Well, the 2012 FLW Tour Lake Hartwell event is over and Brent Ehler is your champion. Congrats to him and I can’t wait to learn the ways he caught them. Here is a little about how the event went for me. The first day of practice may have been the windiest day I’ve ever fished. Easily 30 mph + with gusts well over that. That day, I tried to fish down the lake in the clearer water but couldn’t do it very well, so I ran up to Little Beaverdam Creek and fished in there pretty much all day. I caught one really nice fish on a chatterbait in there, but the water was really muddy. One thing I noticed was that the water in the backs of the creeks was extremely muddy and colder than other parts of the creeks. The water temps in the very back would be 48-50 and mid way back it would be 56-57. That night, I decided to look more at the mid-creek zones to see what I could find. Day 2 of practice was again really windy and I fished up the Seneca river a good bit. I found a lot of fish in pockets, but they were mainly small, up to 2 pounds. There is brush in the back of every pocket and some of them had fish. I used the side imaging to look for brush and to find stuff on points to fish. Both techniques worked well and we caught several fish with jigs (Buckeye Football Mop Jig PB&J) and crankbaits (DD22, Shad). The crankbait fish were 2 pounds and I also caught a 4 pounder on the jig. Day 3 of practice, I fished in 6 & 20 and really liked the way this creek set up. I started fishing deeper, like I figured out on day 2 and started catching fish pretty quick. By the end of the day, I had about 5 spots were we caught good fish in the 25-30 foot range and also a few docks were we got bites on a tube. Again, the jig and the crankbait were working well and would be my plan for the tournament. FLW has an off day on Wednesday and it is a great day to rest up and prepare tackle. This off day saw temps rise to over 70 degrees, I was afraid that some, or all of the fish I found would move shallow for the event…turns out I was right. I had my typical late boat draw for the event #134 and I skipped one spot I had close to the ramp for that reason. I decided to start on the docks were I’d found some fish in practice. I didn’t have any bites on the docks, but the fish were schooling in the back of the cove. I tied on a topwater and had 4 bites and missed them all!! That really shook me up and I left out of there with no fish. I drove to one of my deep spots and caught a 2 lber pretty quick, then I proceeded to miss a couple more. The rocks were so rough that my 15lb line would get frayed and then break when I set the hook. I began seeing visions of a disaster and decided to take a short break and collect my thoughts.  I needed to right the ship pretty quickly. After the break, I decided to tie on a 1/2 oz. jig instead of a 3/4 oz. to keep it from getting hung in the rocks so much. The plan worked great and I ended up catching 10-7 lbs and was in 77th place. I was very unhappy with the day 1 finish because I knew that I had missed a chance to have more. You just can’t slip in this game. On day 2 of the event, not only did I stick with the 1/2 oz. Buckeye Jig, but I switched to 20 lb. line as well. Missing fish didn’t happen and I had about 10 lbs in the livewell by 12:00. Last year, my downfall was day 2 of these events. I would use up all my spots and have a lower weight on day 2 that would sink me in the standings. This time, I saved 3 places up the Seneca. At around 12 or 1 on day two, I ran up to these spots and caught 2 nice fish that helped me cull up to 11-12 lbs. After it was all said and done, I finished 68th and received a small check for my effort.
I guess to sum it all up, I still have a lot to learn to catch up to Mr. Ehler and the likes, but I made changes that helped me a lot since last year and I feel very good about my chances in the upcoming events. I just can’t thank all of my sponsors enough, escpecially Sportsman’s Warehouse.  Please check them out at Sportsmanswarehouse.com and also check out my other sponsors by linking from my website, dearalrodgers.com. If they are on my web page, they are good folks. Take care and good fishin’!

Tackle Notes
Jig Gear
3/4 & 1/2 oz. Buckeye Football Mop Jig (PB&J)
Zoom Twin Tail Fat Albert (green pumpkin)
Revo STX Baitcaster Reel
RPM Custom 7’6″ Flippin’/Pitchin’ Special (use code DRSC for a 30% discount at rpmcustomrods.com)
15-20lb P-Line Flourocarbon

Crankbait Gear
Norman DD22 (Shad)
Revo Winch Baitcaster
RPM Custom 7’11” Crankin’ Rod (Medium action)
12lb P-line Flourocarbon

Dearal Rodgers
http://www.dearalrodgers.com