Brent Ehrler Blog

Guntersville, Conroe and Lake Amistad lie ahead. Then its a wrap for the 2011 year. Guntersville will wrap up the FLW Open season, Conroe the PAA Toyota Texas Bass Classic and then Amistad for the Major League Fishing event. Three great places to fish, should make for a fun Fall.

What can I say about Lake Champlain other than it was my worst event of the year by far. I really never got on anything in practice and what I did find, i couldn’t fish on day two of the event because of wind. I actually had a decent first day of the event, but the wind made it impossible to fish in the same area on day two. I didn’t fish smart and I didn’t pre-fish smart and that never works out well.

On the Saturday of Champlain I was able to participate in the Soldier Appreciation tournament. I really enjoy these events and the soldiers involved in it. The wind had calmed enough for us to get into the areas I fished on the first day. We caught them and we caught them well. The weather is always a factor in fishing and it didn’t help me at Champlain.

Both on day one of the event and the soldier appreciate day I caught fish on the Yamamoto Shad Shaped worm. The Shad Shaped worm is a great drop shot bait for smallmouth.

Following the event at Champlain I had a photo shoot for the Simms 2012 Catalog. I tried out some more new Simms

I went to Lake Guntersville in Alabama to get a little pre-practice in. Guntersville was fishing tough. I think I had two keepers on the first day. The second day was a little better, but not much. I hope the bite has picks up before we get there in a few weeks. Shallow LC Crankbaits and the new Lucky Craft Fat Smasher may work out really well there.

Speaking of the Fat Smasher, this new bait from Lucky Craft is really cool. It is a jointed slow sinking hard plastic bait. On retrieve it has a great swimming action and is great for fishing in the zero to three foot range. Looking back, I wish I had the Fat Smasher at Lake Ouachita for the Forrest Wood Cup. I think the Fat Smasher might have “smashed ’em” there.

After Guntersvillle I am headed to the Toyota Bass Classic on Lake Conroe Texas. I hear the water is down there and the fixed docks may even be out of the water. That will really change the fishing. I’ll let you know before the event how that is shaking up.

At home, Ollie is doing great and finally sleeping a little more. He’s starting to smile a lot. Speaking of Ollie I better get off the computer and go help out. I’ll catch up before the Guntersville tournament.

Wow, I know fishing tournaments and producing fishing shows earlier in the year kept me hopping, but at least in most of the places I fish I have some type of communication with the outside world. Yeah, I know…. still no excuse for not blogging regularly. But in my defense, in these past several weeks I have hunted some pretty remote spots!

Joe Thomas Blog

Read Full Blog>>

My family got to experience someone else’s joy yesterday. In fact, we experienced the joy of about 25 other people. My friend Mark Fisher, Director of Outdoor Sales at Wiley X, my sunglass sponsor volunteers through his church for a group of kids.
skeetreeseinc.com

Read Full Blog>>

BassFan Reports
Two pros recorded zeroes yesterday at the Champlain FLW Tour Open – Takahiro Omori and Kota Kiriyama.
Omori told BassFan that he broke down yesterday and couldn’t get his fish back to weigh-in…
takahiroomori.com

Read Full Blog>>

All weekend, I have been in Imlay City, Michigan at the Woods and Water Outdoor Weekend Expo. I was there for doing seminars and signing autographs for STIHL. My truck and boat were part of their display as well. It was a great outdoor event and crowds were estimated at over 20,000 for the three days.
Joe Thomas Blog

Read Full Blog>>

I had the opportunity to travel to Evansville, Indiana to shoot my 13th and final 2011 episode of Stihl’s Reel in the Outdoors. This time though, I was not chasing bass, but monster blue catfish with Captain Paul Willett of Camo Fish Guide Service.
Joe Thomas Blog

Read Full Blog>>

I had one business trip this week. I did a fly-in, fly-out deal in Phoenix for Berkley Havoc and Spiderwire. Other than that it has been a good week of family, work and exercising.That seminar was great; I did a two hour appearance there and talked about fishing. But, the best part was all of the kids that showed up.
skeetreeseinc.com

Read Full Blog>>

Over the past weekend, I hunted in Kentucky with Drop Tine Outfitters It was opening the opening weekend for Kentucky’s archery whitetail season. Kentucky is one of the few states that opens early enough for you to take a buck in velvet.
Joe Thomas Blog

Read Full Blog>>

Since my last blog a whole lot has happened. Lets start with the most important thing and that’s my 9th place finish in the final PAA event on Lake Neely Henry in Alabama. That 9th place finish put me in 3rd overall in the AOY standings which qualified me for the Toyota Texas Bass Classic on Lake Conroe! I am so excited.

The tournament was a tough one. Summer time tournaments anywhere but the north are very difficult and you must remain focused even though its 100 degrees and very humid. That is a huge part of the mental and physical aspect of the sport that is often overlooked. Coming into the event I was nervous. I needed a good finish to qualify for the championship. At Neely Henry you can fish for spotted bass or largemouth and most people know I prefer largemouth. I found fish very shallow on rip rap banks during my practice. Many of my fish came on the Lucky Craft Gunfish 95 in the green sexy color and a few came on the LC 2 shallow crankbait. To get reaction fish it had to be low light or a little windy. When the sun got higher in the sky I flipped and pitched shad pockets with soft plastics. My fish day went really well even though I only got 5 keepers at least they were good ones. That took a whole bunch of pressure off and the next two days I just went out and fished. I didn’t have a chance to win so I was happy just finishing where I did.

After the tournament I thought about driving back to Texas, but it has been so hot there that I made a much better decision and drove to Lake Champlain to get some pre-practice in for the upcoming FLW Open. I love Lake Champlain, it is such a good place to fish and you can go for smallmouth or largemouth, both can be winning fish. I fished four days total, two for largemouth and two for smallmouth and I found that the bite is as good as ever. While I was here the big hurricane passed through and delivered some good wind and rain to the area overall it rose the lake by almost two feet. It was pretty scary because I was around a lot of trees and I kept thinking one was going to fall on my boat, luckily they missed. I am happy I chose to come up here and I’ll be staying here until the tournament is over. The weather is really nice, even a little cold at night, but much better than the overwhelming heat at home.

Also this week the 2012 Elite Schedule was released. I am not really one to talk about whether it is good or bad, mostly because I’ll be fishing regardless and so it doesn’t matter that much to me. I am excited for the Mississippi River it should be really good and the mystery lake idea is neat. I was hoping we would have more tournaments and spread them out over 10 months because as a professional I want to fish as many tournaments as possible. With conflicts in the schedule it won’t be possible to fish both tours next year so that is also a bit disappointing. I just hope in the future the two organizations can come together and give us the opportunity to fish more events.

Wish me luck at Lake Champlain its going to be a lot of fun.

Tak

I got a huge rush of adrenaline this weekend.　If you remember back a few years ago, I was introduced to Brian Barnhart, the President of the IZOD Indy Car Series and Kevin “Rocket” Blanch; the Technical Director for the Series.
skeetreeseinc.com

Read Full Blog>>