Well here I am up late again and thinking about those big green critters I spend so much time chasing around.

I decided a few weeks ago that I'm going to persue a different direction in my bass fishing next season, and since the "seasons" for bass revolve around the spring, I thought I would share my plans now that the spring and the tourney season are wrapping up. As most of you know I fished WON Teams for the last two years with John Lake. We have had some incredible times out there and a lot of great successes. I'll never forget some of the days we had on Clear Lake and on the Delta. Flipping 24lbs in the keys in the last half hour of the tournament, sacking our first 21lb bag on slammer at Clear Lake in only our second tournament of the year, catching our limit in every single tournament in the 2000/2001 season, getting on that swimbait bite in Tri-States on the first day, cranking 21lbs out of the Delta ... man those were awesome days when the adrenaline was just flowing. John has taught me more than anyone else how to be a tournament fisherman ( not to mention how to use that reaper and spinner of his :) ) This year we are going to the Tri-States again and I am totally pumped for it.

This coming year though I am going to refocus my energies a little. I am going to fish most of the Bass-n-Tubes circuit just for the fact that I absolutely love it. I am not going to fish teams at all, but I will probably fish two Pro/Am's as an Am just to stay in the game and get some days in on Clear and on the Delta. Hopefully John and I will be traveling together for those but that's a ways off. I know from my past stab at fishing as an Am, that John is a better fisherman on the Pro side than 2/3 of the field out there, maybe better, and that's no joke!

But the real reason I am cutting back on the tournament fishing is that I can persue the thing that I have come to really love this past year, and that is hunting for big bass. I really hope to pick my days a little better next year and spend the time on the water that I need to spend to really get on the whales that the bay area is home to. I'm still limited to weekend fishing, but I think I can overcome that. This year I just felt like I missed so many great big fish bites while we were away at tourneys, and next year I don't want to miss that.

When I have the resources and the time, I will come back to tournament fishing. I believe that by learning how to catch the big fish I will be even more equipped to do well at tournament fishing. I saw the game these past two years and we did well. With the knowledge that I hope to gain by hunting the big ones, I think I will be only that much stronger.

So that's the plan gang. There's going to be good days and tough days but I'm going to be out there learning no matter what. I think I learned more about bass fishing this year than any year in the past, and I hope that next year I'll learn even more.

See ya on the water.

-Rob