Started May off with a 25th place at the Polholes Tournament. It wasn't what I was looking for but I know what I have to before TBF where it really counts for me and my Great Sponsors.

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a safe holiday season.  We stayed put both New Years Eve and Christmas this year.  It is just so unbelievably cold.  This California boy doesn’t like to venture out when the thermometer reads anywhere under 65.

Thanks everyone for following my journey in 2017.  

There are a few lessons from 2017 I hope to carry over to 2018.

The first is to stay focused and not get carried away in the moment.  Everytime I think about the situation going back East, I always think: do the preparation!  I had just lost a fish at the boat and said to myself, “you need to reset the drag.”  I didn’t, I made another cast and lost a second fish - that cost me big time!  We need to focus on the things in that moment, and cover what needs to be covered.  If I think I need to retie, I will do it then, not make another cast.   There is no one to blame but myself.

In 2018 I will fish out of my own boat!  I’m picking the boat up today.  It turns out the batteries were no good so they needed to be replaced.

I hoped in 2018 I would have been in position to financially fish more.  It would be wishing to say I was fishing the Western Costas.  I will make that a goal down the road; maybe I will be able to get one or two of them in this year.  I hope to get out on the Delta or Clear Lake this year.

In 2017, I wanted to do more in the fishing community and hope to do more of the same in 2018.  Just the other day I saw a guy on the installation driving with a bass boat and two PowerPoles.  For a guy to be driving a rig like that on post I knew they must have been a serious fisherman.  He is a Sergeant Major that has been in the military for a while and also just got back from Korea.  We stopped at the gas station and got to talking, I’m hoping he will check out the club this year.

On the ninth of December the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission allowed us a place to voice our concerns for the changes they wanted to make regarding bass, panfish, and other species of fish.  I felt really passionate about this because I know a lot of the bass guys here in Washington felt their concerns aren’t heard.  This was the perfect forum, I told them to voice concerns online and show up with tournament shirts on.  A lot of us showed up and were able to do some education about how this would affect the tournament circuits, sharing fishing for sport with younger generations, and the capacity to to host college tournaments.

After the meeting I was able to talk with some of the commission guys, and shared with them the possibility of hosting a FLW Collegiate event.  I was able to connect them with some FLW higher ups, and hopefully we will be seeing some events here in Washington in the years to come.

The season starts the first week in March.  I was excited to see one of my favorite lakes that I have done well at on the schedule.  It will allow me to target largemouth that I love so much.  

Excited to see where this year takes us!

 The weather continues to get colder and colder - it makes me miss sunny California!  We already had our first snow here about two weeks ago.  Mount Rainier already had about 47 inches; they are opening up early for ski season.  I don’t ski anymore so the snow isn’t very welcome!

Since I haven’t been able to get out on the water much since the cold set in, I have been catching up on Major League Fishing and organizing tackle.  They are about the only two things that can hold me over with no fishing.

With September passed, I should have been out on my boat every spare moment I had.  Instead, more time was spent getting my boat ready.  I thought I had gotten everything done by this point but the cranking battery will not keep a charge yet.  

Finally, my boat is out of the shop and at my house!  It has been a long journey getting it here, and it’s still not done.  For the next few nights I will be getting some finishing touches done and getting the new trolling motor hooked up.  It has been a nightmare; everything that could go wrong with getting the 112 in and hooked up did go wrong.  I ended up getting an 80 pound thrust, which is just fine for up here, but if I go back to California I will need something stronger to battle the current.  Unfortunately, even though I finally have my boat, I have to finish out this season as a Co.

I just finished up the second event here at Lake Washington and I managed to get some decent points to make up for a slow start.  I elected to fish as a co again this time around since I wasn’t sure if my boat would be ready.  The first club event we made a bit of a mistake which I’m kind of embarrassed about after fishing so many tournaments, but it was an honest mistake.  I mistook the tournament structure and thought my buddy and I were fishing a cumulative buddy tournament, not individual.  I walked out with no points for the tournament and dropped down in the standings.  Despite the poor finish, I’ve really enjoyed my time with this new club; the club is run very well and there are some great guys.

After being overseas away from the tournament scene and my boat in America for some time, I’ve finally gotten both back.  This past weekend, I fished in my first tournament since coming back from Korea and being relocated to the state of Washington.  I also was able to retrieve my beautiful Nitro Boat from storage back in California.  Everything is starting to come together and we’re just getting started now.

I’ve managed to stay busy and somewhat dry here in Washington so far this winter.  We’ve had some snow the past couple weeks with some places in the area getting up to a foot.  We’ve even had a couple two hour delays for work because of the weather.  Despite the winter weather conditions we’ve been experiencing here, I’m still managing to get my line wet from the shore.  The boat is still down in California and with the weather it’s been difficult to orchestrate getting it up here with me.  I’m at the point now where I’m looking into renting a U-Haul truck to drive down and pick up my boat.  With the season right around the corner I’m ready to get her back out on the water.