Stren Series Championship
Lake Pickwick
Florence, Alabama
Water Temp: 60


The 17 hour drive went by fairly quick. I left the house at 3:30am and drove until I reached Waterloo, Alabama at 8 in the evening. Waterloo is about 30 miles west of Florence. I arrived at Hart RV Park in the pouring rain, and not knowing which site was mine, I decided to park right where I was and go to sleep. I had my bed set up in the back of my Yukon and it was lights out the second my head hit the pillow. I was a little confused when I woke up about how light out it was. I set my alarm for 6:30am and woke up before it went off and the sun had already risen. Apparently besides the hour change in time between the two time zones, daylight savings had also taken place. I was 2 hours off and this would confuse me all through practice. I picked the lower section of the lake because it had the most grass, which always seems to hold the best bass. My plan for the first day was to go look for schooling fish. The first creek arm I came to I idled all the way to the back and started fishing. Within minutes, the water erupted with bass and shad. I cast my swimbait in and pulled out one over 3.

The fish went back down and I kept throwing my swimbait around. About 10 minutes later they came up again and I caught another one, this one just under 3lbs. I ran around the midsection creek arms finding more areas that had schooling fish. It was pretty awesome to see the largemouth blowing shad clear out of the water. I needed to get off the water a little early to go meet the people at the RV Park to find out where my site was. I got off the water at 4, got gas and headed back to the RV Park. I was the only one staying there, so I picked the site that was easiest to pull in and out of. The park was right on one of the creeks, so I could sit and watch the fish go crazy on the bait.

At one point there were so many bass eating shad that it looked like the water was boiling. I considered fishing from shore, but I had to run out to the store to get some jelly and shampoo. Come to find out, the closest store was 37 miles away, so after driving 25 miles I decided to turn around and go back; I could do without those things. When I got back, I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (minus the jelly), watched a movie on my computer and went to sleep.