day, I figured we had to be in the top 30 anyway. As long as we could catch 12 pounds, we’d get a check, but we really needed 20 plus to get a good check. When they let us go at 6:10 AM, we pointed the Triton North. Prior to hitting the canal, we stopped on three spots on North KY Lake. These were places that only took a few minutes to fish, and where we had consistently caught several in years past. After about a 30 mile run, we stopped and fished a little ledge- no takers, so after no more than 10 minutes, we fired her up and ran about 3 more miles. As soon as we sat down, Jason caught a small keeper. I followed that with 2.75 and another keeper on the jig. We sat there for 15 more minutes without a bite. I was chomping at the bit to get over to Barkley, but Jason wanted to hit one more place. We did, and caught another 2.5. So, we’ve been fishing for about an hour and have 4, but they all needed culling.

When we hit the canal, there was so much current coming into Barkley that the Bouys were swinging back and forth wildly. That meant that they were pulling current on Barkley and not KY. Jason and I looked at each other, both think the same thing. We were about to crush them. After about an hour on Barkley, we had culled all but one of the fish we caught on KY. Unfortunately, we still only had about 14 pounds, no big ones. We talked it through and decided to run further south to the area where I caught the 8 pounder in practice, just hoping to get 3 or 4 good bites. Unfortanately, it just didn’t happen. We never culled another fish.

I’m sure that not too many tears would be shed for me when I say that we caught 30+ keepers both days and never had a legitimate 4 pounder. I’m sure there are a lot of people who would be thrilled with 30 keepers. There are a lot days I’m thrilled with 5. But, to catch as many fish as we did and just not be around big ones was really frustrating. We ended the tournament with 31 pounds over two days and I think we were in 29th place. We got an $800 check which paid for our entry fee and gas. The really amazing thing about that tournament was that it took 50 pounds to win and 49.5 to finish second. I can count on one hand the times I’ve caught over 25 pounds and on 2 fingers the number of times I’ve done it in a tournament. Yet these guys did it two days in a row? How many 4 pounders did they cull? We were dying for one and they had to have thrown back a bunch. The guys that finished 2nd weighed in 28 pounds the second day. Are you kidding me? 

I’m not saying all of this to gripe. I had a great time and caught a bunch of fish. But if you ever stop trying to learn, you stop improving. Jason and I talked a bunch on the way home about it. We had to make some changes to our plans. We had to start targeting places where we’d have the chance to catch bigger ones. We had to start using some different baits geared more toward big fish. We were going to fish the PBF the next week, so we’d regroup, make plans, and go find the biguns.

June 6, 2008-

On Thursday I had stopped at Bass Pro in Nashville to pick up some junk before heading to KY early Friday morning. My friend JD Coleman, who works in the fishing department, asked when I was heading up to practice. I told him 3 AM tomorrow. “When are you going to take me up there with you?” JD asked.

“Tomorrow at 3 AM if you want to.” JD needed to clear it, but he wanted to ride along. He called me later in the day to let me know he was in. We met at 3AM in Mt Juliet and he followed me to the Fenton Ramp on KY Lake. My plan was to spend about 3 hours checking some places I’d fished before, then spend the rest of the day searching for some new stuff. I am far from the greatest expert on KY Lake and Barkley, but I have put in a few days up there. I do not know how many places I’ve found and caught fish, but I’m sure I have 500 waypoints in my GPS. Yet for some reason, everytime I go up there to practice, I look for new stuff. It is such a rush for me to study a map, go hit a spot I found while sitting in my office in Mt Juliet, and catch the stew out of them. I think I get more satisfaction out of finding them, than catching them! I guess it’s like I felt when I was kid and I wandered deep in the woods. I was a pioneer. I was the first one who had ever ventured this secret spot. Obviously, that wasn’t true when I was a kid, and it isn’t when I fish on KY Lake, but I guess that “undiscovered treasure” is part of the excitement.

JD and I fished two or three spots, with just a few small fish. I decided to hit a place I had caught them pretty good in the past. We fished through it without a bite. As I worked my way down the ledge, I was about to quit when JD and I caught a keeper a piece at almost the same time. Uhoh, this could be school #1 of the day…. And it was. On my next cast, I caught a 4 pounder. I threw back in again and had one hooked that came off, then a 3 pounder got it. I could feel the school hitting my line as I reeled my crankbait through them. I’ve seen enough here. Let’s go. Unfortunately, this was a community hole, so Jason and I would be lucky to get back on it in the morning. But, I knew if we could, we could probably catch 14-17 pounds pretty quickly.

JD and I hit several more places I had fished in the past and didn’t find much else. So, I decided to start my treasure hunt. When I am looking at new water, I will loosely plan my day. I don’t necessarily stick to a schedule, but to keep myself from wasting time, I’ll spend some time with my map and write down 20 or 30 places I want to hit. If just 2 or 3 of those places have fish on them, it’s been a very successful day. That’s how I find them. It’s not some secret voodoo magic. It’s not somebody giving out waypoints. It’s just old fashioned hard work. Out of the 20 places we hit the rest of the day, we found three more schools of fish. Unfortunately, we never caught a big fish, quite a few in the 3 pound range, but no big ones. Of course, we didn’t sit on them long when we found them. I like to catch about 3 or 4 in practice out of a school. If I catch them on consecutive casts, I feel like there are a bunch down there. I also want to know how big they are. I like to make few casts, just to see if I can catch a 4+ and know what kind of quality is there. The places I found had plenty of fish, I was just hoping that if we could get on them, and catch a bunch, maybe we could catch some bigger ones too.

Jason was frustrated with his practice. He had found several schools of fish too, but never caught one over 3 pounds. At 1:00PM he put the boat on the trailer and fished on Barkley all afternoon, catching a bunch more 2.5 pound fish. It seemed like we were cursed to catch 16 pounds again.

I told him that I really felt like we could catch 17 or 18 pounds off of what I found if we could get on all those places. So, we decided to hit my stuff on Saturday and then if need be, we could run to his.

June 7, 2008

There were two tournaments out of KY Dam Village on Saturday morning. Fortunately, we were leaving first. That gave me a little more hope of making it to that first school of fish. When they called our number, Jason put the hammer down and within a few minutes we were at spot number 1- and it was empty! Jason pulled the boat up to the drop about 75 yards down from where the fish where and I moved us into position with the Trolling motor. As soon as we got to the waypoint, my crankbait stopped and started pulling back hard! I could do anything with it. This was amazing, first fish and it was a big one. Then, suddenly, it got lighter. There was still a fish on there, but it just wasn’t pulling like it had been. Jason netted our first keeper and I realized that there had been two on there at first! I either caught or lost a fish on about the next 10-15 casts. In the first 8 minutes of our day, we had limit that would go about 13 pounds. We caught them pretty good for about 15 minutes until the school broke up. We eased down the drop and came back to the spot. I caught another keeper and was down in the boat trying to weigh all the fish and cull, when Jason hollered for the net. “Biggun!” he grunted. For some reason, I had my doubts. We hadn’t caught a good fish in 5 days. I heard a big splash and look to see a 5 pounder jumping with crankbait. It really was a big fish! I netted her and went back to my weighing and culling.

We left there with about 16 or 17 pounds and 7 hours to fish. We hit my next waypoint and caught about 10 more keepers, but none that helped, so we quickly moved on. There was a boat on my next spot so we headed for the only other place I had found fish the day before. We fished through the area and just caught a couple of small fish. I guess they must have moved on us. About 100 yards from where I had found the fish the day before, I got a solid thump on my jig. I set the hook, and this one actually pulled. After a short battle, Jason netted a 3.75. “That one will help.” He culled a smaller fish and I threw back in there, just knowing that we were on a good school. But I couldn’t get another bite. Eventually, we eased down the ledge another 50 yards, and I got another solid thump. This one went 4 pounds and we were actually starting to put together a good limit. Those were the only two keepers we caught there, but they were the right kind!

By now the boat that was on my other school was gone, so we headed there hoping that they had left us a few. As soon as we started fishing, it was on. It was fish after fish. At first they were tiny- 12 inchers, but the more we fished and the further we edged down the drop, the bigger they got. I caught a fish over 4 pounds and ton of 2.5-3 pounders. They were biting so well that I went I sat my jig rod down to get another trailer, one came up and bit my jig barely dangling in the water off the side of the boat and jerked my $700 GLoomis/ Chronarch rod and reel in the water. I got it just before the cork handle went under and unhooked one mad 12 inch bass. As I was culling, Jason hollered for the net and I scooped another fish over 4. That culled our last 3 pounder and I knew we had a pretty good sack of fish.

We sat there for another hour, catching them fairly consistenly, although not as fast and furious as we had at first. We decided to hit another spot and let this one rest. It was about 12:30 and we were due in at 2:15. Jason went to start the motor, but it wouldn’t turn over. We had been running the livewells constantly since 6:00AM, and had killed the battery. In just a couple of minutes, we hooked up the jumper cables and she started. We made a short trip to another drop and didn’t catch much, since it was about 1:00PM, we decided to head a little closer to the ramp and hit 3 or 4 places quickly before weigh-in. I knew if we got one good bite, we could win the tournament. However, the motor wouldn’t start. No problem. We reconnected the jumper cables, but still couldn’t get it to start. We gave it about 10 minutes and never could get the motor to turn over. We went to work unhooking batteries to move one of the TM batteries over to the main power cables so we could start the big motor. It took about 15 minutes to get that accomplished, and we got the big motor started. I was straping the batteries back down and Jason was reconnecting the TM cables when a horrible spark flew and so did Jason’s wrench. He had arched the Positive and negative on one of the batteries. After making sure he was OK, we assessed the damage. The batteries were fine, but one of the the cables was melted and fried. Looked like will be on a 12v trolling motor the rest of the day!

We wasted enough time that we really only had about 30 minutes left to fish, plus we were limping along in a 15 mph wind with a 12V trolling motor. We actually went in a few minutes early.

As I was waiting for a bag, I heard that 22 something was leading. I knew we didn’t have that and figured that someone would have more than 22 before it was all said and done. Our fish weighed 21.07 and it put us in 2nd at the time. Our big fish was just under 5, so we just had 5 good ones. By the time we got the boat on the trailer and back to the weigh-in, the scales were closed and we finished 2nd.

Even though I would have really liked to have won, it was an awesome day. I can’t tell you how many fish we caught or how many keepers. For once, all the fish I found in practice were exactly where they had been and for once, they got bigger instead of smaller on tournament day. Kentucky Lake is such an awesome fishery. Even though it is a 2 hour drive for me, I just consider myself lucky to live so close. Not to mention, Barkley, Guntersville and several more great lakes within a 2 hour drive. Maybe Mt Juliet should change it’s name from “The City Between the Lakes,” to “The City within 2 hours drive of Kentucky Lake and Guntersville.”

Until next time,

He ain’t got it in his hands.

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com

May in middle Tennessee was beautiful. We got plenty of rain and surprisingly, the temperatures stayed very nice. Most days, the highs were in the 70s, with lows in the 50s. I couldn’t go fishing without a jacket, especially in the morning. It’s June now and somebody must have reminded Mother Nature that highs in the 70s just won’t cut it. So she obliged. Unfortunately, she did it the same way my mother used to. When she felt cold, instead of bumping the AC up to 75, the thermostat when all the way up. Such was the change from May to June in Middle Tennessee. We went from high 70s and 80s, straight to the upper 90s with 190% humidity.

Not all is bad about hot weather. Due to our cooler than normal spring, the bass were a few weeks behind where they would typically be this time of year. Two weeks in the 90s have quickly corrected that latency. I’ve spent the last two weeks fishing tournaments on Kentucky Lake. Two weeks ago it was the Triton Owner’s Tournament out of Paris Landing, and this past weekend we fished the PBF out of KY Dam Village. The rise in air temperature and subsequent rise in water temps have pushed the fished out to their early summer haunts- ledges, humps and channel drops. That is my favorite way to catch them and this is the best time to do it. So, needless to say, I was looking forward to spending 5 days fishing for big schools of bass. The nice thing about bass tournaments this time of year is that there is not much guesswork as to what the pattern should be. Unlike spring and fall where tournaments can be won on any of several productive patterns, in June on Kentucky Lake, if you want to win, you’d better be fishing ledges. Not to say that ledges are the only places bass can be caught, but, the big bags almost invariably will be caught out deep.

On Thursday, June 5th, I left Mt Juliet at 2:45 AM. My tournament partner, Jason Sain, had spent a couple days practicing on Ky Lake and found some decent schools of fish. We discussed it and decided that I should go to Barkley and see what I could put together over there. For those of you who know your Geography, North Barkley is a 65 mile run from Paris Landing and the further south on Barkley you go, the more the miles add up. I know what you’re thinking, “Hey Genius, those big yellow digits at the Pilot station are not the winning pick 3 numbers, and they start with a 3.” So why look for fish 80 miles from the launch? It was a gamble. The Triton Owners Tournament is a two day event with 344 boats (this year). We figured it would take 41-45 pounds to win it. We also knew that since we were boat 289, it was not likely that a great school of fish within a few miles of Paris Landing would go undiscovered. So, the plan was, if I could find some fish on Barkley, enough that we felt like we had a shot at 20 pounds, we would run over there on the first day and fish for Jason’s fish on the second, shorter day, when we would be in the first 50 boats to take off. See, I’m not such a dummy afterall….well…

I launched on South Barkley at 5:00AM on Thursday. As I put the boat in, I noticed that the water was much higher (1.5 feet) than normal for this time of year. That threw a small monkey-wrench into my plan. I figured I better check a couple of flippin’ spots to make sure that those big post-spawn females weren’t still up there in the willow trees chasing bluegill and shad. I spent about an hour flippin, froggin, and spinnerbaiting. I caught a couple of 2+ pound fish, but nothing worth getting excited over, so I put up the big stick and headed for some drops.

I hit four or five, usually-productive places and caught a few keepers, but none over 3 pounds. I hit an area that usually can be good for a big fish and caught a couple of babies. I eased down the ledge, chunking a DD22 when my line just went slack. Uh oh. When I caught up with her I knew I had a big drum. It was stripping drag and digging under the boat. I caught a glimpse of the big drum and just hoped to get my crankbait back. Then, she jumped. This was no drum. It was a surenuf, big ole good un. A Hawg, Hollerhead, Bucketmouth, Pig, whatever you want to call it. The fish was pushing 8 pounds. Any sane bass fisherman would be pretty excited catching an 8 pounder. It just ticked me off. Here I’ve fished 6 ledges in this area and the only keeper bite I’ve had is Toadzilla. While it might be nice to think that I could catch more like that in this area, I dismissed it as more of fluke. Especially after fishing several more miles of ledges and only catching one more keeper.

About noon, I decided to abandon my usual places and go looking for some new stuff. It was a good decision. In the last 5 hours of fishing, I caught a bunch of keepers and found 4 schools of fish, all on places I had never fished before. Unfortunately, the weren’t big. I had a couple of 3.5s but nothing over 4. Jason called me about 4:30 to see how I’d done. I told him I’d caught a pretty big sack today, but without that one giant, I was around 16-17 pounds. He had caught them pretty good on Ky Lake and felt like we should just stay over there. He felt like we could catch 17-18 pounds pretty easily and with a big bite catch 20. I was a little disappointed, but agreed that it was probably the best move. I just wished that the 12 hour day I had put in could’ve been more helpful to the cause.

If you’ve never fished a tournament with over 300 boats, it is truly a site to behold. Done well, it is a masterpiece of traffic management and logistics, done poorly, and it’s, well, let’s just say I’d still be waiting to back the boat in.  We got in line for boat check and launch at 5:15AM, we backed the Triton into the water at 6:45. The line snaked through the Paris Landing State Park. The Triton employees and volunteers had biscuits and coffee for everyone and I feel like it was managed as well as it could’ve been. We idled out of the no wake zone to the take-off boat as they were calling boat 275. Perfect timing. We took off when they hit 289 and headed south. I was sure that we would have to fight for a spot to fish, but amazingly, Jason pulled up to the first place and there wasn’t a boat on it. It only took a couple of casts to hook up, but the fish was small. We followed the first one with 5 or 6 more like it. Jason said he had caught some good 3-4 pounders schooled up here in practice. Unfortunately, early in the summer like this, it is often a timing deal. Pull up to a spot at 7:00AM they’re all 13 inchers. Pull up at 9:19 or 2 :47, they’re all four pounders. We hit another place to no avail and Jason yanked the trolling motor up and said, “Let’s go catch a limit.” We got to the next spot about 8:00AM and to our surprise once again, there wasn’t a boat on it. At 8:11 we were culling. The fish weren’t giants 2.5- 3.75 pounds, but there was a bunch of them down there. Jason was catching them as fast as he could throw and I was mainly doing floor duty. Netting. Culling. Moving fish from livewell to livewell. Vacuuming the carpet. Waxing the boat. OK- maybe it just seemed like I was the hired-flunky (Jason used another word, but I’ll refrain in this blog). We stayed on those fish until we ran them off and we left with about 14 pounds. We hit three of four more places and caught some fish, but none that would help. About 11, I culled one with a crankbait fish, but it didn’t help a lot. We fished some pretty good places but just couldn’t catch a big one. Around 1 PM we caught two decent fish, 3.5 and 4 pounds off of a deep drop. I knew we needed a 5 pounder if we were going to get anywhere close to 20 pounds. We jumped around the rest of the afternoon and culled two more times. But we were culling 2.75s with 3.0s. We weighed in 16.94. Almost exactly what Jason had predicted we could catch. I’m sure we caught 25 keepers, but we just weren’t around the quality fish we needed.

On the way home, we talked about what we needed to do tomorrow to improve. We felt like we could boat another 16 pounds fishing the same stuff we did today, but that wouldn’t be anywhere near the lead. There were several bags in the 21-24 pound range. If we were going to get to the top 5, we’d need one of those 22-25 pound sacks. After a long discussion of the possibilities, we decided to roll the dice and make the long run tomorrow.

This blog is getting a little long. So I’ll leave you hanging until next time! Before signing off let me just mention that if you’ve stuck with me, you’ve heard a lot of talk about “what we thought we could catch.” This is an often overlooked and under appreciated aspect of tournament strategy. When making decisions about areas to fish, went to leave fish, and when to take chances, you really have to have a pretty good grasp on what type of fish you are on. Last week at the Elite Series Tournament on Wheeler Lake, the tournament was decided based on the anglers knowing what they were on and having a very good idea of the quality of the fish that lived in the areas they were fishing. Lots of tournament guys I know are just so happy to catch some fish or a limit, that they seldom think about this type of fish and area management, but in order to be consistently successful, we must understand it. As you’ll see in my next blog, I’ve still got some work to in that area!

Until next time,

He ain’t got it in hands

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com

By most accounts, I’ve had a pretty good year tournament fishing thus far. I’ve been on the water 33 days. I’ve fished nine tournaments. I have six top tens, three of those being wins. I’ve also weighed in the two biggest limits of my life at 26.32 and 27.96.

We’re now halfway through May and the fishing is about to change dramatically. If you’ve followed any of my other blogs, you know that my favorite time of year to fish is post-spawn and summer. Usually I struggle in the pre-spawn season, but for some reason this year, I’ve been fortunate to figure out a few things and put them together when it counted. So, I really hope that I can continue my relatively good season into my favorite time.

As the summer months approach, here are few things I think about:

1. Where are they going?

We all know that southern bass get shallow in April. The annual spawn usually starts when the water temps hit 60. I always look at the dogwood bloom as mother nature’s sign that the spawn is on. Although not all bass spawn at the same time, when the water temps hit 60 and hold there for a few days (which usually happens in April in Tennessee), they start doing their thing.

Now, on most of our lakes, the spawn is drawing to a close. Sure there are still some bedders to be found, but for the most part, the spawn is ending. The bass are in a transistion mode. Depending on the lake, they are starting to head for their summer-time homes. While some fish certainly will stay shallow during May, I start looking for the fish in the first deeper water or breaks outside of spawning areas. This can be a point, hump or just a deeper bank heading out toward the main lake.

2. Shad and Bluegill Spawn:

One of the things that can hold bass shallow during the post-spawn season is the spawn of their prey. Shad and Bluegill usually spawn in May and since both are a primary forage, the bass may up and decide to stick around and do a little eatin. Bluegill usually spawn in the same type of places bass do, that is, shallow water with a hard or gravel bottom.  The bass will usually be found not too far from these bluegill beds. The shad; however, will spawn in some pretty weird places. Grass edges, riprap, and boat docks are the three main places that come to mind. A main thing that a bass fisherman needs to know about the shad spawn is that it is an early-morning thing. Don’t sleep in in May. My experience has been that you can catch them until the sun gets up above the trees. It is usually a short-lived bite, but can be ferocious. I throw a 1/2 to 3/4 Hoppy’s Spinnerbait with double willow leaf blades. The bites are viscous and they will often knock slack in the line. To find bass relating to a shad spawn, look for shad following your spinnerbait around those aforementioned structures, and hang on.

3. Covering Water:

Although bass will get the post-spawn blues for a few days, many of the bass this time of year will be ready to eat. They are worn out from a few days of romance and ready for a good meal. So, keep moving. They are biting somewhere. I usually start just outside of spawning areas and keep moving deeper until I find some type of pattern. Another thing to remember is that these fish are transistioning, so don’t think that they will be in exactly the same place from one day or one week to the next. Keep moving with them and cover water until you find something that works.

4. Fish care:

My last little piece of advice as the warmer months approach is for my fellow tournament fishermen. Fish care becomes much more critical now. When the water is cooler and the fish are not as stressed from the spawn, they are much easier to take care of. During March, I usually just keep pumping fresh water into my livewells and recirculating the water on a timer. However, here are a few tips for keeping those biguns alive after the spawn and during the summer months.

As the water temps climb into the 80s, we need to take measures to keep our livewells cooler. Although store-bought ice is an easy option here, some argue that the additives in our water may be harmful to the fish. The best option I’ve found (when available) is to bring home some lake water in the livewell, mix in some Rejuvenate or other release formula, and freeze it 1 gallon ziplock bags. During the really hot months, I may have 10 or more frozen bags. I take them along in a soft-sided cooler or two and add them periodically throughout the day.

You also want to keep the livewells on recirculate. Especially, once you get the water temps down, you don’t want to add hot, surface water. The exception to this is that periodically through the day (about every 3 hours), I’ll slowly pump in fresh water to replace the “used water” in the livewells. I am always careful to add some more ice after changing the water. Finally, I’ll regularly add a little Rejuvenate to the livewells. This stuff doesn’t necessarily work miracles, but it does help. I’ve been fortunate to lose very few fish even in the hottest of conditions following these steps. It takes a little more preparation, but it certainly pays off.

So, that’s my May Potpourri. I’ve got tournaments the next 7 weekends, so hopefully, I’ll have some good results to post and some good stories to tell. If I don’t, I’m sure I’ll have some good excuses!

Until next time,

He ain’t got it in his hands

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com

Last weekend I attended the 4th annual Back 40 Outreach, Jeff Lambert Memorial Tournament on Lake Guntersville. This is the third year I have participated in this event and it is a weekend that I will not soon forget, for many reasons. Back 40 Outreach is a non-profit Christian organization of men who share a passion for the outdoors and for sharing Jesus through God’s creation. Every year we get together for a fun “tournament.” This is a nice break for me from the intensity of fishing the other tournaments that I fish every week. There is no money on the line, just bragging rights. Here is the format: On Saturday, we fish 3 four hour sessions, and one on Sunday. There are boaters and non-boaters. Each boater is paired with a different non-boater during each session. For guys like me, with bigger tournament bass boats, I got two non-boaters each session. At the end of the session, we return, weigh-in our fish, grab a snack, get our next partners and head back out. The tournament awards the biggest 5-bass weight on both the boater and non-boater side, big fish on the boater and non-boater side, top guide (for the boater whose non-boaters collectively catch the most weight), the horizon award (for the most up and coming non-boater) and a rough fish award.

I have really caught a bunch of fish in the past during this tournament and although there is no doubt that I love catching them, it is so much fun to see these guys who fish only once or twice a year to get a hold of a 4 or 5 pound largemouth. It is awesome! So, I headed down Friday morning to try to find some fish to take my non-boaters to, and maybe to catch a few for myself.

Lake Guntersville is an unbelievable fishery. Mainly because of the prolific vegetation. There are literally miles and miles of flats and creeks covered in hydrilla and milfoil. Grass lakes usually produce more and bigger fish because the entire food chain has more cover to protect it. I’m no fisheries biologist, but I sure know that the grass in Guntersville makes for some great fishing.

When I got to the ramp on Friday morning, there was hardly a parking place to be found. The lake was covered in boats practicing for tournaments on Saturday. I eased out onto the main lake and decided to try throwing a spinnerbait on some the famous Guntersville ledges. It didn’t take long before one just crushed my spinnerbait and the battle was on. I lipped the fish and it was over 5 pounds. I spent about another hour doing that and caught 2 more that were pushing 6. I had to laugh at how easy it was. I was calling my buddies chatting on the phone. It was nice to be out there with no pressure, just catching big ones. Of course, the ridiculously competitive side of me kept pushing to see how much I could actually catch. I left the ledges and went to some creeks to try for some shallow fish. As luck would have it. I only got two bites: another 6 pounder and 4.5. So, by 3:00PM, my best 5 were over 25. I went to one other area, where I had really caught them last year and caught 3 more keepers, so I called it a day.

We met that night to talk about the weekend, had a prayer, and met up with our next day partners. I have spent a lot of time at church events and evangelistic meetings in my life. This is completely different. It is obvious that these men care about each other and God, yet it is not an “in your face” call to religion.  It is a comfortable and easy environment where faith is discussed openly but not shoved down anybody’s throat- come to think about it, that’s kind of the way Jesus did it.

The next morning I took Ron Steen and Andy Estes for a 15 mile boat ride up to where I had caught those spinnerbait fish yesterday. I tied them on some lipless crankbaits and worked down the ledge. On the second cast, I caught a 5.2 and another keeper on the 3rd. Unfortunately, they had a little more trouble connecting. Andy lost a nice one. Ron caught a 2.5 pounder, a 5 pound catfish, and lost a big bass. (Note to those of you who might go to G’ville: 10 pound test on a spinning rod is no match for a hydrilla gorilla!) I ended up catching 4 more keepers: a 5.7, a 3.9 and couple of 2.5s. We had a great time laughing and casting and enjoying a beautiful morning.

We headed back to the weigh in and I must admit that, selfishly, I really enjoyed blowing those guys minds with 5 fish that weighed 18.5 in just a four hour session. I got my next two non-boaters, a father and son, neither of whom had spent a lot of time bass fishing. In fact, the son, Josh, had never caught a bass. We headed to an area where I have consistently caught them on a Carolina Rig. I asked if either of them had fished with a C-rig before and they had not. I rigged their rods and set the reels so as to minimize the backlashes. I cast Jeff’s out and explained that he just needed to drag it back and keep contact with the bottom. Before I could get Josh’s rig in the water, Jeff hollered that he had one. He wrestled it to the top and I lipped a 4.2. Some days it’s just not that hard! I caught a couple of keepers, including a 5.7, and it wasn’t long until Josh was wrestling one of his own. I grabbed the net and scooped the fish for him. It was over 4. Not bad for your first bass! After a few pictures, we were back at it. We headed down the bank and I set the hook on a little keeper. Before I could get that one in, Jeff was hollering for the net. It was the biggest bass of his life at 5.74. I think both father and son were pretty happy at this point.

Apart from the fishing, Jeff told me about his job and how God had directed him and provided for his family. Sometimes I get so caught up in catching some little green fish that I don’t stop to hear God’s voice. It was good to be able to share faith with these guys and listen to how God moves in our world and in our daily lives. We caught a few more fish before our session was over, and headed back to the weigh-in. Now my non-boaters were the ones with the big smiles as we lugged a big sack of fish up the hill to the weigh-in. During that four hours, we had two 5.7s, 3 over 4 and 3 3.5s.

I got my pairings for the last session of the day. I was fishing with Aaron Kelley and Mike Davis. I went to college with these guys and although I see them infrequently, we always take up right where we left off. We had an absolute blast. I told them I wasn’t going to fish much, but upon their insistance, I made few productive casts. On our first stop I caught a 4.5 and I told them that was it, I wasn’t fishing anymore. Then on our next stop, I decided to fish a little. I made a long cast with my carolina rig and when it hit the bottom, one rocked it and dropped it. That was certainly different than how they had been biting. When I started to move the rig, the fish came back and took it. I set the hook and immediately knew that this one was different. “This is a big one,” I told Aaron and Mike. My rod bowed and my drag slipped. Aaron asked, “Do you want the net?”

“Nah, I’ll get her.” About that time the fish jumped and it was certainly bigger than anything I’d caught thus far. “OK, go ahead and get the net.” After fighting her back to the boat and almost getting pulled in as she surged under the Triton, Aaron netted her. She turned out to be 7.34. At this point, by best five for the day totalled 27.96 (my personal best). Now I really wasn’t fishing anymore….. Of course I still picked up my rig a couple times and accidently caught a couple more keepers. Aaron ended up catching two nice ones and although he fished hard, Mike didn’t catch one. I was dissappointed and almost ashamed at what I had caught when he didn’t catch any.

The wind had been howling all day- 25 mph out of the SW- a bad wind for Guntersville. About 5:30, it just laid down. As we were cruising back in, laughing and joking about our day, I looked west to see the sun behind some small clouds with bright beams of light cutting holes in the clouds and blazing down to the water. There must have been 35 thick beams of light extending 360 degrees from the core which was mostly obscured by the cloud. It was an absolutely incredible sight and one which I won’t ever forget. I thought that that must have been what it was like when Jesus calmed the storm: the lake was like glass and the sun was melting the clouds. I am so fortunate to get to spend so much time in God’s creation, but unfortunately, I am often so caught up in myself that I fail to see what He has made. I get so focused tournament fishing that I don’t take a moment to “Be still, and know that I am God.” It was such a great experience this weekend to get to spend time with some great men and to experience what it’s really all about! Oh yeah, I got to reel in a few biguns too!

Until next time,

He ain’t got it in his hands.

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com

If you like to fish for fun or for competition, you’ve probably had one of those days where it just didn’t happen. You lose the big one. Your line breaks. The fish you found in practice disappear and you have to scramble all day. Hopefully though, you’ve also experienced a day where it all happened right. The big ones stay pegged. You figure out exactly what how they want the bait. It seems like you can call your shots. Unfortunately, for most of us, there are more of the former, and less of the latter.

I’ve been fortunate to win some tournaments and do reasonably well fishing competitively, but I can tell you that I’ve never had two days of fishing like I had this past Friday and Saturday. Here’s the story….

My regular fishing partner, Jason Sain, and I were planning on fishing the Professional Bass Fishermen tournament on Kentucky Lake on April 12. I paid our money and we talked on Monday about our plans for the weekend. Unfortunately, Jason had something come up and called me after I had already sent in the entry fee to let me know that he couldn’t fish. I was sort-of in a quandry. The entry fee was non-refundable and I really wasn’t looking forward to the tournament. The water on KY Lake and Barkley was about 8 feet above summer pool due to all the recent rains, muddy, and my thought was that the bass would be pretty unpredictable. I mulled-over what I should do for a little while, but finally decided to try to find a stand-in for Jason. I ended up getting a friend of mine, Pat Hatcliff, to agree to make the trip. Pat couldn’t practice on Friday, but I knew with the conditions as they were, we would have to spend some serious time finding some fish that would hold up. An old friend of mine, Mickey Noel, lives in Kentucky and although he hasn’t fished much in the past several years, agreed to ride around with me on Friday.

When I met Mickey at the ramp, water was absolutely everywhere. In yards, in parking lots, and way back in the trees. We fished around for a few hours with only one bite. About 10 AM, we pulled into an area and started getting a few bites. We caught several fish in the 3 pound class fairly quickly. It was fun, but I told Mickey that there was no way 3 pounders would do me much good in this tournament. Based on the reports I’d been hearing on Kentucky Lake, I was sure it would take 24-25 pounds to win and 17 or 18 to get a check. We made a little move and quickly got some more bites, and they started getting bigger. We were flipping outside, standing trees and bushes and as soon as we pulled up to the next bank, I caught a 3.5 pound largemouth. We fished another 10 minutes and I caught a four pounder. Before I could get that one in the boat, Mickey set the hook on a 3.5. We were on to something.

I decided to back off of this area, so I put the Motorguide on high and went about 200 yards down the bank. As soon as I stopped, I pitched next to a tree and my bait started swimming off. This one felt big, so I let her swim until she dropped it. I made another pitch 10 yards down the bank and another swam off with it. This one felt little, so I set the hook. It was a 5 pounder. I fished another 100 yards got 4 more bites and set on one of them which was about 4.5. That was all I needed to see. We left that area. I knew they were there. I ran to another similar area got three or four bites and set on one of them- another 5 pounder. We left there, ran about a mile, and Mickey caught two solid 2-3 pounders behind me, then I caught another 5 pounder. I hate catching them on Fridays!

I told Mickey that I just couldn’t believe the quality of fish we were catching. I ran up the lake 10 miles and tried to duplicate it, but we didn’t get a bite. Finally, about 3:30, I decided to fish another similar-looking bank close to where I had found all those other fish. We quickly boated a couple of 3 pounders and I decided that I had seen enough. We put the Triton on the trailer. Mickey wished me good luck and I headed for the motel.

When Pat met me that night, I was trying to keep my excitment under control. Afterall, I’ve played this game before. I’ve been on good fish before and not caught them on game day. I knew I was around the kind of fish to win this thing, but maybe even more exciting than winning was how many bites I was getting flipping. I love to flip flooded cover. There is nothing like dropping a jig into a bush, the line jumping, and wrestling a 5 pounder out with the big stick. However, I really don’t flip that much in tournaments, at least not as my primary tactic. I know, I know, Denny Brauer, Tommy Biffle, etc. etc., but usually, I look for fish that I think might be more over-looked: off-shore stuff. But this time, there was no doubt about it, we would live or die with the big stick and the heavy line. I told Pat about the day I’d had. I probably boated 21 pounds without really trying. I hate catching them on Fridays! I told him that I knew where they lived, we’d just have to stick with them on Saturday and hope the big ones would bite. I didn’t sleep too well on Friday night. Again, not that I was that worried about the winning the tournament, I just knew that we had a chance for a really big bag of fish and was hoping that things would hold up, that the weather wouldn’t mess us up too much, that there wouldn’t be too many boats on those fish…..

I was up before the alarm went off on Saturday morning. We were out of the Super 8 before five and ready to blast off long before it was time. If you’ve never fished Ky/Barkley lakes, they are massive impoundments connected by a canal at the far north end. So, most of the time you have the option of fishing either lake. We were running about 40 miles up lake Barkley to our fish. When they let us go, I put the hammer down on the Triton and made the 35 minute run. As I pulled into our area, I didn’t see any boats. I uttered a quick prayer of thanks! There was one boat, however, right behind us as we pulled in. They stopped on a bank across the cove.

I started on what I thought was the most productive stretch from yesterday. The wind was howling straight into our area and it was very difficult to pitch and flip accurately, keep the boat from crashing into the bushes, and feel anything on the other end of the line. We fished 200 yards without a bite. I was beginning to wonder where they had moved to, when things got a little mushy on the other end of my line. I set the hook and boated a 3 pounder. OK- here we go….. I fished another 25 yards and boated another 3 pounder, then a few flips later caught one about 2.5. Within five more minutes, I landed another 3 pound fish and Pat added our 5th keeper. It was 7:45. Not bad, but certainly not the size we needed. We fished another 20 minutes without a bite but then we hit another little flurry. I caught a 4 and 4.5 in short order, and we started culling. The time was now about 8:30 and I was feeling pretty dang good. I knew the type of fish that were in this area and we had all day to catch them. I really fish much better when I’m relaxed like that. Unfortunately, it’s not every tournament that you have 18 or 19 pounds at 8:30.

We fished until we met the other boat and turned around. As we went back through the area where I caught the two good ones, Pat hollered for the net. The fish dove under the boat and I thought it was a 3 pounder, but when she came out, she had grown to a 5 pounder. I netted her and knew now that we were knocking on the 20 pound door. I was running the boat and getting first shot at all of the prime spots, so naturally, I was catching more than Pat. I teased him that since that 5 pounder was the only one he had in the livewell, I was going to cull it! He just laughed and said, “Buddy, if you cull that one, I’ll be thrilled to death!”

We jumped around for the next couple of hours and caught a bunch of fish. What a blast catching 3 pounders at will! Unfornately, none of them helped us, as we had a 3.25, 3.5, 4, 4.5 and 5 in the box. About 10:30, we ran back to the area where we started. I sat the boat down and dug out an energy bar. I put the Motorguide in the water, made a pitch, and took a bite of my snack. As I fought the wind and munched, there was a solid thump on my jig. I whacked him and could tell that this one was a good one. She came out of the bush and surged under the boat. “Man these suckers can pull!” I horsed her to the top and Pat slid the net under her. This one was over 5. I grinned and said, “We’ve only got about 4 more hours!”

We made our way down the bank and caught a couple that didn’t help. I pitched next to a tree and saw the line jump, only to break off setting the hook. I had just retied, and this was new 25 pound P-line. I must have had a bad spot in the line, and although it was probably just a 3 pound fish, I hoped this one wouldn’t come back to haunt us. Another 15 minutes went by without a bite, but we were having a blast. Fishing sure is fun when you’ve got 22 pounds in the livewell. I was laughing or joking or making fun of Pat when another one smacked my jig. I gave it all I had with the hookset and this one pulled hard! “Big un! Get the net,” I screamed. In short order, we had another 5 plus in the boat and I was culling our last fish under 4. This was getting stupid, it was still only about 11:00 o’clock. I really started letting Pat have it about culling his five pounder! We were catching them so well, that I knew that other people probably were too. The reality that we might win started to set in. I figured we needed 25 to be pretty confident, and we probably had about 24. I was probably thinking more about what was in the livewell than what my jig was doing and as I started to reel it up to make another pitch, it started moving off. I didn’t really even set the hook. I just kept reeling and pulled the hook into her. Immediately, she came up and I screamed, “That’s her!” After a few seconds of shear panic, Pat netted her. It was a big pre-spawn fish that looked to be 8 inches wide. “That fish is pushing 7, this is just ridiculous.” I sat down, thanked God, and couldn’t quit laughing. I reached into the livewell grabbed a 4 pounder, and counted the fish three times before letting her go. I knew we had over 25, probably 26 and it was not noon yet.

From that point on, I could only think about getting these fish back to the weigh-in. The wind was gusting to 30 and if you’ve never been on KY Lake, 30mph wind is not your friend. We were due in at 3:23, but by one o’clock we agreed it was time to go. We talked about the liklihood of us bettering our catch versus the possibility of something going wrong on the way in and decided it was time to head for home. We buckled everything down, battened down the hatches, and prepared for a bumpy ride. I turned the ignition to start the motor, but nothing happened. Fortunately, I was prepared for such a situation. I had been running the livewells wide open since 6:30 and had hardly run the big motor. Pat got on the trolling motor to keep us from crashing into the bushes and I attached the jumper cables to one of my trolling motor batteries. In just a few seconds, the Mercury was purring! Thank you Lord. Again!

We made the trip that normally would take about 30 minutes in about an hour. We eased along about 3500 RPMs, stopped frequently to check our fish and got back to KY Dam Marina about 2:00PM. We goofed off and half-heartedly fished for the last hour just hoping that we hadn’t made a stupid mistake by leaving too early. After check-in, we pulled up and tied up next to my friend Adam. He said, “You got ‘em?” Pat and I just grinned. “You got a big sack?” We just kept smiling. “You got a real big sack?” I nodded.

23 something was leading at the time, and I was sure we had more than that. Adam told his partner to take their fish up there, he wanted to watch us sack ours. I pulled them out one by one while Pat held the bag. Adam guessed the weight. The first fish was 4.5. I pulled the second one out. Adam said, “That one’s 5.” The next one came out. “Good grief,” he said, “that one’s 5.” I opened the other livewell, “Now for the big side….” I pulled out the next one and all Adam could say was, “Yeah, that one’s over 5.” Finally, as dramatically as I could, I pulled out the last one. “Good grief, that one’s pushing 7. Y’all are fixin to break some records!”

The scales settled on 26.32 and we won by about 3 pounds and had big fish of the tournament at 6.90. I know it’s not the biggest weight ever brought in, but it was an absolutely incredible day. We had a blast and the adrenelin is still pumping as I type this blog. I’ve won tournaments before and won a lot more money, but I’ve never been on that kind of fish and to catch them flipping made it even better. For those of you who’ve stuck with this entire account, thanks for letting me relive the experience. I just hope that I’ll get to do that a few more time before the Good Lord calls me home!

Until next time,

He ain’t got it in hands!

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com

Every year it seems like spring will never get here. It’s just Mother Nature’s way. She tempts you with a warm 65 degree day in February, then dumps snow on you the next day. But as sure as the sun rises and sets, the days gradually get warmer and the 60 degree days become the rule more than the exception.

In Tennessee, we’ve had a pretty typical spring and as we near the end of March, the days are getting longer, the air is getting warmer, and so is the water. When the water temperature gets above 50 degrees, bass fishing starts (at least for me) to get fun. The bass are at least thinking about getting out of their winter patterns and easing into shallower water. They become a lot more agressive and easier to catch as they make their transistion toward the spawn.

This winter I had talked to a friend of mine, Adam Wagner, about fishing a tournament on March 23. There was going to be a tournament on Cordell Hull Lake. Cordell Hull is a Cumberland River impoundment in eastern, middle Tennessee. There are not many tournaments on the lake and I’d only fished it a handful of times. Adam had fished there plenty and said although he wasn’t sure how to catch a big limit, there would be plenty of fish to be caught.

So, I showed up at the boat ramp on Friday with my Triton in tow to meet Adam and hopefully figure something out. He had been out a couple of afternoons and caught plenty of fish, but the bigger ones were hard to come by. Fortunately, there was no shortage of 12-14 inch fish in this lake. We started out fishing shallow and caught a bunch of fish. The bait didn’t seem to matter too much as we got bites on crankbaits, jigs, spinnerbaits and jerkbaits. Most of the fish were on the smaller side, but I did luck into a 6.5 pounder on a Shadrap and caught a couple of three pounders doing other things. All in all, we had a blast catching a bunch of fish.

When you fish tournaments, and you really fish to win, you can’t ever be content with practice. Trust me, I’ve done it a bunch of times. I’ve thought, “I’m on ‘em. I know what I need to know.” Only to find out that I was on the wrong size fish or didn’t have a good back-up plan. So, with 3 hours left in our practice day, we went looking for something else, something better …. and we found it. In the last two hours of practice we boated 8 or 9 keepers and two that were right at 7 pounds. The bigger fish seemed to be off the banks a little and we were catching them on a jerkbait. In those couple of hours we seemed to have figured out a way to get some bigger bites and we changed our whole plan.

We took off the next morning with a fair amount of confidence that this could be one of those big days. Anything less than 20 pounds would be dissapointing and 30 was not out of the question. We made our first stop and caught 2 smaller keepers. Just like clockwork, when we got to the point where there should be a big one, my jerkbait stopped, and the drag started slipping. After a few tense moments, we put a six pounder in the box. Oh yeah, it was going to be one of those days. It slowed down some after that. We had a limit in about another hour, but they were small (other than the one good one). After fishing around until about 10AM. We decided to go back to our starting spot. Adam caught a four pounder, 2.5 on the next cast. Our hopes were high again. Unfortunately, that was about it. We caught several more fish, but if they helped our weight it was not by much. As we headed for the weigh-in, I was a little dissappointed. We had a lot of fun, caught a bunch of fish, but didn’t have what it would take to win the tournament.

We weighed our fish and the scales read 15.36; not bad, but not what I had hoped for. As we walked back to the boat someone asked Adam, “Are y’all leading?”

“I think so,” he replied. I look at him. “Are you serious?” I asked him. Evidently, it had been a lot tougher than I thought. When the dust settled, we ended up winning the tournament. It was not the blow out I had hoped for, but a win nonetheless. If you’ve read my blogs in the past, you heard my rants on the importance of decision making in tournament competition. We won that tournament, not based on skill or secret bait, but based on the decision to keep looking for something better during practice. Sure there can always be luck involved, but you won’t win (at least not much) if you don’t do everything in your power to put yourself in the position with the very best chance to do well!

 Until next time,

He ain’t got it in his hands.

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com

If you read my last blog, you know that I was getting ready for some late winter, early spring tournaments- my first of the year. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, pre-spawn is not my time of the year. For some reason, I have struggled to catch them consistently when the water is below 50 degrees. I know they are out there. I know people catch them. But I have always struggled. So prior to my first tournament on Feb 16th, I spent some time looking around the lake, studying past results, and trying to create the most likely game plan to give me a chance at doing well. After practicing about a half-day on Friday, I made up my mind. I had one place where I felt like I could catch 2 or 3 keepers first thing in the morning. I’ve done it in the past on that place under the same conditions, and I got three bites in about 15 minutes there during the week, two of which were keepers. After that, I was going to head up-river (where I usually don’t go) and fish shallow the rest of the day. Why? The water temp is 3-5 degrees warmer up lake and the temps were pushing 50. I felt like if I put my head down and made a million casts I would catch some fish, and have a chance to boat some good ones.

We took off at 6:15 and I headed down to my first spot. Like clock-work, about 5 minutes into my fishing, I felt a bite and the fish was moving off with my little shakey-worm. Unfortunately, he dropped it before I could bust him. A few minutes later the same thing happened again. Then I felt another bite, this time I stuck him. Good one! I hollered for the net, only to see the fish boil and the line go slack. OK, not such a spectactular start, but that’s OK. I’ve played this game before and I’ve got all day. I got two more bites there, one dropped it and I broke the line on a piece of wood setting the hook on the other. Alright, so plan A didn’t work so well, on to plan B. I ran up the river and started fishing shallow. On our first stop, my co-angler boated a solid keeper and I put a small keeper in my side on the next stop. It was now about 11:00AM. I fished about 5 more places with nothing to show but a few dinks. At 2:00 PM I pulled into an area where I have consistently caught them. I was due in at 2:30. That stupid negative voice was wearing me out in the back of mind. “One little dink. That’s embarrassing. Your family is coming to the weigh-in and the kids will be very disappointed if this is all you have to show them.” Somehow, I managed to turn down the volume a little on that voice and focus on making the last 30 minutes count. I fished through the area I usually get a few bites with nothing to show for it, so I decided to just keep going. I had never made a cast on this stretch of water, but something about it seemed right. About 2:15 I boated my second keeper and about 2:21 I put a 4 pounder in the livewell with the other two. I wish I had another 30 minutes, but I had to go. I ended up the day in 9th place and got the last check with just under 8 pounds. Turns out it was very tough for a lot of good fishermen today. I was pretty happy to have survived.

Fast forward to last weekend, determined to do better than just survive I spent the day before the BFL tournament fishing off-shore. The weather on Friday was raining and windy, while tournament day was going to be high-pressure, blue skies, no wind- a death sentence for me on a clear upland lake. I figured if I could find some deeper fish, they might hold up for me. I caught a few, but nothing worth coming back to. So, I started this Saturday with the same plan I had two weeks ago. Hoping that somewhere along the way, I’d get that “Light-bulb” bite to tune me in to what was going on.

My starting spot from a couple weeks ago had boats all over it so I started on some bluffs- nothing. I hit a couple of shallow points- nothing. I ran up the river and fished some steep banks- nothing. I fished some brushpiles in 7-10 feet of water- nothing. (you kind of get the drift here don’t you.) About 11:30 I stopped on the bank where I had boated those last minute fish in my last tournament. I finally caught two, but neither would measure. Now I knew it was tough. I’ve had two bites in 4 hours and I haven’t seen another soul boat a fish. I hit several other seemingly likely spots- to no avail. I was frustrated. The livewells were empty and I had an hour to fish. I pulled back on the only place I’d had a bite all day.

If you’ve ever fished tournaments you know this feeling. It’s late in the day and you start to lose your attention to detail. I had two rods on the deck with no lures tied on from breaking off and 6 more with all sorts of junk tied on. The deck of my Triton was a representation of my fishing day and how I was feeling. At 2:01PM, I sat down, put up all that junk but three crank bait rods. I retied each one with the what I felt like was my most-likely option and went to work. Almost immediately, my co-angler hollered for the net. It was his first bite of the day. I grabbed the net, but it was a non-keeper. I jumped back up on the trolling motor made a cast, made about 3 turns of the handle, and the rod loaded. Net. This is a good fish. I tried to keep her down, but she jumped anyway. I brought her around the right side of the boat and into the net she slipped, just as the crankbait fell out of her mouth. “Thank you Lord!” The fish was pushing 5 and although I had nothing to go with her, it really felt pretty dang good to get the skunk out. I fished another 20 minutes with some new-found confidence. Knowing how tough it seemed today, I felt like one more good fish might get me a check. No sooner than I got those words out of my mouth, the rod loaded again. Net! The fish bit on the end of the cast, so my co-angler ran up to the front with the net. Unfortunately, he caught one of my rods and it almost went overboard. He saved that one while I fought the fish up to the boat. In saving the overboard rod, the net landed on top of a rattletrap hooked to the reel, strapped to the deck of the boat. I’m looking out of one eye at a three pounder with one back treble hook stuck in the corner of her mouth and out of the other at my co-angler fighting furiously to untangle a seemingly hopeless mess. The fish surged toward the back of the boat and when it did, I turned the rod to try to get the front treble stuck. Fortunately, I did, just as my net man jumped up and put the net under her.

At this point I needed to throw up, but I kept on hammering. I ended up catching one more short fish before time to head in. As we checked in, I felt pretty good to have survived the day with what I had in the livewell. While I was sure somebody had caught them, I was also pretty sure that it had been tough on many.

Tough was an understatement. As I walked the dock to get my bag and saw a lot of long faces and a few bags with one small fish. I was actually getting some pretty good stares walking by with two decent fish. That’s pretty sad. My fish weighed 7-12 and that took the lead! I knew, of course, that it wouldn’t last but it made me realize how tough it had been. I ended up the day in 5th place and took home a pretty decent check.

I feel the need to reiterate what I said in my last blog. This game ain’t about the magic lure or the magic spot or the magic anything. It’s about decisions. I was fortunate, or lucky, or blessed, to have made the decisions the last couple weeks that put me in the right place at the right time with the highest liklihood of putting a few bass in the box. One of the absolute hardest things to do is to keep your chin up in the last hour of a tournament when you’ve taken a beating all day, but this is the most critical decision-making and focusing time of the entire tournament. I’ve certainly spent some last-hours hauling water, but I’ve also been fortunate a number of times to put key bites in the boat as the minutes ticked down. I hate to sound like Ike, but you can NEVER give up.

Until next time,

He ain’t got it in his hands.

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com 

Although my wife might argue that I spent more time on the lake and in the duck woods than I actually did studying, I really have put in a lot of hours in the classroom. After high-school, I have 11 years of college and grad school to my credit. By no means does all that education make me any better or smarter than anyone else, I just have several cute little pieces of parchment with fancy gold letters on the wall to show for the years in the classroom. Many highly-educated people I know, tend to get further and further from reality the higher their education. I once took a course on Applied Mathematics. I couldn’t then, nor can I now, tell you what applied mathematics is, or why I had to take that class- it was all theortical. I’m pretty sure my professor in that course didn’t have the common sense to reason his way through the most minor day-to-day issue most of us might face, but he could definitely write some serious equations on the board!

Much of higher education is like that, theory, that doesn’t really mean a whole lot in the real world. However, one area of study that I use daily (although with much less detail than I learned in grad school) is statistics.

OK, OK, I know this is myoutdoortv.com….. why are we talking about applied mathematics, statistics, partical physics, etc? Every decision we make in life is based on either data we have collected over time or intuition. When it comes to bass fishing, and especially tournament bass fishing, decisions is what it’s all about. I know, I know, it supposed to be all about the newest magic bait that makes them bite on blue-bird, post-frontal, low-current, no wind, bad moon phase days or the performance Bass boat that beats the competition to honey hole at 92.3 mph. But when it all comes down to it, the bait, the boat, the supercharged x-ray vision electronics and the best graphite sticks in the world, won’t fill your weigh-in bag at the end of the day without some good decision making, no matter how many patches you have on your tournament shirt.

I’m not saying that I’ve never had “one of those feelings” payoff in a tournament, but more often than not, I’m a data-based, statistical, percentage, analytical type of fisherman. I guess it comes from my years in science, but in my little brain, I believe that if I can understand as many of the variables as possible, surely success will follow. I analyze (often over-analyze) the weather, water temperature, depth, structure, maps (and anything else I can overanalyze) to formulate a plan that I feel will give me the highest statistical probability for success. My tournament philosophy is to play the percentages as best as I possibly can to stack the odds in my favor.

Let me give a few examples: Here’s any easy one, let’s say you have a tournament on a classic summertime ledge lake like Kentucky Lake or Eufaula (at least the way Eufaula used to be). If you go back and look at past results from the weeks leading up to your tournament, even prior years, you’ll know that you better have your deep water/ ledge fishing game on. Not to say that nothing else will possibly work to catch a bass, but the probability is that the tournament is going to be won off-shore and unless you have an abnormal fear of floating around out in the middle of the lake, that’s where you should be looking to stack the odds in your favor.

That one is pretty clear cut, but let’s take a trip several miles back up the Tennessee River to Lake Guntersville. Now let’s say that you have a tournament in September. You go online. You do the research. It seems like you’d better be fishing ole kermit over the mats, right? But then you find out that there is a deep-ledge bite going on here too, there is a flippin bite, a spinnerbait bite…. How do you assimilate that into your little statistical analysis? Obviously there is no perfect formula, and obviously if there were, and I knew it, I wouldn’t be typing on a stupid keyboard, I’d be getting ready for the BassMaster’s Classic next week. Back to Guntersville in September, now that you have several ideas in your head, you have to look at the percentages to make your plan. If you like to fish a frog and know some good places to try it, start there and expand, fish your strength. On the other hand if you’ve never caught a bass flippin grass and you’ve got one day to learn, even if you know that is what it will take to win the tournament, the odds are not in your favor to master it in one day.

What I’m trying to say here is look at the variables, play through the possible scenarios and percentages in your mind, and pick the MOST LIKELY route to acheiving your goals. If your goal is to win, you had best be Flippin that big jig on G’ville or fishing a deep river ledge on KY Lake. If your goal is to finish decent and get some points, fish your strength go with a technique that has a high probability of success.

Which brings me to today, February 12, 2008. I have a tournament on Percy Priest lake on Saturday. I have really done pretty well on Priest by most standards. I don’t know how many tournaments I’ve won, but I’ve won a few. But never, ever, have I won one in February or early March. So, I’ve spent the last week analyzing (or over-analyzing) what I’ve done in the past and trying to make corrections to my past faulty game plans. First off, I have to know my goal. My goal is to put myself in a position with a chance to win. Secondly, I have to select a technique and area of the lake for the current conditions, that gives me that chance. Unfortunately, I don’t have any idea where that highest percentage area is. Afterall, I’m terrible in February and March on Priest. So, I’ve narrowed it down to flipping a jig, a shallow crankbait, a medium crankbait, a deep crankbait, a jerkbait, a shakeyhead, a spinnerbait, and oh yeah, my latest crazy plan… a grub (thanks for the help JD). Well narrowed it down might be a little strong, I also might throw a rattletrap or a drop-shot. “Hey doc, what about the percentages?” Ultimately success will depend on the decisions I make on tournament day and what technique I feel give me the highest likelihood of finishing well. Right now, I’m not sure what direction that will be, but fortunately, I have a couple of days at the end of the week to gather a little data. Just know this, if I take off on Saturday moring with all of those rods strapped to the front deck of the Triton, statistically speaking….. I’m toast!

Until next time,

He ain’t got it in his hands.

By: David Gnewikow

www.davidgfishing.com 

As I look out of my office window, it is a dreary 37 degrees. It snowed a little last night for the first time this year in Tennessee. As the winter’s grip tightens and the weather channel is calling for several days of sub-freezing temperatures, I can hardly sit still thinking about the tournament season cranking up.

Many of my friends fish tournaments all winter. The fishing is actually pretty good when it’s cold if you can stand the chill and know where to look for the fish. Thus far, I have been pretty strong and resisted the temptation to hook up the Triton. I spent a wonderful Christmas with my family, have worked several boat shows for my sponsor Clark Marine (www.clarkmarine.com), and I’ve even snuck out duck hunting a couple of days. With as many tournaments as I fish during the year, I really try to be home as much as I can in the winter. This has greatly reduced my time in the duck blind, but I want to and need to spend this time with my wife and kids.

Now before I pull a muscle patting myself on the back, let me say that I am getting a little cabin fever and I’m ready to hit the water soon. The boat show season always gets me ready for that. Although Clark Marine had a pretty good show last week and I talked to some “buyers,” much of the time at shows is spent standing around talking fishing. “What are you fishing this year?” “What tournament trails look the best?” “What happend to you at the regional?” Ouch.

I am planning on fishing the BFLs, BASS weekend series, and at least one team trail. That makes for a pretty tight fishing schedule. Every year, about July, I tell myself that next year I am going to back off. Next year I’ll fish less tournaments. Next year….. Yet every January is just like the last. I sit and plot and plan and try to squeeze every tournament I can into my schedule. There has got to be some type of medication for people like me!

As I (and many others with my disease) prepare to start another tournament season, I always like to set goals for myself. As I’ve heard many times, aim for nothing, and you’ll hit it. I usually spend some quiet time reflecting on my fishing and where I want to go and then write out some specific things that I want to accomplish. This year, I figured why not share that on the world wide web. Some of my goals are lofty, some are a little more down-to-earth, but here goes….

1. Win a points title- This is always a goal I set for myself. I’ve achieved it a few times on team trails, but I still haven’t checked it off of my list for individual events (if you want to know the painful story read “Tie Breaker” a few blogs ago.)

2. Win a BASS weekend series tournament- I accomplished that this year, but that was before Triton decided to kick in another $5000 if you are fishing out of a Triton/Mercury boat. That’s a cool $10,000 for winning one day event. This is a pretty selfish goal, but having just started a business, that money would be very helpful in my house.

3. No more line breaking- I know, I know, the one that got away… we all know that story. But I broke off due to a mental and mechanical error in my fishing, about 7 or 8 times in tournaments last season. Many of those were on really key fish that would have made a big difference in how I finished. Sure there are days when fish come unbuttoned and there is nothing I can do about it, but when I repeatedly broke the line setting the hook on fish swimming off with a big jig, there is no doubt that it cost me a lot of money last year. So, I think I’ve fixed the problem and my goal is to make it through the season without breaking off like that anymore.

4. Use every minute of the tournament day- Do you ever have that dream where you are supposed to be fishing or meeting someone somewhere, but you just can’t get it together? It ends up that the tournament is over and I’m just getting my fishing rods out.  I guess that’s the anal-rententive coming out in me, but I absolutely detest wasting time during a tournament, or even practice for that matter. I like to have my tackle organized and rigged such that I can take every advantage of every minute of the day- no wasted motions. That is my goal every time I blast off.

5. Practice smarter- Have you ever spent a day practicing for a tournament and gotten 50 bites doing the exact same thing? I have, and I consider that a mistake. Unless I am completely certain about the pattern I am going to fish, I want to spend more time looking for a back-up plan. Bites on practice day don’t count in case you were wondering. Instead of finding 20 places I can catch fish on one bait, I’d rather find 2 patterns that I know I could catch five fish each. Then, come go-time, if plan A that I got 50 bites on dies, I can go to a completely different plan and hopefully make something happen.

6. Know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em- We’ve all done this. It’s noon, I’ve got two fish in the box. My plan A has only worked so-so. What do I do? Do I scrap everything and scramble for 3 hours, or do I grind it out for three more bites? I don’t know how to answer that question. Nobody answers it right everytime, but there are guys that do it more often than the rest of us, and they are the ones holding the wood up at the end of the day. I know 10 times more about bass fishing than I did 5 years ago, yet my results today are sometimes not as good as they were five years ago. Why? On the water decisions…. this is what seperates the pros from the wannabes.

Let me give you two examples from my memory of when I did it right and wrong-

Several years ago I fished a BFL regional on Lake Eufaula, AL. During the two day practice, I figured out that fish were on river channel ledges and would crush a big crankbait. I was as confident going into that tournament as I have ever been for any tournament. It was so easy in practice. On day 1, one by one, I hit the ledges I’d found, and one by one, left with an empty livewell. At 12:30, with two hours to fish I started to go to plan B, which was fishing riprap, but something made me stay out on those same ledges I’d been pounding. At 1:00, I caught keepers on 7 casts in a row on the big crankbait and ended up catching about 4-5 more after that before weigh-in. I went on to finish 2nd in the event and never picked up another rod. Good decision.

Last spring, in the 2nd BFL on my home lake, Percy Priest, I had a very solid plan. I was going to try to pick up a couple of shallow fish early, then spend the entire rest of my day throwing a jerkbait for big fish. I knew the jerkbait would only produce about five or six bites, but they would be good ones and give me a chance to win. Once we were underway, my plan started to come together. Although I only caught one fish on my early morning, shallow bite, it was a big one (6-2). I headed for my jerkbait fish at about 8:30 and quickly boated a 3 pounder. I just knew I’d win it. I got three more bites on the jerkbait before noon. All big. All came off. Instead of sticking to my guns, I started running around the lake like my hair was on fire trying one thing, then another. The floor of my boat looked like a terrorist had attacked Bass Pro Shop. I ended up with just those two fish. Had I stuck to my jerkbait, I feel confident I’d have put two or three more in the box. Bad decision.

So, I set goals for myself, and whether I reach them or not, I have a plan in mind. I plan for success this season. I plan to fish smart. I plan to fish efficiently. I plan to make good decisions on the water. What do you plan to do? 

Aim at nothing, and you’ll hit it everytime.

Until next time, he ain’t got it in his hands!