Just finished up my 4th tournament of the year for the American Bass Anglers District 48. I already had a good start to the year by winning the first two events. The third event I didn’t prepare well for and my fellow anglers proved I could be beat into the ground. However coming back, I spent a couple days on the water, found some fish, eliminated some water and fine tuned my pattern. All was looking well for a good finish and it paid off with a Second place. Points wise I’m looking very good.
ABA only counts your four best tournaments and the two day championship for yearend standings. This is good and bad, good because I now have two first places and second going towards that 4 count. Bad in the aspect that there are several folks right on my heals and if I stumble they’ll be right there to jump me. See now that we have had four tournaments I can see where I stand, but after the next 4 events it’s going to be harder to tell who is right there with you when only counting your best four. If all the tournaments counted then I would be pulling away from the pack and have a very comfortable lead. The last tournament of the year is a two day event and worth double points. I always liked that because if you were behind someone by say 10 points you only needed to beat him by 5 places in the two day to catch him. This could help me or hurt me, but instead of worrying about that now I have to stay focused on the next event which is only 5 days away (Feb and March ended up right next to each other).
I have high hopes this year of winning my division. Every year the division winner gets to fish a tournament against all the other division winners from around the states for a winner take all prize of a brand new boat. What’s great about this event is that there are only 50 of you fishing for that boat, pretty awesome deal! I do pretty good when I am force to fish new water, makes me think about patterns more than getting stuck fishing “that spot, that normally works at such and such time of year”. Fishing by pattern will put you on fish, not being home to the water, I think is a plus in this aspect.
This year the Championship is on Lake Murray South Carolina. I’m gunning for it, if any of you reading this blog fish that lake, I might be out to pick your brain a little over the summer.
Wish me luck, I’m going for it!
Get the Net it’s a Hawg
Mike Cork
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