Wet and Wild three words that pretty much some up my past two tournaments. On April 24th I decided to throw my hat in as co-angler in a BFL going out of Paris Landing to get and idea what to look for on the following weekends Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament. The week leading up to this was beautiful sunny and warm fish where on the move shallow some on the way out. Everything was setting up to have a fun day of fishing. I went down on Friday and jumped in the boat with my boy Brent Anderson who is becoming a solidified stick down there. We spent the day flippin bushes shallow checking a bunch of community spots. We did manage to boat quite a few fish and a couple descent ones at that. We also ran out and checked a couple ledges and did catch fish on each one we stopped on but all short of the 15'' size limit.  At the meeting I drew out with a guy who seemed pretty amped up about what he had found and was ready to get after it, this was great. The one factor not taking into consideration was the fact the wind was going to blow 30+ out of the south and it was going to pour all day. We started out at 5am in pouring rain and ended the day with pouring rain, severe thunderstorms, flashing flooding and tornados. We ran to his first spot a main river bank that we cranked and did manage a couple short fish but with 4 footers rolling in on it it was pretty much trashed. Our next spot was a bluff bank at the mouth of a large creek arm. This was a place fish would use moving in or out during the spawn and it was out to the wind, it also had two small pockets in it that fish had been in spawning. We spent the better part of the day fishing back and forth down this bank along with two other boats. We all kind of had one little point that each boat was able to sit on at the mouth of these little pockets. In the end we boated a bunch of short fish and he was finally able to put a keeper in the box. The weather was getting worse, we had to check back in at 2pm so at 1pm we decided to make the 30 min run back to weighin. About half way back something just didn't seem right, the motor sounded funny and the boat was riding weird. We had just past another boat who stopped to put a helmet on as we ran straight into a torrential down pour when he decided to stop and see what was wrong. We looked back at the motor and it looked a little low to me. He turned and looked at me and said that doesn't look right and I agreed, as we both turned to look back at the motor again it fell right of the back of the boat!!!! Talk about HOLY *****, my eyes got as big as softballs, I climbed to the back deck and was greeted with 4 foot rollers hitting me in the knees, now I am a little nervous. Within 2 minutes the boat was full of water, I mean full of water, rear storage, front storage, rod lockers... everything. The guy that we passed, stopped to see what was going on and was able to give us a tow to shore. Once we were under tow I felt much safer and actually started laughing about the situation and started taking pictures with my phone. They were able to get us into a bay that had a dirt ramp in it. They needed to make it back to weighin and we told them to go and we would get it taken care of. We were still 50yds from shore when they left the only problem was the engine was still dragging on the bottom and the trolling motor wouldn't pull us to shore, so he had to jump in and use a rope to pull us to shore. As luck would have it 3 guys from Indiana just happened to pull down to the access just out driving around. These guys were able to pull the motor up to shore with their truck. I got a hold of Brent and he was going to bring the guys trailer over so we could get the boat out. As we worked to disconnect the motor it rained 3'' that hour alone. Brent arrived at the access just as we got the motor disconnected from the boat, now with the boat on the trailer we needed to get the engine out but first we had to sit in the vehicles for 30min as the sky turned green and black and tornado warning went off everywhere, with another 3'' of rain falling. In between rain squalls we got the motor into the back to the Indiana guys truck and they followed us to the Paris Landing ramp a 45 min. drive. We finally got back to the ramp at 5:30pm soaked to the bone, cold and tired. The tournament director was still there and took more pics of everything along with my partners son who had to wait around not sure what was going on. All said and done no one was hurt and we all get to fish another day, needless to say I didn't learn anything for the upcoming weekend.

    Tournament number 2 in as many weekends the 2nd BWS for the KY Lake division going out of Paris. With past weekend behind me and the full moon in effect on Wednesday I headed back out and spent Tuesday flippin bushes and caught a bunch of fish but nothing of any great size but was able to boat a limit of keepers. Most of my flippin has been done with an Outkast Tackle "Naught Bug"  rigged on a MiHatchii 4/0 OWG hook  and a 3/8oz. Tru-Tungsten flippin weight . I flipped this on 20lb fluorocarbon line. I spent the day in the backs of the bays as this is where most of the shallow flooded bushes are and with the wind blowing again at 20+ mph out of the south there wasn't much else you could do. Wednesday brought calm winds and I took advantage of that to get out on the main lake/river ledges. I pushed this issue all day and wasn't able to put much of anything together. It was about 4pm and I was ready to head in when I saw a boat pull up and fish something I had thought about during the day. So with that little nudge I decide to pull up and fish part of it too. With my first 5 flips I boated to 2 1/2lb fish and shook 3 more off. I ended up shaking off 12 more bites in the next hour and a very poor day turned into a very productive day. Friday I put in at the Paris Landing and headed south straight into another day of 20+mph south winds, these are getting very tiring. I check a spot that resembled what I caught fish on on Wednesday night a was able to boat some fish so things are looking good. I kept working my way south check different bays all which seemed to have fish in the bushes. I spent some time flipping them but was covering water faster by throwing anOutkast Tackle swim jig , 3/8oz. head glimmer shad skirt, with a fat tail grub trailer. It was an awesome day numbers wise but never really seen or boated a big fish 4lb+ quality. At the meeting I drew out boat 6 and had a game plan for the day and felt good. As was the deal with the past weekend we a woke to pouring down rain and it did this all day long on top of 25+mph south winds. We were held back 40 minutes in the morning due to severe weather. Once we got started I ran to a little point that was in front of a spawning bay that holds fish all year. I had a good fish pull off a crankbait and boated a short but with this little bit of action I decided to run to the fish I had found on Wed. evening. Once I got there it was quickly evident there was no way I was going to be able to fish it very well with 4-5 foot roller pounding it. My co-angler was able to boat a small keeper as I managed 3 shorts but only fishing it for 20 min. we had to go. This is where I made a huge mental error. Knowing the better fish would come from south of Paris even though I started north I should have made the run. Instead I kepted going north to a couple bays I had caught fish in on Tuesday. By the time we got there each one was basically mud in the back half from the rain that was pounding the area, it turned normal small creeks into raging muddy mini rivers. We did have a lot of bites and boated a bunch of short fish and I managed one keeper time was running out and we still had to make the run back. With a little time left on the way back I stopped on the fish I found Weds. and boated my second keeper pretty quick. I thought if I would make one good pass I would be able to get a limit but with that wind and the waves crashing it it was impossible for any boat control. We made the run back to check in and I end the day with 2 fish for 5.18lbs and a 58th place finish out of 80 boaters a very embarrassing finish for what I had found in practice and the stupid mental error. Even with the record rain fall, flash flood warnings, extreme lightening, and tornados of the day the boys sacked them with 1st and 2nd both with 26lbs. for 5 fish, even the top 2 co-anglers had 15lbs and 14lbs respectively for 3 fish!!! In the end live and learn from your mistakes. Our area along with Nashville ended up with over a foot of rain, everything is flooded and it will be a while before things are back to normal. The AFS is next on my list May 14-16 and with the Lakes both shut down to recreation boating till Monday the 10th it will make for an interesting tournament if it happens, until then Tight Lines.