National Guard College Fishing Season Complete

Well the regular season of National Guard College Fishing is now in the books. The tournament trail took us to Bull Shoals Lake, Lake of the Ozarks, Lake Ouachita, and to Kentucky Lake. I feel that I learned a lot over the course of the season that will make me a much better fisherman in the long run. Right now we have a long time off until the Central Regional Championship which will be at the end of October on Lake Monroe in Indiana. We will compete for a first place prize of 50,000 dollars against 19 other teams. The tournament is a three day tournament that will be televised. After two days of fishing the top 5 five fish the final day to see who will be crowned Central Regional Champions. The top five will advance to the National Guard College Fishing National Championship to compete for 100,000 dollars.

Last year we just came up short of making it to the championship as we took 6th place in the regional. This year we managed to double qualify for the Regional Championship with a 2nd place finish at Lake Ouachita and a 5th place finish on Bull Shoals. I plan on taking some time to head over to Lake Monroe this summer to see what the lake has to offer and to hopefully gain some info that will help us out come tournament time. Having come so close to winning last years Regional Championship just makes me even more determined to win the championship this year. The fish that we were on in the tournament last year had left us and ended up moving to the spot where Indiana University won the tournament on the 2nd and 3rd days of the tournament. We fished the spot where the Regional Championship was won last year and things just didn't work out as the water level changed during the course of the event. We zigged left when we should have zigged right. We were just a day early from being on the right spot at the right time. That's part of the game but everything happens for a reason and hopefully this will be our year.


After looking back over our tournaments this year I think most of the success we had can be contributed to just being a lot more prepared. This year I know I put in a lot more hours looking at the map and studying each of the lakes contours as well as getting information about the lakes conditions. We also did a much better job of fishing the moment and trying to fish where the fish should be instead of fishing behind the fish. It's easy to make the mistake of fishing what was working just days prior to the tournament than what the fish should do given the current conditions. A big part of our success was also making sure that we had the right line, baits, and rods in the boat to get the job done on each lake.

Bull Shoals was an interesting tournament. We did a lot of research on the lake prior to the event because neither one of us had been there before. We started off the day catching a couple of keepers quick as well as a some shorts. We were on a pattern but unfortunately our motor blew up and we were 20 miles or so away from take off and had to be towed back which ended our day short about 3 hours. It was crazy to end up in the top 5 by just 1 oz winning 2,000 dollars. I guess the lesson learned here is to never give up and to always fish hard even if stuff isn't going your way.

Lake of the Ozarks was one of the most miserable tournaments I had ever fished. The temps didn't get above freezing and it poured on us most of the day. Our tournament was cut short a half an hour due to conditions. We ended up getting 19th place with one fish during this tournament. We caught a lot of shorts but failed to get into the right school of fish. We probably took too big of a gamble in running as far as we did to try and catch our fish with such a short tournament.

Lake Ouachita was one of the best stops of the season. A lot of fish were caught and we were very fortunate to have gotten on a rock solid pattern early in the tournament. Neither one of us had ever fished the lake before but we made a lot of good decisions that payed off. We ended up having 5 fish to put us in 2nd place in the tournament winning 5,000 dollars. One of the biggest lessons I learned is that sometimes you just have to do something out of the ordinary to catch your fish. Also just because a lot of fish are spawning it doesn't mean that you have to fish for spawning fish. There will always be post spawn as well as pre-spawn fish to be caught.

The fishing at Kentucky Lake was just insane. It took 24lbs to win the tournament and 19lbs to get into the top 5. I had a good day during the tournament and ended up catching around 20 plus pounds myself but I couldn't get my partner his fish. I think in trying to not fish as hard we didn't come across enough fish in order for my partner to get his keepers. It's just a hard situation to be in when you have your limit and you can't tell if you are around fish and your partner isn't catching them or if the fish are not there and trying to figure out when to move.

Overall I am happy with how we did this year. Two top 5 finishes in 4 tournaments isn't too shabby. I'm still longing for the win though that has somehow always managed to elude us. We've been really close a couple of times. I wanted to win a regular season tournament this year and make it into the top 5 every time but things just didn't work out in some of the tournaments. You only get so many chances to win due to all the stuff that can happen, especially with all the out of the ordinary rules in college fishing.