Great week at Forrest Wood Cup

After a whirlwind past week in Alabama, it sure is nice to be back at home in Northwest Ontario.
Tough fishing and unbelievably hot weather were the themes of the week for me down at Wheeler Lake, but despite my poor finish in the tournament, 44th out of the 50 boat field, my first Forrest Wood Cup experience was pretty awesome.
This tournament featured the same format as the rest of the FLW Tour events that I fished throughout the year except there were only 50 anglers competing in this event and first place was $300,000.
Fortunately all of the anglers who qualified for this tournament earned a cheque for at least $10,000 so there was a lot less pressure than the regular season events.
We got three days to practice before the tournament. My Dad was able to travel down to Alabama with me for the week so that was great, he was a huge help for the long drive and spent the three days in the boat with me during the practice period.
We rented a house for the week with a few of my good friends, fellow Canadian anglers Chris and Cory Johnston and Florida angler Brandon McMillan who has become my best friend from fishing these tournaments the past few years.
We ate well at night and just had a lot of fun all week.
The fishing was extremely tough, the toughest I have ever seen in five years of traveling to fish these tournaments.
After only catching a couple of small fish the first couple days of practice, I had a better third day, fishing shallow up one of the rivers that flow into Wheeler.
I felt like I had figured out a way to catch a limit of fish and with a little luck I might get a big one or two.
The first day of the tournament I stuck to my plan of flipping soft plastics around shallow wood in the water and ended up with four fish for eight and a half pounds.
I had my fifth fish hooked but it evaded being brought in the boat.
If I had caught it I would have been flirting with being in the top ten after day one so I was happy in that regard.
Heading into day two I felt like I just had to stick with what I was doing and I would get my chances to catch a five fish limit.
After going most of the day without a bite I finally caught my first fish at 1 p.m.
I really didn’t feel like I had a better option to catch a big fish so I just stuck with what I was doing.
I ended up with four fish again but they were all small. I fished hard right to the end because catching that fifth fish would have been a small victory for me.
Unfortunately, I ended up being a minute late and lost a pound from my catch! Oh well, I fished hard right until the end.
The whole experience of fishing this event was truly top-notch, something that I have wanted to do for a long time. It’s tough to qualify for this tournament so I really wanted to take in everything I could.
We were given a great bag of goodies from all of the sponsors the day before the tournament and were treated to a fancy dinner the night before the tournament.
The weigh-ins were held each day at an arena in downtown Huntsville, Alabama so that was cool as well, it was the biggest stage that I have ever been on in my fishing career.
Huge thank you to all of the people in Northwest Ontario who have been so supportive all season long with the messages that they send while I’m fishing at these tournaments. I get them all and appreciate every one!
Back in Kenora, a big congratulations goes out to Adam Bachynski and Andrew Beernaert on their win at the KBI this past weekend. They have been fishing these Sunset Country tournaments for a long time and are always consistent so it was great to see them win!
Full results can be found on the tournament website at kbifishing.com