Back from Pickwick and The Big "G"

[Dan]

We got back today from our spring fling down in Alabama. We had great weather all but one day, two if you count the drive back. We didn't catch many fish, but our rides during the Elite Series event on Pickwick were great. I rode with Dean Rojas, David Walker, and Gerald Swindle. My travel partner Rick, rode with Chad Griffin, Dave Wolak, and Terry Scroggins.
My guys each caught about 13 pounds each day. Rick's rides all caught around 20 pounds each day. On Day 3, Rick watched Big Show catch 20-15 lbs. in 10 minutes. He couldn't enter them in the Bass Track phone fast enough. BASS actually called him after he did to see if it was a mistake, because they couldn't believe he could have that much that soon. When Rick assured them it was right, they sent out a camera boat, and did an on the water interview.
I talked to Ryan Said and got several pictures of him. I also spent quite a bit of time with my old student Nate Wellman.
Nate was in 4th going in to the final day. He dropped a cylinder at take off and was motor impaired the final day. He ended up finishing 10th overall.
I took almost 600 pictures. I have a few up on my teardropbass.com website blog. I'll be posting more as I have time.
It was a great trip. If you're a young gun, and aren't considering Marshaling, you are missing the experiential boat. I now have 7 days on Pickwick with 7 different pros. I feel quite confident that I could find a few places to fish despite the vast area it covers.
Days 2 and 3 we ran for an hour and 10 minutes one way at GPS speeds of 69 and 70+. There is a ton of water to fish there, and it's full of fish.
Davey Hite won the event fishing maybe a half mile from the ramp at the Wilson Dam. So, you can stay close or make long runs; decisions, decisions.
I talked with two other GLBers down in Alabama. Both of whom spent time fishing Pickwick and both caught some good fish.
Weather, after Monday's storms was terrific. Temps unseasonably warm and in the mid 80s. Hate to rub it in, but we needed to run the air in the truck every day.
During an interview Wellman had on Day 4, he told the guy that I was his sixth grade teacher. The reporter asked me to hang around, and he then interviewed me for several minutes. Who knows where that might show up.
What a time! Can't wait to go back down in June to Marshal the last Elite Series event on Wheeler, and to do a little ledge fishing.
Wish you were there

[Bender]

Sounds like a great trip. You are making me really jealous since I live only about 4 hours from there but I've been on the road for over a month and haven't fished at all. In the South I think Pickwick is my favorite lake so far.

[Dan]

Added another bunch of pictures from our Alabama Pickwick Lake adventure to my blog. I also used GLB's video upload to get a piece of video of Davey Hite's acceptance speech on You Tube. Once uploaded, I could embed it in my webpage. For some reason, You Tube wouldn't give me an account so I went through GLB. I think I locked the You Tube application process up when I inadvertently entered 2011 as my birth year and then kept hitting the done button. I know if you try and get in to Fantasy Fishing, and mistype your email or password, and hit enter or return several times they will lock your account, and you'll have to call BASS.
Any who it's the first time I tried to use video that I took with my little pocket Canon Powershot SD1100. It stores the video as an .avi file and I haven't worked with that type of file before. However, You Tube accepts that format.
I have really been impressed with this little Canon camera. About 5 months after I bought it I was out visiting my son, and they had a big snow storm. The camera fell out of my pocket into the snow and I didn't realize it. During the night it thawed, and when I luckily found the camera the next day, it was under water. I opened it up and let it dry for several days. I thought it was a goner, but after it dried out it fired right up, and I have used it now for almost 3 years. It has been a great in the boat fishing pics camera. Highly recommend it.

[Dan]

I watched the FLW weigh-in today, and couldn't help but thinking that those co-anglers were spending a lot of money to catch a couple of fish. Only a few had a limit.
I still am of the belief that if you really want to fish at the professional level, especially the Elite Series, you could better spend your money Marshaling in the Elites. If you spent a season as a Marshal you would get to look at the thinking of up to 24 pros on 8 different bodies of water. Back that up with a second season, and you'd see 16 bodies of water, some would probably be repeated, but that wouldn't be bad.
You would then have picked the brains of a grand total of 48 pros and seen their best $100,000 spots. Not that you'd jump their spots, but once you see what they consider their best spots, you could take a map and really dissect the water to come up with similar spots. The impoundments they fish are sometimes 70-100 miles long, and to see what they consider are the best spots, is really worth the price of admission.
To fish with those 48 pros it would cost you entry fees totalling  $1200 ($100 per event. With each entry you get a $25 BPS gift card  that you would subtract from your entry fee costs). You'd of course have to factor in travel expenses, but in those costs, you wouldn't include boat gas. If you could find a partner or two to travel with, you could do this for the price of just a couple of top level Everstart, etc. entry fees.
With that kind of experience you could then put what you have learned on your own about specific techniques to work.
You'd have to hone your flipping technique, because that is a dominant pattern in the south.
I know after spending 7 days with 7 different pros on Pickwick, that I would feel quite confident fishing a derby on that water. I would still have to live and die with the decisions I made, but I would have a great deal of confidence going in to the event. Having the experience of seeing what others do, you can more easily expand and try other options yourself.
Just my two cents.