Struggled again, and I wasn’t alone

Today we finished the Sunshine Classic. Well, I didn’t finish today. I actually finished Friday. I struggled again. 

I came to Florida, knowing I’ve always had trouble. But I came here with a plan, and that plan was to fish these lakes differently than I have in the past. Here, what you have to do to be successful is to sit on an area. You sit and be patient and hope they bite in an eight or nine hours. That’s what I planned to do.

I finished 62nd, and that’s a lot better than 92nd, which I have done. But it’s not what I was looking for. I came in with a plan to be totally patient, but I didn’t have the confidence that I was the right area, so I moved. And, as a result, I didn’t get the fish and, therefore, didn’t fish a good tournament. It’s a guessing game sometimes, and if you’re not in the right spot, you can burn your whole time up and not catch a thing.

My style of fishing is moving around, finding them and then hunkering down - but it just doesn’t work here. And to be honest, luck plays a role sometimes on these Florida lakes. Just look at what happened today. Mike McClelland caught them today. Brian Snowden caught big bags for three days and didn’t catch a thing today. Look at the weights on the final 12. There were some awfully good anglers that didn’t catch many pounds worth of fish.

I’ll be perfectly honest, my goal coming here to this tournament was to get a check, finish in the money. And I didn’t even do that. My goal going into tournaments should be a lot higher than to finish in the top 50 and get a check.

Well, we’re in Florida again this coming week at Kissimmee.I’m going to change the way I approach things this time, I assure you.