While the 2011 Bassmaster Elite Series wrapped up just months ago, it’s not too early to focus on the 2012 edition of the competition, for which Andy Montgomery qualified by finishing 41st in the Angler of the Year standings for 2011. The top 73 in the AoY standings, plus those anglers who have won an Elite Series tournament qualify. See the entire qualifying structure here. The 2012 Elite Series schedule has been released and can be viewed here.

Angler’s Channel has a two-part interview series with Andy Montgomery where he re-caps his first season competing on the Bassmaster Elite Series:

2011 End of Year Wrap Up with Fetha Styx Pro Andy Montgomery-Part One | AnglersChannel.com.

2011 End of Year Wrap Up with Fetha Styx Pro Andy Montgomery-Part Two | AnglersChannel.com.

Which event are you most looking forward to on the 2012 schedule? Do you feel Montgomery’s first year will be a spring-board to a successful second year on the tour, or will he have his work cut out to maintain strong results against the experienced field?

The eligible species for this contest are largemouth bass, white crappie, walleye, and channel catfish in the freshwater, calico bass, redfish, speckled trout,and yellowfin tuna in the saltwater and coho salmon and striped bass in either.  This gives NW anglers 5 different  species that swim on our waters to choose from, coho, largemouth bass, white crappie, walleye, and channel catfish.

The opportunity to catch a world or state record and make money doing it got me curious about what I would be up against.  There’s no question that the anglers in Washington State have made this no easy task.  The state saltwater record for coho salmon is 25.34 lbs caught by Martin Cooper fishing out of Seiku September 28, 2001.  For freshwater coho it’s 25.27 lbs caught by Brad Wilson fishing on the Quinalt River on November 11, 2001.  For Walleye, the record was set February 5th, 2007 by Mike Hepper.  His monster Walleye weighed in at 19.3 lbs and was caught on the Columbia neat Walla Walla.  The largest of the state records eligible for this contest is the 36.20 channel catfish caught by Ross Kincaid September 6, 1999.  He caught his fish while fishing the I-82 pond #6 in Yakima County.  From the largest to the smallest, we drop down to the 2.80 lb white crappie state record.  This fish was caught by Don J Benson on July 21, 1988 while fishing the Burbank Slough in Walla Walla County.  Last but certainly not least is the longest standing state record eligible for this contest.  The largemouth bass record has been standing since 1977.  The 11.57 lb bass was caught by Carl Pruitt fishing Banks Lake.

Other notable state record fish are smallmouth bass at 8.75 lbs, halibut at 288 lbs, chinook (saltwater) at 70.50 lbs, chinook (freshwater) at 68.26 lbs, Steelhead (summer) at 35.06, steelhead (winter) at 32.75, striped marlin 134 lbs, and most importantly, albacore at 52 lbs.

For the IGFA world records go to www.igfa.com.

Read more about the Tournament.

Stay tuned to the blog for tournament updates and fishing reports!

UNCC was represented by two teams at the Boat U.S. National Championship this year. Eric Self, Tyler Beam, Eric Norris, and Jake Whitaker. Eric Self and Tyler Beam finished 2nd in the Championship last year and were very hopeful for a good finish in 2011. The weather was definitely going to be a factor. When the teams arrived there were tornados spotted in the area and softball-sized hail. High winds and rain proceded throughout the two days of practice which lead to a very muddy lake. The teams were never able to put together a solid limit, even in practice.

On day one, Eric and Tyler were able to catch two fish that weighed 4.96 lbs and Eric Norris and Jake had one fish for 3.44 lbs. Day two both teams zeroed. Eric and Tyler finished up in 91st place and Eric and Jake finished 104th. All-in-all it was not a good week for the UNC-Charlotte bass team. Next year the championship will be moved to Pickwick Lake in Alabama which will be a lot closer for the UNCC teams.

Lake Champlain, New York

The team of Eric Self and Tyler Beam represented UNCC at the Northern FLW qualifying tournament at Lake Champlain, NY. Eric and Tyler have qualified for regionals the past two years at Champlain, but were unable to pull it off this year. They did not get any practice days for this tournament and went in completely blind. They only fished for 6.5 hours. High winds created very rough water for the teams. It took UNCC one hour to get to their first fishing hole which really cut down on the time they had to fish. They were able to catch a mixed limit of smallmouth and largemouth but only had 8lbs10oz. That landed them in 18th place. They caught all of the largemouth they weighed in on an ER jig and all of their smallmouth on a Megabass Jerkbait. There are two FLW qualifying events left for the UNCC teams and hopefully they will be able to get a couple of teams into the regionals which will be held on Sayers Lakem, Pennsylvania in September.

Kentucky Lake, Tennesse

The Boat U.S. Collegiate Open was held on Kentucky Lake again this year and it always is a good tournament for the UNCC boys. It isn’t like other college tournaments where each team is fishing for themselves, at this one the two UNCC teams have a three fish limit and combine their weight at the end of the day. If a school only brings one team then they must catch a six fish limit. UNCC sent the teams of Eric Self, Tyler Beam, Shane Lehew, and Adam Waters. Eric and Tyler found three schools of bass up the lake on main lake ledges. Shane and Adam were running all the way to the dam at the other end of the lake to catch schooling fish early and finishing up on one main lake ledge they had found in practice. On day one of the tournament Eric and Tyler had 3 fish that weighed 10.23lbs. Shane and Adam had 13.5lbs and their bag included a 7.01 lber. Day two Eric and Tyler had 9.23lbs and Shane and Adam had 8.25lbs. They ended up finishing second overall and had a great time catching over 100 fish per boat a day. Both of the teams caught all of the fish weighed in on ER football jigs, Strike King deep diving crankbaits, and 10 inch plum worms.

Enjoy some photos from the Bass Rats latest tournaments:

Graphic courtesy of BoaterExam.com – Get Your Boating License Online!

Visit the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office for complete details on obtaining your boater education card. Here’s a list from Washington State Parks with online and classroom options for taking boater courses.

Are you licensed? If not, how do you plan to obtain yours?

During pre-fishing, Jeff and I used several techniques in water depths ranging from 4’ to 50’ trying to search for quality fish. We had success rigging with crawlers and pitching jigs with the new Homewater 6103 walleye series rod as well as pulling spinners, slow death, and crank baits with the Homewater 763 rod. With several days of stable and warming weather leading up to the tournament, we were very excited and optimistic in our chances.

Day one came with very light winds and temps in the low 70’s. Our strategy was to pull slow death on 30’-35’ main lake flats and underwater humps near deep water. We caught over 20 fish throughout the day and ended up weighing in 6 fish up to 21” for a total of 12.66 lbs.

Day two’s weather was quite different as we had overnight temps that were lower by 10 degrees and several thunder cells that went through the area. The morning came with over cast skies and main lake water temps that dropped a couple of degrees. We found that the quality 18”-20” walleye that we caught day one were replaced with 13”-16” walleye. After catching over 20 sub 16” fish in our day one holes, we changed tactics and targeted rocky points and humps in the south end of the lake. This move turned out to be a good one as we caught several fish up to 19” and weighed in 6 fish for 11.74 lbs. Our 2 day total of 24.4 lbs. was good enough for a 17th place finish. A big congratulation goes out to the winning team of Brad Phillips and Nathan Cox for outpacing the entire field by over 11 pounds and putting up a 2 day total of 41 lbs.!

Team Fetha Styx next tournament is the Moses Lake Walleye Classic on June 4th & 5th.

Tight lines and good fishing,

Rod Hewitt and Jeff Dickinson

Check out previous blog posts and tournament reports from Rod and his team here.

Tournament stop number two for the team is the Inshore Fishing Association’s Louisiana Division in Venice, LA. Venice is the heart of the offshore fishing industry in Louisiana. It is one of the neatest places I have ever had the opportunity to fish. It’s a place where you can fish a stretch of shoreline and catch saltwater fish like a redfish then make one turn on the shoreline and catch large-mouth bass. It’s definitely one of my favorite fisheries. Lately, the Mississippi river has produced some troubles for towns like Memphis, TN and Morgan City, LA. The river was set to crest at 17 feet above crest forcing the Army Corps of Engineers to open up a couple of spillways to relieve the pressure from the river so that it will not flood treasured places such as New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Thankfully, these spill ways have worked as designed and the river began to recede.

Tournament day was filled with high winds and high muddy water. Thankfully we found some ponds that had loads of grass, clean water and plenty of fat redfish. We drew boat number one out of 55 boats so we were the first out of the marina which gave us plenty of time for the run we were going to make. Our run was a hour and a half away from the marina so we needed that time.

When we get to our spot, the fish were plenty hungry. We managed to catch two very good fish, our biggest being 8.54 lbs and just under 27 inches long and the other being 7.54 lbs and the same length. With a solid weight in the boat, we headed back to the marina to sweat out the weigh-ins. Thankfully our weight held up and put us in second place for the event. Unfortunately we lost by 3 ounces and we lost the big fish by 2 ounces but that’s all part of the game. We were just happy to have placed where we did. We were one of only 4 teams that weighed over 16 lbs of fish. This finish moved us back up to the top 20 in Team of the Year standings which we are pretty excited about as well. Hopefully we can continue the trend at our next event and finish in the top 10 in the TOY standings.

Next tournament for Team Fish Happens is at Grand Isle, Louisiana where the team is looking for a strong finish to firmly contend for top 10 in the team of the year standings for this series.

Check out more coverage of Fetha Styx Fishing Rods at ICAST 2010.

Here’s a cool video of the ICAST floor our friends at Colt Rod Company put out last year:

Colt Rods ICAST 2010 Time Lapse from Colt Rod Company on Vimeo.

Stay tuned to the Fetha Styx blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts for updates on schedules, appearances, specials and all ICAST-related information.

Marc Marcantonio and Mike Matkowski.

Anglers battled it out to just minutes before weigh-ins.

Nothing beats a bass boat when it comes to covering water.

Gary Stiles, the man behind NW Bass was our guest on the show this past saturday and when asked about some of the anglers that had the best chance, two of the names he mentioned placed in the top three. Ron Hobbs Jr. and Marc Marcantionio, both guests in the past on TOL, led the way. Ron Hobbs was coming off a win the week before in the American Bass tourney on Lake Washington but with changing conditions, he made the call to fish a completely different area than he fished the week before. Making the call to not even fish an area that had been so good to you the week before took guts but using the instincts that Hobbs Jr and his partner, Mike Wolsky, posses , it was the only call that made sense. Marc Marcantonio and his partner, Mike Matkowski, used the experience they have to target a few areas that they knew should be holding fish but knowing that cold springtime weather had slowed the fish from moving up on beds to spawn they fished those areas a little differently than they would normally have fished them this time of year. Their call was the right call as they caught and released over 20 fish.

Ron Hobbs Jr. telling the story of how he and Mike Wolsky came away with the win.

In Hail Mary fashion, 2nd place finisher's Ruffin Hernandez and Tyler Walcker caught a nice largemouth on the last cast of the day to put them in second place.

Marc Marcantonio accepting his plaque and check for third place.

All-in-all, 64 teams fished this years tourney and almost sixteen grand was paid out. Points were also awarded for teams trying to qualify for this years championship in September.

From Rob Tobeck, view the original post on The Outdoor Line.

Day One

On day one of competition, UNC Charlotte’s team of Shane Lehew and Adam Waters weighed in 11lbs 14ozs putting them in 3rd place, just 2 ounces behind the day one leaders of Ole Miss and East Carolina University. Joe Kinchen and Zach Lyles were in 7th place with 10lbs 1oz, and Eric Self and Tyler Beam rounded out day one in 20th place with 8lbs even.

Shane and Adam went up river and fished main river channel bends. Flipping laydowns with jigs, shaky heads and spinner baits. In the middle of day one they found a stretch of river that culled out all of their other fish, and produced nearly 20 fish in 3 hours. The duo netted over 30 keepers on day one when many teams failed to catch a keeper.

Joe and Zach also went upriver fishing main river channel bend lay downs and steep banks with crankbaits, jigs, swim jigs, and Texas rigged worms. They boated 16 keepers in all with their best caught by Zach a 3lb 8oz Coosa river spot.

Eric and Tyler fished down river most of the day flipping laydowns in the mouth of side pockets off of main river. Their primary weapon was an E.R. Lures jig boating them three keepers for 8lbs even. Including a lunker 4lb largemouth.

Day Two

None of UNC Charlotte’s teams changed their patterns. Primarily fishing the same areas, they just refined their patterns based on the subpatterns observed within a pattern, like fishing the deep side of the trees on main channel bends. Shane and Adam went to their magical spot almost first thing in the morning and continued culling and upgrading precious ounces of fish until they had their final day two weight over 14lbs.

Tyler and Eric fished down river and worked their key areas harder boating them just over 10 lbs. Joe and Zach had battery trouble first thing in the morning and were unable to launch until 2 hours after the initial blast off. Severely hurting them due to over an hour of travel time to get to their spots and back, and missing the best current conditions early in the morning. They were able to put three small fish in the boat that would not have helped them advance. With dead batteries and unable to move in the current the team left the tournament early throwing back their fish.

Now that the B.A.S.S. College East Super Regional is over, it’s time for UNC Charlotte to head to Lewisville, Texas to compete in the Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship against 150 other college teams from around the nation on Lake Lewisville. Shane Lehew, Adam Waters, Eric Self, and Tyler Beam will be representing UNC Charlotte in Texas. They left this morning from Montgomery, Alabama.