I ended up 17th place. With my left hand tendinitis I made good adjustment. Thanks for all the support from everyone. I’ll continue to take care of my hand. During off season, I was really worry about this season might not be able to compete. I have 4 more weeks to heal my hand until next tournament.
takahiroomori.com

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Brent Ehrler Blog
Date: 2-7-2011
Okeechobee was a tough one for me, I caught a lot of fish, but just didn’t get any size. I guess 3no size2 is a relative statement.

On day one I was able to put an over 20 pound limit in the boat which I actually thought would be pretty good. I weighed in early in the first flight and there were already a handful of bags in the mid 201s before I even got to the scales, so I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. By the time the day shook out I sat in the high 401s on the leaderboard and knew I1d need to get bigger fish if I was going to move up the leaderboard. On day 1 we had an hour delay before blast off due to fog and with my early flight it was a short day. Since I was still able to get a decent 20 pound bag, I had some positive thoughts going into day 2 because it was going to be a longer day on the water for me.

On day 2 I ran to a new area that I though I could get a solid limit from. I seriously thought I could catch them there, but it never panned out. Overall, on day two I don1t think I fished very smart. I spent a few hours too many at my first spot before I moved on. I actually had three spots I wanted to fish and after I left the first spot I ran to the second and found a 6 pounder on a bed. She rushed my bait once, but didn1t take it. Then she left the bed and hid a few yards away, so I stuck around the area fishing hoping I could go back and get that fish to go and it never panned out.

I started to feel the pressure and I know a big mistake a lot of us make in times like this is to pull the trolling motor and run around. So I forced myself to leave the trolling motor in the water, turned up high and I instead ran around the same area. In hindsight, it probably wasn1t my best decision. My day 2 co-angler caught a 5 and lost a 5 and I never caught one much over three pounds.

The baits I used this week were the Yamamoto Swim Senko, which I swam pretty fast around the cover, a Trixie Shark from Reaction Innovations, which I fished like a buzzbait, a regular Yamamoto Senko and awhole host of other baits. One thing I reinforced to myself was how great the Lucky Craft MH Pitchin1 rod is. It’s the most versatile rod I have ever owned, I fished about 8 different baits on it and its just a solid stick. The soft tip and good backbone make it the perfect combination for precision casts and good hooksets, I1ve used a lot of high end rods over the years and this rod is by far my favorite.

I am on the road right now to Arkansas where I hope to spend a couple days on Beaver to get some pre-practice in. Only problem is its going to snow and rumor has it that some of Beaver is actually frozen over. That’ll make practicing pretty tough and probably wouldn1t help a lot even if I do get out on the water. Ice? Really? I’ve seen the movie titanic and running across a potentially ice laden pond doesn’t sound to inviting.

Skeet’s Beat – SRI #22
Date: 2-6-2011
It took longer than I wanted, but the Lucky Craft / Berkley Big Rig and Stratos Elite 210 is on the way to New Orleans for the Bassmaster Classic.
The last couple of weeks had been pretty stressful because I had a couple of things up in the air last minute and they caused me to wait for the final packing until recently.
skeetreeseinc.com

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Skeet’s Beat
Date: 1-31-11
Well, this weekend was my oldest daughter Lea’s birthday; I can’t believe she’s eight years old already.
We went to our gym, the Racquet Club here in Auburn and had a blast with Lea and all of her little friends. They played games; racquetball, basketball and air hockey were big hits, but the new Xbox 360 got a lot of work too…
skeetreeseinc.com

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Skeet’s Beat
Date: 1/24/2011

The weekend is over, and it was pretty eventful overall.
I fished with Minoru, my boss from Lucky Craft on Friday. We really didn’t have that great a day as far as the fishing is concerned; we only caught a few, but they were good ones. We had a five pounder, a four and a three; all of them spotted bass. It was fun to hang out with him for a day, away from everything and just be out on the water.
skeetreeseinc.com

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It is time for the Daily Flash Minnow Weekly Report! My very first Bass fishing this year was at the Irvine Lake with local regional, Brian. And speaking of Irvine Lake, it is known for having a lot of Trout, but you can fish some Bass here also! I started off using the new LLPT 105!

Unlike Saltwater fishing, when it comes to Bass fishing there will be much casting with pinpoint accuracy! It has been over 6 months since I started this project (Daily FM Report). And for the sake of fishing every week since, Brain who was on the same boat had said to me, “Your casting has gotten a lot better!” and praised me with such a nice comment. As for the fishing, the water has risen and was cloudy so using a topwater bait was a bit difficult. I continued to throw the LLPT 105S for more than half of the day, but got no bites! But I did get to practice my casting so it’s okay! I only had 2 hours left and really wanted to catch my very first fish of this year, so I decided to go with a Drop Jig and aim for the bottom area. Then… at about 15m in water depth, I caught my first fish of the year!!! And it was a Bass!! The size was pretty small, but I haven’t caught a Bass in awhile and this time I clearly felt it and was able to react to it as well.

P.S. I actually caught a big Trout with the Drop Jig also, but couldn’t take it home so I released it right away! It was huge!! It was about the same size as the Sea Bass I caught in Tokyo Bay.

See you soon!!

Sandy

Brent Ehrler Blog

The new year has arrived and the race to get everything ready for the first big road trip has me all over the place. Breaking in the boat, setting up the new Humminbirds, organizing tackle and coordinating the travel for the season is a lot to get done. I leave for Florida this week to the first FLW Open of the year on Lake Okeechobee.

I have been to Lake Okeechobee a few times and it’s a great place. I haven’t done very well there in the past but, I am excited about this year. Okeechobee is a huge lake with tons of vegetation, canals, backwaters and huge fish. It should be a slugfest and a lot of fun.
This season I will be fishing all of the FLW Opens and the FLW Majors. The schedule looks like this:

FLW Open : Lake Okeechobee : 2/3 – 2/6
FLW Major : Beaver Lake : 3/3 – 3/6
FLW Major : Lake Hartwell : 3/24 – 3/27
FLW Major : Lake Chickamauga : 4/14 – 4/17
FLW Major: Table Rock Lake : 5/5 – 5/8
FLW Major: Red River : 5/19 – 5/22
FLW Open: Potomac River : 6/2 – 6/5
FLW Major: Kentucky Lake : 6/16 – 6/19
FLW Cup: Lake Ouachita: 8/11 – 8/14
FLW Open: Lake Champlain: 9/15 – 9/18
FLW Open: Lake Guntersville: 10/20 – 10/23

When I look that schedule over a couple things stick out to me. First, Lake Ouachita for the FLW Cup. I won there last year but, it was a different time of year then the Cup is being held. It will fish different and its going to take something special to beat Scott Suggs on his home water.

Next I see Kentucky Lake and Lake Guntersville down the road a bit. Both of these are events I am looking forward to for a couple of reasons. They are both great fisheries and should be a lot of fun. However, I have not had great success at either of these places so I am looking for some redemptionthis year at both of those lakes.

The rest of the schedule is exciting and I plan to work as hard as ever at bringing home the AOY. The FLW has a talented group of anglers so it won’t be easy but, that’s my ultimate goal. For now its off to wrap up my final preparation duties before hitting the 10 freeway for 3+ days on my way to Okeechobee.

Skeet’s Beat
Back from Mexico – Work to Do
We’re now home from our family vacation in Mexico, and the weather was a rude awakening.
We were wearing flip flops and shorts down there, swimming in the pool and basking in the sun, and it was much different when we got home. There was ice on the fountain and standing water and the sky was thick with fog. We’ve got the heater on and we’re still all dressed up like Eskimos. This might take a few days to get used to…
skeetreeseinc.com

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Brent Ehrler Blog
Date: 1-5-2011

This morning I picked up my new Ranger Z-521 at Angler’s Marine in Anaheim. I am excited about the new boat for several reasons. First, it’s a bigger boat than I have run in the past, moving from the 20 footer to the 21 footer should make for a smoother ride and a lot more room on the deck. I’ve also made the switch to Mercury and have a Mercury Pro X2 250 on the back of the boat. It’ll be nice knowing I have the most dependable motor on the water behind me when I am racing from spot to spot all season.

Some great new accessories I have on the boat include the Humminbird 1197 units on the front and the back. These screens are HUGE, the biggest I have ever had by far and I am looking forward to, as Humminbird puts it “Getting the whole picture.”

I’ve got a couple new Minnkota Talon shallow water anchoring system units on the back of the boat as well. These units seem easy to use, quiet and strong, I can’t wait to give them a try.

After checking out all the new equipment I hooked up the boat and hit I-10 headed for Phoenix. I arrived in Phoenix a little bit ago and will take the boat over to Tim at Liquid Wraps in the morning to get the new National Guard wrap put on. While in Phoenix Kelley and I will be hanging out with Brett Hite and his girlfriend Courtney. We may find time for a little golf or Quail hunting but, mostly we’ll just be hanging out and waiting for the wrap to be completed.

I should be back on the road to Redlands on Saturday sometime and when I get back I’ve got a lot to do. I’ll need to load the boat up with all my tackle so that its easy to find when I need it. Then I have to break the new Mercury in and maybe get a some local fishing in while I test out the new Mammoth sized graphs and the Talon anchoring system. I think I’ll be needing that when I get to Okeechobee late this month.

Speaking of Okeechobee, that’s my first event this season and it’s one of the best fisheries in the U.S. but, the weather can change things there literally overnight. I remember the first time I went to Okeechobee it was 85 and the water temperature was 75 when I arrived. There were vacated beds everywhere and I was catching them well on the Lucky Craft G-Splash and LVR D-7 lipless crankbait. Then overnight a cold front came in and the water dropped 17 degrees in about 10 hours. Fishing changed a lot, the fish went from roaming and feeding to locked down under the vegetation. Here’s a good tip, when the water temperature drops like that the fish move to the vegetation because it holds the heat. That’s when I pulled out the punching gear to get the fish to eat.

Hopefully this year it’ll be warm enough to stick to topwater most of the day, nothing beats the giant swirl of an Okeechobee lunker taking down a topwater bait. I think the Kelly J topwater bait may be just the ticket for some Okeechobee pigs this year.

Happy New Year to all of you and your families and I hope you all have a fantastic 2011!

Takahiro Omori Blog
Date: 1-3-2010

In my last blog I was on my way to the doctor to find out about my hand.  I met with a hand specialist doctor and he told me my left little finger, my left wrist and my left arm have a bad case of tendonitis. It’s very bad. 

It’s easy to understand why, simply overworked. All the years of casting and holding my rod while cranking, flipping and all the rest of the techniques has put my arm through a lot of work. The average weekend bass angler doesn’t have to make 2000 plus casts a day every day 7 days a week.  I have competed in 16 to 20 tour level tournaments a year for more than 10 years and have never had an injury up until a few years ago. I was proud to be able to stay healthy on the tour. I make it a point to eat healthy and stay physically fit which I believe is very important to be able stay on the road and live the pro bass angler lifestyle.

This type of tendonitis takes a while to heal and with 17 tournaments this up coming season I know I am going to need to make some changes. I brought a rod and reel with me to the doctor and we agreed I need to switch to left hand retrieve reels. I’m a right handed person and that way I could hold my rod in my right hand all time while my left hand holds the reel handle only and will put much less pressure on my finger, wrist and arm while I am fishing. Technically for right handed anglers this is the way it should be done and I have been doing this with my spinning reels over the years. Besides easing the pain in my wrist, casting right handed and then switching to my left hand to hold rod waists a lot time and could result in poor timing to set the hook quickly, especially pitching a jig to shallow cover. I tried a left handed baitcaster reel about 10 years ago and I felt weird and gave up on it soon after starting. This time I don’t have a choice so I will need a lot of practice before I feel comfortable with it. I’m not sure this going to work for me or not but, it may be my only option for 2011. The weekend angler could always fish the way they like and if they felt pain they can just quit fishing for a while and let their wrist or arm heal.  I don’t have that option, as a tour pro I have to keep fishing and it makes it very tough and painful.

Fact is I will most likely be in pain all year but, I don’t want to think all negative about this injury instead I am looking at it as an opportunity to train myself to the way I am supposed to cast and reel. I’ll be picking up some left handed reels at  Tackle Warehouse http://www.tacklewarehouse.com and from Daiwa Japan.  I will also be changing to a softer action rod next week. Besides the switch in technique I will also be doing an exercise treatment program from Travis Perret http://www.felixfishing.com.

Believe me I’ll show up at my first tournament of the year at Lake Okeechobee in Florida and I will find way to deal with this injury. I plan to focus even harder this year and not let the injury or pain get me down even before the new season starts, that’s for sure!  I thank all  of my friends and fans for their support and well wishes to get well. 

Thanks – T.O.