FLW Tour #3
Lake Norman - North Carolina
Water Temp: 58-63
Pre/Spawn/Post (a little of everything)

I rolled into the rental house around 1:30am, exhausted and grouchy. I was alive though, and that’s always good. I had to call my wife with about an hour to go so that I would not fall asleep at the wheel. She talked me through the last hour and I arrived in one piece. I threw my sleeping bag on the couch and went to sleep. I heard an alarm go off at 5am and was hoping I was just dreaming; no such luck. I called the night before to make sure I could practice with someone; Suggs already had someone and Moorehead didn’t want my bad luck to rub off on him, so Jeremiah said I could go with him. I tried to throw together whatever I could for that first day of practice. My truck was a mess and it was a pain trying to find what I needed. The first thing I hear in the morning is Suggs saying “Hey, Double Ott made”. After some choice words for him, I get up and get ready to go. The weather is setting up to be beautiful and sunny, and that makes me happy after the miserable weather we had up at the Chesapeake. We get out on the water by 6am and it’s a chilly 44 degrees. We head out on the lake stop at some docks he’s caught some fish on before. Jeremiah starts throwing a shaky head and I start with a 4” hollow belly; I catch a short black on my first cast. I would go on to give Jeremiah a good stomping, out fishing him 10 to 1. We ended up catching 70 fish the first day of practice, with my best 5 weighing about 9 lbs; all keepers were spotted bass. It was nice to catch keeper fish again. Once again the sun is setting on a fun filled day of practice.


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