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!