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Yea baby the 2010 season has started. So cool to have 3 of my heroes finish in the top 5. Zaldain, Cody Meyer and Ehrler.
My pre-fish with dear friend and mentor Mike Folkestad along with good friend Tami Curtis yeilded one fish over 2 lbs. but we did catch lot's of numbers. The pre-fish allowed me to devlope confidence in the baits and technique I was going to use on tournament days.
I narrowed the selection down to 5 rods. The Nail rig 5" senko, a 3/16 Bayou Tackle football shakey head with a 4 1/2 inch robo worm ,color,warmouth. 2 grave digger darter heads from Bayou tackle one 1/4 oz and one 3/8oz.On the darter heads I used a 6in. fatty robo in warmouh and a 5 inch pro-worm in cin.purple flake. My 5th rod was a texas rigged 6" MF.worm with a 5/16 tung. bullet weight.
My go to bait when the bite was tough or in high pressured areas meaning we where very close to other boats was the pro-worm 4" leech on a drop shot rig with 6lb. test. Color was bluegill. That bait was awsome and came thru eveytime I picked it up.

Day 1
I drew Pro Don Welch. It was an enjoyable day,gave me plenty of water to fish.We started on a under water hump. We worked it hard. I finnally picked up the drop shot leech and caught my first keeper. We then proceeded to a nearby bank where I seduced my second and third keeper on the grave digger. We went back to a neighboring hump about a hundred yards from the first. The spots were home. After my Pro boated at least 5 or 6 bass I finally had to go to the leech again and bam fish 4 and 5. My pro decided to make a move to find a bigger bite. We cruised and fished the Sac. and McCloud arms. WE both caught and culled thru the remainder of the day. My final weight for day one was 6-09.

Day 2
I drew local favorite and past champion on Shasta Bret Gouvea.Bret was 4th coming in to day 2 so you know I was pumped.Bret said we are fishing areas known for 2 pound plus bass and I believed him since he came in with 12 plus pds. on day one. I opted to throw the nail rig hoping to entice a big bite. the spots were biting strange that morning. We both missed our first 5 bites. Once we figured out the the soft pressure bite the game was on. I picked up my first 2 keepers on the nail rig. The wind really picked up and made it difficult for me to fish the nail rig. We went and fished some areas out of the wind and I managed to pick up a third keeper.When the wind laid down the game was on. We did the old run and gun and boy did it pay off. My first cast with the shakey head produced a 2 pound plus which broke off at the boat. Mean while bret is sticking some quality 2 pounders himself. I did manage to limit out and cull with the shakey head at that spot. We ran to another spot, and an other, and an other only to have boats on all of them. He managed to find a spot of his that was open and since I was in the market for a 2 pounder I made a cast with the texas rig and BAM a 2 pound smallie in the live well. The whole rest of the day went like that catching fish everywhere we went.
At the very last stop close to weigh-in with a boat on our left and one on the right I picked up my go to leech and dropped it down and BAM a nice 1 3/4 pounder came up. I had to cull on the way in to check in. That last fish brought my total weight for the day to 8pds. even. That catapulted me up from 70 something place to thirty something.

DAY 3
I drew another local Mike Menne. All I can say is I had to work very hard to come in with my 7-05 pounds of fish. He apologized for keeping the front of the boat pointed at the points we were fishing. The back of the boat was in 60 to 65 feet of water all day except the last 40 minutes when he turned the boat sideways and I was able to utilize my darter head in the strike zone which allowed me to cull 2 of my dinks. I relied mostly on my drop shot leech which did pay off at those deep depths.
All in all a good way to start of the season with a 39th place finish and a check to boot.