This past weekend I had my first two tournaments for 2010 and as luck would have it, the warm, sunny conditions that the Midwest had prior to me going fishing were replaced with rain, high winds and cooler temperatures. I then realized I was going to get to spend four days on the water, so I was all jacked up and ready to go!

My first tournament was the, Hawgz Bass Series Spring Open, on pool 10 of the Mississippi River, which I began pre-fishing for on Thursday. The river is uncharacteristically low for this time of year and the warm water temperatures has the bass confused as to what is going on. My two days of pre-fishing were some of the toughest fishing, I've ever had on my home body of water.

But no excuses here, tournament day came and so did the rain, but my partner and I were able to get the day started off right with a 4.74 lb. largemouth that hit an RC Tackle spinnerbait. This fish came off a piece of main channel wood and was the only fish we could muster off this type of cover. With no real pattern established and the few spots we had thought were decent after pre-fishing turned out to be a bust, I looked at my partner and said, "Let's just go fishing!"

With this attitude we were on our way to filling out our five fish limit, which ended up weighing 12 lb.'s even, which put us in 16th place, but we won big bass with our 4.74 lb. fish. To fill out our limit we flipped RC Beavers on the new TROKAR TK130 Flippin hooks, around main channel rock.

The next day I headed north two pools on the river to La Crosse for the first BASS Weekend Series event. I was fishing this event as a co-angler and was excited to rebound after a mediocre tournament on Saturday. My pro partner I got paired with for the day said we would be targeting smallmouth, so I got my rods rigged up and rain gear dried out for another day on the water.

Tournament morning started off with a furry of activity, with boating two keeper smallmouth with in the first 45 minutes. Both of these fish came on a Yo-Zuri Rattlin' Vibe and had me with in one more bass of my tournament limit. Several more casts on a wingdam yielded me another strike and my partner and I knew that this smallie was a good one, but as it happens to all fisherman, the big one got away.

This definitely had my spirits down, but I kept fishing all day and working hard to get my third and final keeper. My pro, Brandon, taught me a lot about spring smallmouth fishing and lure selection for these finicky and heavily pressured fish. The day came to an end with out me getting my limit, so my two bass weighed 4.04 lb.'s, which put me in 52nd place, not the best finish, but valuable points for the year end standings.

Driving back to the Twin Cities, I couldn't help, but think that this weekend was a true testimat that no matter how much homework you do on a body of water and how many hours you practice, some days you just have to GO FISHING!!