hang in there jess. remember for every one jess theres a thousand guys wishing they were in your shoes. ive spent 13 years of my work life in self employment covering 2 stints. the hardest part is getting the start up money. it will happen for you. maintain your priorities so you can enjoy your ride with your family. doors open if you position yourself right. remember this too, it takes a lot of jet fuel to get a rocket into orbit. thats the hardest part of the trip. once your in orbit everthing youve worked for becomes real.

FLW Series East/West Fish Off
Lake Amistad - Texas/Mexico border
Water Temp: 53
Pre Spawn

I haven't figured out how I'm going to get these pictures on my website yet, so I'll try posting them here until I figure it out.


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I barely escaped the storm on Friday. My flight left 30 minutes late and somehow I still managed to make my connecting flight in Baltimore. They held the plane for 40 minutes for me and 2 other passengers on my connecting flight; one of them must have been an important person. I arrived in San Antonio, got my rental car and drove 3 hours to Del Rio. I arrived at Byron Velvicks Amistad Lake Resort about 7pm. I was up until 12 getting all my stuff ready for the first day of practice; I needed to meet Gabe at 6:45am. I actually got a good nights sleep. Gabe has never been out on the lake, so it was new to both of us. We ran about 20 miles West and started fishing on the Mexican side of the lake. I caught my first ever Mexican bass about 15 minutes after we arrived. It was a respectable 3 pounder, caught on a Berkley 1/2oz green pumpkin football jig. The weather has been cold and windy here for the last few weeks, so the bass aren't up in the shallows yet. Gabe and I ended up catching around 20 keepers, with the big fish weighing 5-8; I caught that on the same football jig. I probably had 14lbs today. I was hoping to catch some giants, but I don't know if the timing is quite right. Tomorrow could be the day though, you never know when a 14 pounder might decide to bite.

Good Luck Jess, we'll be watching.
Wow pre spawn conditions, I Know you'll find those Big Girls.
Here's to football Bellied Bass, May they fill you livewell.

Today was a better day. It started out slow, but picked up throughout the day. Yesterday afternoon Gabe and I discovered a pattern throwing a jig in deep water, so we started out doing the same thing this morning. I caught a good keeper on my third cast. Alot of the bass we caught were coming out of deep water, some down to 50 feet. I guess this is pretty common in clear water lakes. We think we have clear water in the notheast, you can see a rock down 40 feet in this lake. We continued to expand on this pattern, catching quite a few fish, but they were mostly in the 1-2 lb range. I continued to throw the same berkley jig I was throwing the other day, and finally connected with a good one on a deep point; it weighed about 6 lbs. I got a picture of this one.

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Not long after I caught this one, the wind started to pick up and we started throwing swim baits. Gabe lost one about 5 lbs and we caught a few more in the 3lb range. It was fun. All in all it was a good day. My best 5 probably weighed 16 today, and Gabe would have had about the same had he landed that 5 pounder. Again we left the lake with an incredible backdrop.

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That's fantastic what you have achieved.
Maybe a silly question to some but I see that you fly to your fishing
destinations. How or who trailers your boat to these locations ?