Day 1 of practice for the BFL super 2 day on St John’s River. Brand new territory for me. Let’s see what our teachings can uncover.

Update; it worked out ok. 4.70

3 am. On the road to Roland Martin Marina for another tournament on Okeechobee. 4 rods, 2 boxes, handful of plastics, 1000 memories. Tight lines to all that toss this weekend!

Big O Tournament this Saturday. I won’t take my Falcon to Okeechobee when it’s too shallow. Was going to sit this one out. Turns out I’m going on someone else’s boat to help another boater that didn’t draw a co-angler. Plan is 3 rod simple. Top water, crankbait/Jerkbait and speed worm.

The power of our community.

Since I’ve joined SUF I’ve had the pleasure to meet and fish with so many more people than one would expect. BLat, Tim, Mack, Eric, Chris, Destiny, Alex and a whole list of others.

Recently I took a week long trip titled “Florida Boys Invade Georgia”

Bryan Key and I met in the app and fished locally here in Florida numerous times. He had plans to fish West Point in Georgia and invited me to come along. We drove for 9 hours. 2 Trucks, 2 Boats, 1 destination. We arrived early. Too early to check in at the marina so fishing was an obvious solution to burn time. We fished the next two days on West Point. We were targeting Spotted Bass and many were caught. But as only Florida boys would do, we each landed what is considered giants for that body of water. 2x 5lbs +. We figured we conquered that lake so we’d drive to the Atlanta area.

We met up with Eric Zenke and dropped our boats into Lake Lanier on a windy Saturday morning. This was a momentary lapse of reason. Between the wind and the relentless inexperienced amount of Wakeboaters we didn’t have the best day. We caught fish but retreated for safer ground. Bryan had commitments back in Florida and drove back.

I stayed a couple more days as Eric was gracious enough to open his home. We fished again on Sunday and history repeated itself. Fish were caught but not the way we wanted. Monday morning we arrived at first light. We went to a ramp on the Northern side to explore new waters that Eric hadn’t seen.

On the way to a river that feeds the lake we were looking for cooler moving water. I noticed something unique in the coastline. There was a pile of rocks that went from the shore down into the water and beyond. I pulled up the Falcon and dropped the trolling motor. Eric proceeded to put on an absolute clinic as we had found a spotted bass sanctuary. Eric pulled them in so quickly I sat down behind the wheel and ate breakfast instead of fishing. He ended up with 6 catches in less than 30 minutes. We moved on to the river.

We fished the rest of the day in grueling heat. More fish were caught and then there was when Eric earned his title of “Doctor Braid” after pulling a treble hook out of my finger, but that’s a tale for another day.

I wrote this up to demonstrate to the newer members how strong this community can be if you put yourself out there and take the time to get to know other members. We all are at different levels of the game but share one common passion.

Enjoy your time here and open yourself up.

12 Hour update: If you have taken the minute to read through all of this, you are already on the right track. :)