Chris Yogerst, Tournament Insights

A Bitter Sweet First Tournament of 2009

By Chris Yogerst

        Last fall was a great end to my 2008 tournament season.  I qualified for the Bassmaster Weekend Series national championship and did pretty well for myself.  That week I had the pleasure of having my dad along, which made the experience that much better.  He is a big hunter and travels all over the country hunting for big game and doesn’t get to share my tournament experiences with me very often.  After a great trip to Lake Norman for the championship, I decided to fish a circuit that would allow us to take trips like this more often and he will be joining me for the whole Stren Series Central division circuit this year.

          I spent my first tournament week for 2009 on Kentucky Lake for the FLW Stren Series central division event May 7-9.  I had a good practice, found fish deep and shallow as well as in both clean and dirty water.  Both my dad and I caught fish between five and seven pounds, it was great fun.  However, thanks to the constant rain and changing water levels, all of the water I found and everything near it got dirtier as the week went on.  They were pulling a massive amount of water through the dam making it difficult to hold a boat on some areas.  My deep fish either moved or quit biting with the increased current and my shallow fish probably left my areas.  I had on area of cleaner water way south where I caught most of my keepers the first day.  That day I put together a 12.9 lb limit, but the second day was a different story. 

Besides having to do some running around for good water, I was plagued by bad timing.  I ran into two storms and had to turn around both times.  One was so bad, my co angler and I as well as several other tournament anglers took cover in the Kenlake marina.  Having boating experience on big nasty water really comes in handy during situations like this.  It is important that if you don’t have much experience handling a boat in windy, rainy, low visibility conditions that can succumb an area in a matter of minutes, make sure you don’t try to make a run and go to the closest cover you can find (even if it’s the bank).  This storm came about in no time and in about a minute Kentucky Lake went from flat and calm to 4 foot rollers and limited visibility with 50mph wind gusts.  In the case of lighting, always take cover.  As I ran up the lake away from the lighting (the first time), I saw many anglers camping on their spots.  Bad idea, no bass is worth losing your life over.  I have no regrets about the possibility of doing poorly the second day because I chose to play it safe.  There will always be another tournament.  I wanted to make sure I was around to fish it!

A fellow Wisconsin native, Cary Bever, had a great tournament and finished 3^rd.  It made me feel better that someone was able to beat up on those local boys!  All in all, I had a great time at Kentucky Lake.  I try to never forget the main reason we all love fishing so much, catching fish!  There is a very healthy amount of fish in Kentucky Lake, even though I didn’t get the right bites on the second day I still caught about 50 fish.  I can’t wait to get back down there!

Chris Yogerst is an aspiring tournament pro and accomplished writer. Each month Chris gives his readers the inside scoop on what it is like to push ahead to reach the upper ranks of elite tournament fishermen.