This season I've put a lot of effort into my practice and my preparation, but so far it hasn't turned out like I wanted it to. For the Clark's Hill event, I'm going to fish by the seat of my pants. I need three strong finishes to make the Classic, so I'm going to change my approach to a more relaxed fashion.
I plan on coming off the water a little earlier in practice. I've been staying out until dark every practice day, but now I may call it a day at 5:00 or so to get plenty of rest and try to enjoy Clark's Hill. Speaking of rest, we've been having some fun lately.
We had a week off after Guntersville, which wasn't enough time to go home, so we decided to go on to South Carolina. We decided we'd go out and visit the beach. We'd never been up there, so it was a treat. We were very pleasantly surprised at what we found .We were in Isle of Palms, S.C., which is near Charleston. We rented a little beach house and kicked back and relaxed, and I tried to forget about fishing for the week. That's pretty hard to do since I'm always thinking about fishing. I really wanted a break after a couple of disappointing tournaments, enjoy the family and get some R&R.
Beginning Friday, I will be back in Birmingham, Ala., at the Mark's Outdoors Customer Appreciation tournament. Tomorrow is registration day, so I'll be in the store. I'll be fishing the tournament with one of the customers, too. Several pros attend and the winners of a contest get to fish with us.
If you're in the Birmingham area, come on by Mark's Outdoors and say hi and we'll chat about fishing. After that, it's on to Clark's Hill. That marks the last stretch of the season. After that there's a one week break then the last two events. I'm going to approach Clark's Hill differently than the last two. It's a lake I've got a lot of experience on, so I'm going to lay off the map study a bit. Once practice begins, I'm going to wing it and build on what I learn as the official practice period goes on.