This week started with Mother's Day. So, me and the girls took Kim golfing at Black Oak Golf Course near our home in Auburn. We had a great time at the course. I had a few good holes, more bad ones, but I parred a couple of holes and didn't on others.
The girls had a great time, they caught a crawdad, and saw some giant bullfrogs and we even came across a gopher snake too. It was a great day with the family.
I got some new baits from Lucky Craft in this week to test. One of them is a jerkbait that is really pretty bad ass. It has a completely different action than any of the other jerkbaits in the Lucky Craft family, and while I don't know what it's going to be called yet, it has a slashing action that I think anglers are really going to like. There's a couple of others, but we won't talk about those quite yet.
Berkley had their sales meetings recently and I was excited to hear the response the sales staff had to my new Havoc Sick Fish swimbaits. I've already seen what those are doing on the water, but the sales staff said that they think it's going to be the hottest new bait in the Havoc lineup. I hope so, because at two for under $4, those little baits are the best Alabama Rig baits - by far. I've even caught them on a swimbait head- they're; well, they're sick. What else can I say?
We've also been working on the final packaging for a new 10-inch Havoc worm that I'm working on. I know that a lot of people have their take on a big worm, but with the new tail action and the little features I've built into it to make it the best hook to land ratio big worm on the market; I think it's gonna be popular too.
Other than that, we're really busy around here getting ready for our second annual Kids Fishing Day, and there's so much to do. I've been doing prep work for that while trying to squeeze in workouts here and there and it seems like there's never enough time in a day.
I'm even detail cleaning the '09 Bassmaster Classic winning Stratos to take over there to put on display for everyone to see. I've still got it, and with a Classic win and two Elite Series wins on it; I'm pretty proud of it.
Anyway, I'll check in next week with a report on the Kids Day. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @SkeetReese1
Later.
5/8/2012
Skeet's Beat - Douglas
I went into Douglas Lake feeling very optimistic. I had done my homework and felt ready for what was going to be happening once we got there.
Once practice started, I was able to locate some really good schools of fish. In fact, I found some of the schools that a lot of the guys who finished in the top 12 were fishing.
I just couldn't figure out how to make them bite.
I forced myself to fish deep because I didn't think there was any way to do well fishing shallow. I turned my back on the bank and fished out. Turned out I was right, but I couldn't make them eat.
I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see big schools of fish I know are bass on my Lowrance HDS10 and not be able to make them eat. I tried everything. I tried stroking big jigs, I tried stroking swimbaits, I tried throwing crankbaits, but I couldn't get them to get off the bottom to eat anything.
The more I've thought about it, I think the schools were really locked onto the bottom because of the amount of pressure that Douglas Lake receives. It seemed that they needed something that stayed on the bottom and kept moving. The guys who figured out that they could long line a crankbait really put it together.
I was really pulling for Britt Myers to win. He's a great guy and really good to everyone on tour. I felt really bad for him not to be able to close it out.
One great thing about the week was my stay at the Point Resort on the lake. I had a suite there, and a boat slip with gas on the water, and they even had a restaurant. I didn't have to leave and even got to go over to the morning launch by water; that was pretty cool and a great place to stay.
Now we've got a long break before Toledo Bend, and I can't wait to get back there. I really need a good finish there, and I figure, if I want a shot at the AOY title, I had better run off four more Elite 12 finishes. I've done it before and know I can do it again, I'll just have to make it happen.
I've got a couple of things to look forward to. My new Berkley Havoc Sick Fish is getting ready to be released here in May. The four-inch model will be the first one to be released, and the colors of this thing are unbelievable. I think they are the best little swimbait for an Alabama Rig, or for just swimming on a little jighead. They will come two to a pack and will retail for $3.49 a pack.
Also, Kim and I will be working really hard on my second annual Kids Fishing Day. Last year was a great event, and we're looking forward to another one.
4/24/2012
Skeet's Beat - Back from Bull Shoals
That didn't go how I had hoped.
I got on a pretty steady bite at Bull Shoals, and I'm pretty sure I was on the same bite that the guys that finished in the top 12 were on. But, I was in the wrong area of the lake.
I went there assuming that most of the bass in the upper ends of the lake would have spawned already, and that those on the lower end would be just getting there; but, I was wrong. The fluctuating water levels and all of the storm fronts that have been coming through the Ozarks must have kept the fish off of the beds. The water temperatures upriver were in the high 50's and the fish that Brandon Palaniuk won on must have been prespawn.
Congratulations to him for a big win. It isn't easy to beat this field like he did, he did a great job.
I'm pissed that I didn't do better. I figured 13 pounds a day would end up being a top 25 finish, and it didn't even make the top 50 cut with 26 pounds, 1-ounce.
The worst part is that I fell to sixth in the AOY standings and I'm not happy about that either. I know Brent Chapman is fishing lights out, and he has a 56 point lead now, but we're still a long way from finished and I can make up those points.
After I missed the cut, I spent some time on the water Saturday with the folks from TroKar; who was the presenting sponsor of the Bull Shoals event - the TroKar Quest. We drove around the lake looking for spectators and people fishing and stopped and said his and gave them some samples and t-shirts and stuff.
The first boat we pulled up to had a family with two boys about 10 or 11 years old. We gave them each a t-shirt that I signed and some hooks, and they were thrilled. The dad told me that they had come to see the event because his kids wanted to see me, but then to pull up on them and give them some TroKar stuff was pretty cool.
I also gave a little girl in another boat one of my signature Wright & McGill Co. rods and reels; which I signed. I don't think it made her brothers real happy, but it put a big smile on her face, and that's all that matters.
I drove to Nashville after that to catch a flight home, and that drive ended up being a lot longer than I thought, but I was able to catch a flight and come home and see my girls. It was 91 degrees when I got off the plane in Sacramento; I can't believe how hot it was.
I got home and found the girls trampoline flipped over by a gust of wind on our fence, so I fixed that up so they could jump on it. We spent the afternoon in the back yard and today I got up and went for a bike ride an am getting some work done to get ready for Douglas Lake.
Skiing with Kim and the girls was fun. The girls were on spring break from school, so we rented a house in the snow for a few days and took a little vacation. Well, there really wasn't much snow up there, our Sierra Mountains are at 50-percent of the snow pack.
We went to the slopes for a couple of days, and I spent most of my time learning what to do on skis, because it was my first time on them. I did pretty good, I only biffed it a few times, but I wasn't really going up the big hills. We talked about going on some bigger runs, but there was no way I was going to risk that when the season is just getting going.
So, we stayed down on the smaller hills and had a good time with the girls. Like I expected, Lea picked things up pretty quickly and was ripping all over the place before long. Then, when Courtney started getting the hang of it, we spent most of our time trying to keep up with them.
We had some friends come up and had some good meals and great time with them while we were there, but it was really good to get to spend as much time with family as possible in between events.
We had kind of a cool thing happen while we were up there. We were at the lifts and this guy came walking up to get on the lifts. I recognized him quickly. It was Shaun White; the best snowboarder in the world. That was pretty cool to go skiing and run into him, the kids all freaked out when they figured out who it was.
We got back in time for Easter at home with the family. We had the girls running all over the year looking for something like 170 eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden on the property. There was even a Easter Egg scavenger hunt that they had to do to get clues to move around and find their Easter Baskets.
By the time it was all over, they were wiped out; it was a blast.
They were off today before they head back to school, so we got to spend another family day together. Then I'll start thinking about Bull Shoals; the next stop on the Elite Series. It's almost time to get to work again.
There hasn't been anything really eventful happening this week.
I did an appearance for Berkley at Presley's Outdoors in Peoria, Ill. and I don't things went exactly as planned. Normally this time of the year, the area is cold and uncomfortable, but things were really different this year. The weather was in the 70's, and had been for quite a while, so there weren't huge crowds of people that came to the event.
I'm sure they were all outside fishing in the unseasonably warm conditions. I'm pretty sure that's what I would have done too. The first seminar I did had between 50 to 100 people, but there wasn't really anybody there for the next one. I had a good time anyway, and was glad to meet the people that came.
I bought a turkey call for the girls while I was there. We get a lot of wild turkeys around our house in the fields and I thought it would be cool to play with the call and see if we could get their attention. We haven't seen any yet this year, but they'll come.
I'm home now and the girls are on Spring Break, so we're going to go on a little family vacation to the snow and go snow skiing. The girls have been before, but I've not really spent a bunch of time on skis, so it should be interesting to try and get up and go downhill.
I've thought about giving snowboarding a try, but when we went up for the girls' lessons last year, I saw way too many dads out there doing face plants trying to learn. So, that won't be on my to do list anytime soon. It will be nice to spend some time with Kim and the girls having fun as a family before I have to head back to Bull Shoals for the next Elite Series event.
By the way, I've promised you that I would show you the video of me fouling off Doc Halladay's pitched ball in the bullpen at the Phillies Spring Training camp. I finally got the video home and now I can show it to you.
I learned a little too late that I wasn't supposed to swing. Nobody got injured and everyone had a good sense of humor about it; even Phillippe Aumont, the 6'8" pitcher I hit in the forearm. Oops!
Talk to you next week.
JW Player goes here
3/27/2012
Skeet's Beat - A Good Start to 2012 photo courtesy B.A.S.S. / Seigo Saito
The 2012 Elite Series season is underway, and with two tournaments behind us, I am happy with my start.
Before I get too far. What can you say about Ish Monroe's win on Okeechobee? I can't believe the hurtin' he put on us down there. There's not too many times you can say you caught 84 pounds of bass and didn't finish first.
Ish, you did great; congratulations.
Now, back to my two tournaments. We started out the St. John's River and like everyone predicted, it was a sightfishing tournament, and I mainly fished spawning areas. I didn't catch all of my fish sightfishing, but where they were positioned, I'm sure they were bedding fish.
I caught most of them on a new bait by Berkley Havoc called a Rocket Craw; which is designed by Scott Suggs and will be available in May. I threw it on a 4/0 TroKar TK 130 Flipping hook and rigged it with a 1/4-ounce Eagle Claw Tungsten weight on my Microhoneycomb Heavy Cover rod with a Victory 701 reel and 20-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. I would swim that craw around until I came to a good looking clump of weeds and then drop it around the holes.
I did catch a few on the bed with a California colored Havoc Pit Boss around beds. I flipped that on 65-pound-test Spiderwire Ultracast braid and a 5/0 TroKar TK130 with a 1/2-ounce Eagle Claw Tungsten Weight. With this rig I used my 8' Flip / Punch rod and a Victory 701 reel.
Okeechobee was a little bit different. I went to a place called "The Monkey Box" which is a pretty popular community hole on the lake and on the last day of practice caught a six, a four and a three on a Lucky Craft LV100 and expected to blow the tournament away.
When the first day came, I had a bunch of company in the area and the fishing wasn't as good. I did manage to catch a limit and a five-pounder there, but scrambled and ran to some bed fish I had located in practice. When I got to those bed fish, Jeff Kriet and Pat Golden were already in there. So I started looking for other light spots, and when I spotted one within casting distance of Kriet, I made one pitch and caught a six pounder. That helped salvage the day, although I'm sure Kriet would have rather had that fish.
The next day things didn't start so well; I only had one keeper in "The Monkey Box," so, I ran to some nearby Kissimmee grass and managed to catch a 10 or 11-pound limit. After that, I went to the bedding area and found another six pounder that bit on the first flip in sight of Kriet and caught a few others too.
The wind changed on day three so I went to the other side of the lake and when I saw a bunch of tournament boats stacked in an area, I peeled off to a bank and started throwing a new small swimbait I'm working on for Berkley Havoc called a Sick Fish and caught a bunch on it. I made one stop on a six and a half pound bed fish that I couldn't catch the day before and caught it with five minutes left.
The next day, I tried to catch some fish on the LV 100 and the Sick Fish, but I kept hearing about the jig bite, so I picked up the heavy jig and caught several of them on it. I did manage to get a few on the Sick Fish again, and managed to catch another 22 pound limit.
Overall, I'm really happy with the start of the season. I've got 192 points and have a one point lead in the Angler of the Year race over my TroKar / Wright & McGill Co. teammate Brent Chapman. But, it's really early, we still have a long way to go. I'll just keep fishing hard and try to keep it going.
I'm in Florida getting ready for the first event of the 2012 Bassmaster Elite Series season at The St. John's River. But, I didn't start by heading straight to the event area.
I started by spending a couple of days with Roy Halladay at the Phillies spring training facility in Clearwater, Fla. I got to spend a couple of days with the team in practice and I even sat on the bench during a game with the Houston Astros.
The Phillies made me my own jersey with my name and the number 36 on it. I got dressed in a Phillies uniform and spent a day on the field.
There was a debate going on between me and Doc Halladay as to whether I could hit a pitch off of him. First of all, I have to say that I actually hit a ball off of him, but it didn't happen exactly as it should have.
They put a batting helmet on me, gave me a bat and put me in the batter's box and Roy started throwing. It didn't take me long to actually connect with a pitch off of Roy. I was pretty proud - until all hell broke loose.
When I hit the ball it hit one of their pitchers; Phillippe Aumont, in the forearm. Everyone scrambled and started running around to make sure that he wasn't injured. It turned out to be a welt on his forearm.
I figured out why they scrambled around. How was I supposed to know I wasn't supposed to hit a ball in the bullpen?
I was standing there in the batter's box watching Doc throw pitch after pitch, when it occurred to me that I was missing my opportunity, so I swung and fouled a pitch off. The pitching coach wasn't happy with me, but most of the team was laughing at me.
The whole thing is on video, and the players kept playing it over and over again and laughing every time they played it. I'm trying to get a hold of the video for Advanced Angler.
After the practice and watching a game from the bench, I went fishing with Roy on his community lake at his house. We caught several fish, and I taught him how to swim a Berkley Havoc Pit Boss. He caught an eight pounder on it the next day.
After that, I got in the TroKar / Havoc Big Rig and went to Bienville Plantation for a day on the water there. We slid the boat in the water and I caught an 11-8 on my third cast with a custom poured Rago Baits SKT Swimmer. I caught an eight pounder and several others up to five pounds.
I spent Saturday getting my tackle together and we had our rules meeting on Sunday and we start practicing tomorrow. I'm ready to get the season underway. I'll talk to you next week.
I'm back from the Bassmaster Classic in Shreveport, La.; the site of my 2009 Classic title. I learned a few things there that I'll share with you in a minute, but first things first.
Congratulations to Chris Lane and his family on a great win. Chris is a great guy, and his passion for the sport was evident as he celebrated his big win and I couldn't help but feel completely tickled for him as the confetti was flying. He doesn't know it yet, but the impact this will have on his life and his career is huge, and I'm really happy for him and his family.
Now, on to my week in Shreveport. I worked the Classic Expo for Dick's Sporting Goods, Berkley, TroKar, Wright & McGill Co., Stratos Boats and Wiley X Sunglasses. I had a lot of fun meeting fans who said they had waited a long time for me to be in a Classic Expo to meet me. The fans are part of why I do what I do, and to share some time with them was invaluable.
But, if I said I was 100-percent happy to be there, I'd be lying. I was able to do some work with Mark Zona and Tommy Sanders on Hooked Up at the weigh-ins on one of the days, and afterwards, I sat in the livewell to watch weigh-in. At first I was excited to be there; after all, I'm still a fan of the sport, and to feel the excitement of the event was cool - for about 10 anglers.
The longer I sat there, the more tense I got. Then I realized that the fact I was watching and not competing for a championship was really getting to me. So, after a while, I got up and left the floor and went into the media room before I headed back to the Expo.
I did some tank demos at the Dick's Sporting Goods booth and in the Berkley booth, and while I was there; I stuck some fish. I'm not exactly sure why they kept getting caught (wink, wink) but I did manage to catch a few fish during Classic week - much to the raised eyebrows of the guys in charge of the tanks.
The guys at Dick's told me that the attendance was excellent at the show, and that people were excited about fishing and were buying tackle, so that is always a great thing for the sport.
The excitement of the show and the Classic have got me pumped up for the 2012 Elite Series year, and my Berkley Havoc / TroKar Hooks Big Rig is headed east where I will join up with it next week. I'm excited to get out there and get to fishing.
When I get out there I'll spend some time with Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter as they get ready for their baseball season. I'll stay with Roy at his house for a couple of days and go fishing with him at his lake; but then I'll get to go to the Phillies Spring Training for a day, and I'm supposed to try to hit off of Doc while I'm there. I'm pretty sure that I won't even touch the ball and he'll make me look bad, but I'll get him back when I whoop him on his lake.
It's time to get going, and I'm ready - talk to you soon. Oh, before I forget, I've entered the Twitter world, follow me at @skeetreese1
2/7/2012
Skeet's Beat - From the Land of the Rising Sun
I'm back from my whirlwind trip to Japan and I had a great time.
I went to the Osaka Fishing Show with Minoru, my boss from Lucky Craft, to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of the company. It's hard to believe that Lucky Craft is 20 years old, and that I've been a part of the team for almost 15 years of that, but it was really cool to be there for that.
One of the coolest things about the 20-year anniversary was seeing the baits that Lucky craft has released throughout the years. In 20 years Lucky Craft has made 400 production molds for their baits. That means that over 400 different lures have reached the market, and they had them on display, arranged by year that they were released; it was really cool to see that much history in one place.
I did two tank demonstrations a day at the show, and I've got to admit that it's not easy to do a tank demo when you have to use a translator. Kentaro from Basser Magazine was my translator, and it took a little bit for us to get synced up. The first one we did wasn't so good, but they got progressively better as we learned to work on each other's rhythms.
I saw a lot of really cool and weird new things at the show. I really didn't spend a lot of time looking at the bass stuff because I was there for Lucky Craft, and I didn't want to create problems, so I looked at mainly the saltwater stuff. I saw some really cool things, like a surf casting reel from Daiwa that was really big, but only weighed a few ounces; I couldn't believe how light the reel was for its size.
Lucky Craft had a pretty cool lure with a jerkbait style body without a lip, but it had a spinnerbait like wire that swept down with a little willowleaf blade on it. It still had to treble hooks on it, seemed like it could be a pretty cool little lure.
There was a bunch of Ayu fishing gear there. The hooks are this micro light wire and the rods can be like 30 feet long and cost as much as $30,000. Ayu fishing is an old, traditional sport in Japan, and the gear is taken really seriously.
I got to eat some great food there; the sushi is excellent. I tried all kinds of new things; squid and even fish sperm. Yeah, it was a little weird, but overall the food was great.
I was really encouraged by the turnout. The show had more than 60,000 people come in the three days. Sunday was the busiest, but there were a lot of people there every day. It was a good sign because the area really struggled after the earthquake and the tsunami of last year, and to see it starting to come back is an exciting thing.
I'm exhausted, after two 17 hour plane trips and the time differences, I'm ready for some sleep. It will take me a couple days to recuperate, but I can't stay down too long. The season is coming up quickly and I've still got prep work to do. The Big Rig is all wrapped, and it looks great. My Stratos Elite 210 is at the shop right now, so it should be done soon.
All of it means that the season is approaching; I can't wait.
It seems like all I'm doing this week is pack and organize.
Before I get to that, Lea's birthday party was this weekend. We took Lea, her friends and Courtney ice skating during the day and then to John's Incredible Pizza afterward. I put the little cleat slip-ons over my shoes and escorted Courtney around until she picked it up at the end and was able to skate on her own.
They were all exhausted at the end of the night, but it was a lot of fun. it still amazing to look at the girls as they age, I can't believe how long it's been already when it still feels like yesterday that they were babies.
I got my shipment of new Berkley Havoc baits in and some new colors of my Pit Boss. So, I spent a bunch of time in the shop organizing and boxing those up for the season. The new Hawk Hogs by Bobby Lane, Smash Tubes by Ike and Juice Worms by Boyd Duckett all look pretty good, can't wait to use them.
Other than that, I'm packing up to get ready to fly to Japan for the Osaka Fishing Show with Minoru from Lucky Craft. I've been to that show three or four times in the past, but not since I won the Classic and not since the country was hit by the earthquake and the Tsunami.
It will be interesting to see how the Japanese fan base has grown; I've been able to do some media with Japanese publications since winning the Classic in 2009, but we'll see how it has changed since that and the catastrophe over there.
I'll be trying to work on a few videos from there to share at Advanced Angler from the show. It's a big show, and Japan always has cool stuff to show off, so hopefully I'll have a few cool things to show off when I get back next week.
15 hours on a plane, it's a long flight, but I'm looking forward to being there; talk to you when I get back.
Actually, it wasn't at our house, it was at the NAMM Show in Anaheim at the Convention Center. NAMM is the National Association of Music Merchants - it's kind of like the ICAST of the music industry. I say that because it's the only thing I can truly compare it too; but in actuality, it dwarfs ICAST.
NAMM is not open to the general public, but we got in because Tom Coster; my father-in-law, is a professional musician, and he and his band, Vital Information were performing in the KORG booth. They had this little soundproof room that would fit about 50 people in it, but with the front doors open, people were lined up and listening.
Kim and I have been together for 14 years, and in all that time I've really only heard him play once or twice, but even in that time I can tell that he continues to get better as a musician. He really shredded up his keyboard while we were there, and his energy was really high because his whole family was there. It was a really good show. There is a YouTube video of the performance, it's pretty cool.
As far as the show goes; all I can say is WOW! Not only was the show huge, but there were times I almost regretted bringing the girls in there. We learned really quick to avoid the guitar and drum section because it was full rockers and rock groupie types. When we made the first pass through Kim and I both had our eyes pop out of our heads when this one woman walked by us in leopard skin chaps with nothing but a thong underneath; we hoped the girls didn't notice too much.
There were other "interesting" sights too. We saw people with their whole faces tattooed to look like animal faces, and there was this one guy who had Jagermeister bottles for earrings - needless to say, it was an attention getting show.
We saw Stevie Wonder while we were getting out of the cab at our hotel from the airport. Then; later, we were going across the street from the hotel with Tom and the family when we ran into Randy Jackson from American Idol. My father-in-law helped him get started in the business, so they gave each other big hugs in the street until the security officers told us to clear the street. We moved to the curb as they talked for a minute, but before long Randy was swarmed by autograph hounds and fans.
What was funny about seeing him was that it was the first time I've seen my girls get star struck. Lea's face was priceless and Courtney whispered "Dad, he's on TV!" It was really funny.
It was a really cool show, and I'd love to go again, but maybe without the girls next time.
1/17/2012
Skeet's Beat - More Preparations Tournaments-Coming-Main.jpg
There's not much going on to report about in the fishing business other than the usual prep work that goes on before the season begins.
I've been going through all of my gear and ordering new stuff for the season. The biggest thing that I did was order all of the new Berkley Havoc items that are launching this year. There's a new creature bait by Bobby Lane and a new tube bait by Ike, and Boyd Duckett has come out with a new worm called the Juice Worm.
I added a bunch of new colors to the Pit Boss that I'm really excited about. There's this one called Perfection that is... well, it's perfect. You'll have to see it to truly believe it, it's an awesome color. Everyone that has seen it has totally liked it.
I've really got to get into my shop and start organizing everything, and I'll do that pretty soon too. I'm also going to be working with my Performance Consultant; Charles Plot of Plott Advanced Systems to get my mental game in tip top shape and tuned up before the season.
One cool thing that's coming up is I'm headed to Japan for the Osaka Fishing Show on behalf of Lucky Craft. This will be the first time I've been there since the earthquake and the big tsunami that hit there, and I'm looking forward to going back. It will be kind of cool to bring some American fishing industry well wishes over there; I'm looking forward to it.
I got to see some new placements of my Wright & McGill Co. rods and reels the other day. I've been really fortunate to have so many of the major retailers bring in my signature Tessera Rods. Dick's Sporting Goods has done a great job with my product, as have the other major retailers. we got word a little while ago that Wal Mart was going to be bringing in a few of my rod models, and I got to see my first display in one of my local stores, so that was pretty cool.
Other than that, we are heading to Southern California for the National Association of Music Merchants show in Los Angeles. Kim's dad, Tom Coster is a musician and he invited us to go down there and see the festivities. I guess this is like the ICAST of the music industry, so we're all looking forward to it.
I'll hopefully have some good stuff to share with you next week - Later.
We're back from our family Holiday vacation to Mexico, and as much as we had fun down there; it's nice to be home.
I tell you what the best part of the whole trip was - no cell phones! I got to spend time with my family without any interruptions, and I got to spend some great one on one time with the girls.
I took them fishing for Jack Crevalle, Bonita and Dorado. Lea went with me last time we went, but this was Courtney's first trip on the big charter boat fishing like that. They caught several Jack Crevalle around 15 pounds, but couldn't land anything bigger.
Courtney did have about a 35 pounder on the line, and it took her awhile to get it to the side of the boat, but she did. The deckhand reached out grabbed the line and tried to lift it in the boat and broke the line while doing it. That was disappointing, but she did a good job fighting it.
We also got to swim with the dolphins while we were there. We went into this little saltwater pond and got to play with them in the water. We would grab hold of their dorsal fins and get pulled around by them. But my favorite part was letting them push us out of the water by putting our feet on their nose. They are really strong and can get me clear of the water, and the girls really flew; it was fun.
We also got the chance to experience playing with a pair of six week old tiger cubs. They were really cute and fun to play with, but I think the cubs got really tired out by the girls, because they eventually went and laid down in the shade and closed their eyes.
Other than that, now that I'm home I'm getting totally focused on the business of fishing, and getting ready for the season. The holidays were great, but vacation is over and it's time to focus on fishing.
I'll be working on the graphics for the Stratos and the Big Rig with Corey from Sticky Graphics and I'm pretty sure we'll have some cool new stuff on the rig for 2012; I'll show you that as soon as I can.
Anyway, that's about it, for now, it's time to get focused, 2012 is upon us.
12/27/2011
Skeet's BEat - An Interesting Christmas
Christmas has come and gone, and I have to say that it was one of the most interesting we've had.
It was just the four of us because we were getting everything together for our family vacation to Mexico. So, instead of having family over, Kim and I celebrated at home with the girls.
Our gift to Lea and Courtney was a trampoline. I was up really late one night and then up early the next morning assembling the thing, then we jumped on it.
I'm sore as hell after jumping up and down for an hour. But, we had so much fun with it. Lea really got into it, and we kind of had bounce battles on it. Courtney didn't really like getting knocked down on it, but we'll have a lot of fun with it.
We had some excitement on Christmas night. I was outside putting our dinner on the Big Green Egg when our motion lights in the backyard popped on. I thought it was an animal, but then I saw a hand trying to open the gate to our pool area.
I stepped up and stared at him and said "who the hell are you?" He said "oops, wrong back yard" and took off across the field. I chased him, yelling the whole time for Kim to call 911. She hit the alarm and called the police.
They caught him a half an hour later, and came back to the house to confirm with a picture on their phone. They said they think he was a drunk local guy trying to take a shortcut and got lost.
I'm glad they caught him, because we were all a little freaked out. The girls wanted to sleep in our bed, which didn't leave us much room, so I slept in Lea's bed and Kim slept on the couch. We're all a little tired waiting to get on the plane today.
Other than that, I've got the Mercury ProXS 250 all broken in, and I'm excited about the boat this year. I put those Lithionics Batteries in it; the ones that Aaron Martens ran last year, and the boat flies. It sits about three inches higher in the water and comes out of the hole a lot faster; even the trolling motor is faster because the boat is lighter.
Anyway, Adios for now, talk to you after the New Year, and I hope your Christmas was awesome.
I can’t believe things have been sneaking up on me so fast. Christmas is almost here and I’ve been traveling and trying to close out business for the year, and I haven’t done all of my Christmas shopping. Thank goodness for Kim, or I probably wouldn’t get any of it done.
I still have to finish up my shopping for Lea and Courtney, and while I’m thinking about what to do for them, I’m sitting here at the desk finishing up work for the year. I know I’m gonna be one of those typical males out there at the last minute looking for a good gift.
While I’ve been procrastinating on the trip to the stores, I’ve also been trying to get in all of my orders with my sponsors for the upcoming season. I’ve already got in all of my Wright & McGill Co. Victory reels, but I’m still working on figuring out my rod situation; I’ve still got to go through my stock of Tessera and Microhoneycomb rods and pick out what I need to fill in. I just finished placing my order with Berkley. I ordered all of the fill in Havoc and PowerBait needs, and got all of my line on the way. I haven’t gone through all of my TroKar hooks yet, but I’ll do that soon too.
Along with all of that, I’m getting started on the graphics for my wrap for the Big Rig and Stratos Elite 210 with Corey Fenske of Sticky Graphics in Roseville, Calif. I think we’ll do things a little bit differently this year, but we’ll talk about that later.
It hasn’t been all work though, we took a little time to have a family and friends Christmas party on Saturday night. We had about 40 people there and everyone brought an appetizer for kind of a potluck buffet, and we just had a good time. It kind of turned into a karaoke bash in the second half of the evening, and being that I’m not much of a karaoke fan, I spent most of my time being a backup dancer.
While we’re finishing up all of the Christmas planning, we’re also getting ready for our family vacation to Mexico. We’ll leave after Christmas and come back after the New Year; we’re all looking forward to that.
Other than all of the plans, we want to thank all of you for being a part of our lives and reading Skeet’s Beat. The fans of fishing really help make this sport what it is, and we appreciate all of you. Thanks for all of your support throughout the year, and we hope you all have a Merry Christmas.
I just got back from my trip to the Amazon for a peacock bass fishing outing with Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter and B.J. Ryan. We had my friend John Murray, Ryan McCollough from Wright and McGill Co. and some friends and family members of the players with us too.
The fishing wasn’t great. The water was high from rainstorms, so the fish were scattered into the jungle. But, even though it was tough fishing, we managed to catch some anyway and we had a good time while doing it.
First of all, the Amazon is nothing like I had pictured in my mind. I thought I would be hearing the sounds of birds and animals all day long, but it wasn’t like that. We saw macaws and parrots flying in pairs occasionally, and we heard and saw monkeys, but for the most part, the river was silent, almost eerily silent most of the time.
We had plenty of wildlife encounters though. Along with the fishing, we decided to go hunting one night, and Carpenter and B.J. both shot a caiman; which is like an alligator. Me and Doc Halladay even came across a local, sitting bare naked on a tree by the river. What we were able to figure out is that he was fishing in the river for tropical fish to sell for aquariums when he got attacked by an anaconda.
The snake apparently bit him on the ass but he was able to free himself before the snake wrapped him up. Instead the snake wrapped around his motor on the back of his little 14 foot dugout canoe and tore it off the back of his boat. Doc and I helped him gather his gear and flip the boat back over and then towed him home. You could definitely see the bite mark on his ass, but he was able to fight it off; amazing.
McCollough and Carpenter both injured their feet on the trip. Carpenter was moving from one boat to another one afternoon and cracked his toe on the side of the boat; it was all swollen and black and blue the next morning. McCollough actually got stung by a sting ray; which the locals are pretty fearful of, and his foot was really bothering him after that.
While the fishing wasn’t great, we managed to catch a few fish, and some decent ones. The biggest one of the trip ended up being a 15 pounder, but we missed a few over 20 pounds. Halladay even had a Shamu sized one on the last day, but it broke the hooks out of his plug and got away.
The best lure was made right there on the river. It was a hair “type” jig made from the bark of a tree. Our guides used a machete to strip some bark and tie some of the pulp from a tree to a jig head, making a sort of hair jig. That was the most productive lure there, and if I would have known that, I could have saved myself the trouble of bringing all of those Lucky Craft lures that I brought, and had Murray carry in his suitcase.
All in all, it was an amazing experience; it was pure entertainment with great friends and a bunch of laughter. I’ll never forget it.
11/28/2011
Skeet's Beat - Thanksgiving with Friends
We’re back from our family Thanksgiving camping trip to the Northern California coast, and we had a great time. My brother Jim and his family were there and a couple of our friends as well, and it was a lot of fun to pull it all together with everyone for Thanksgiving dinner and fun and games.
We had some deep fried turkey and some seafood to go with it, and the food was excellent. The one thing we discovered while doing this though is that the more people that are there, the more kids we have to chase and the more messes we have to clean up. But, it’s so worth it.
We were hoping to load up on Dungeness crab, but the crab fishing wasn’t really good. We caught a few of them, but it wasn’t as many as we’d hoped, but there were other sea creatures that made it exciting. We went to Doran Beach and brought the shrimp pump and the poke poles.
We managed a few crab, one poke poled eel and played with all kinds of wildlife. We even saw a bunch of big starfish in the rocks when the tide was low. Oh yeah, we saw three small octopus, two of them in the water and one that Lea caught. It was about the size of my hand, and it was pretty cool.
We brought a lighted Frisbee and played outside at night and we even played some football on the beach. It started out as a game of touch football, but by halftime, it had turned into tackle. We were all covered in sand, and to be truthful, Kim and I are still a little sore.
We go home Sunday and cleaned up the gear and got ourselves organized for life. Today I’m packing up for my peacock bass fishing trip to Brazil with Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter of the St. Louis Cardinals and B.J. Ryan of the Toronto Blue Jays. My friend John Murray will be going, as will Ryan McCollough from Wright & McGill Co., Roy’s brother-in-law and one other friend; eight of us all together.
Wright & McGill Co. made each of us a special pair of Skeet Reese rods built to handle the crazy fighting of the peacock bass. There are two models, both of them seven footers, one heavy and one medium heavy. We’ll be tossing a bunch of big plugs and jigs. I guess the rains have got the river really full, so the topwater bite is not good, so the jerkbait bite is supposed to be the best right now.
I’ve got a bunch of Lucky Craft in my bag, and we’re looking forward to 11 days of fishing in the Amazon. It’s a bunch of good guys, and we’re looking forward to it.
I won’t be back in time for next week’s edition of Skeet’s Beat, but when I get back, I’ll be sure to share as much as I can, and I might even have some pictures. Until then – Tchau.
Santa’s Sleigh tipped over a little early for me at the Reese house – I got my new Stratos Elite 210 last week.
As usual, the tour boat was rigged with a Mercury Pro XS 250, the MotorGuide 109 Tour Digital and my usual complement of Lowrance Electronics. It has two HDS7 units; one mounted in the dash, and one mounted in the bow plate. It also has two HDS10s on Ram Mounts for high detail viewing. They’ve also got a Sonic Hub connected to them so I can jam if I want to.
I’ve got the dual Power Poles rigged again on the transom. I started out last year with one, but quickly found out how much more effective two is, so I started that way again. But, the trick deal is that I had the boat rigged with those new Lithionics Lithium batteries this year.
These batteries are going to save me more than 200 pounds in the back of the Stratos; which is going to help me be a little faster out of the hole, faster top end, and draft shallower in the water – I can’t wait to try them.
The guys at C&C Marine in Citrus Heights, Calif. did all of the custom rigging for me. Mike VanWagner; the manager there is a longtime friend, and he knows how to do the job right.
I also spent a couple of days at the annual Angler’s Marine Bass-A-Thon in Anaheim, Calif. this past weekend. Rick Grover and his crew down there have been putting that show on for more than 20 years, and they did another great job this year.
My seminars went well, and I got to see a little bit of the new tackle while I wasn’t busy talking to all of the people. The big star of the show was definitely all of the new umbrella type rigs. Since the Alabama Rig got exposed about a month ago by Paul Elias at Lake Guntersville; people are producing them left and right. There must have been 10 people with their own versions of it at the show; it definitely was the hot ticket.
I also heard that they sold five boats at the show – that’s a big deal. To sell five boats in November is something that doesn’t happen very often. One of them was even a fully rigged Stratos Elite 210; and that was really good to hear. After all, I think it is the best boat on the market.
Anyway, it’s Thanksgiving week and Kim and I are taking the girls for our annual Thanksgiving camping trip with my brother Jim and his family to the coast. We’re also going to have a few other friends and family with us and we always have a great time. We’ll catch Dungeness Crab and deep fry some turkey for Thanksgiving, and enjoy each other’s company.
But, I don’t want to end this blog without saying Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there, and a offer up a special thanks to our military serving around the world – without you, our country’s American Dream would not be possible – Thank you!
I started by heading out to Tulsa for a Dick’s Sporting Goods Grand Opening. The truth is it was three Dick’s stores in the Tulsa area. I was at one, Shaw Grigsby was at another and Mike Iaconelli was at the other.
From what I’ve been told, they are working on expanding into the west, and I’m hearing that they are talking about putting 10 or 15 more stores throughout the West; and I’m proud to be working with them.
The Grand Opening went well; there were a lot of people that came in despite the heavy winds that came through the area. In fact, when we went outside for me to do my tank demonstration the winds were so heavy that we turned it into a quick deal and we went back inside.
After the Dick’s Grand Opening, I hopped a plane to Del Rio for the first Major League Fishing event. The first event was contested on Lake Amistad, and I thought it was a fun, exciting concept. I’m really interested to see how the show develops because it will be cool to see how the best anglers in the world break down a lake.
After the event was over, I got the chance to take my dad fishing with me. My dad lives in Del Rio, and I only get to see him so often, so it was really cool to get to spend that kind of time with him. Mike McClelland was there, and he was busy filming some extra things, so I grabbed his Stratos Elite 210 and took dad out for the day.
It was a day for the ages. My first fish of the morning was a fish that weighed right around 10 pounds. I caught it on a Lucky Craft Pointer 100 in Ghost Threadfin Shad color. My dad caught a six pounder and another five pounder and we caught several other fish over four pounds. It was a great day and we had a lot of fun.
I’m working with Tom Leogrande from True Image Media this week on filming some promotional clips for my sponsors for use on my website. I’ve been planning this for a while and it will be nice to get this filmed and produced.
Other than that, we’ll be getting ready to go camping for the Thanksgiving holiday and we’re all looking forward to that.
11/6/2011
Skeet's Beat - Live from Amistad Lake Resort
Skeet checks in with a special video blog from Amistad Lake Resort, the Del Rio, Tex. oasis of his longtime friend and Elite Series colleague Byron Velvick. Skeet talks about a friendly competition and what his activities have been this week.
JW Player goes here
10/30/2011
Skeet's Beat - Down and Dirty
Kim and I got a little down and dirty in the Merrell Down and Dirty Mud Race this weekend. Some friends of ours told us about it, and when Kim signed up for the 5k, I decided to join in too.
The race course is around Folsom Lake, a lake near our home in Northern California, it featured rope ladders and mud pits that you had to crawl through. We even ended up having to wade through the lake in water chest deep for a while. One of the mud pits was so low that we were basically swimming through mud to get to the other side.
The race was fun, Kim and I decided to stay together for the whole ace, and we both finished in the 40’s of our individual divisions. We were pretty proud of it considering that Kim’s group had more than 200 racers and mine had over 150.
Our oldest daughter Lea even got in on the act; she entered the kids’ race, which was a one mile version of our mudder. Lea finished fourth overall in the girls’ group, and said she probably could have done even better had she not had to slow down and walk around people who were blocking the trail.
The whole event was pretty cool, they had a band and concessions and they even brought in water trucks with hoses for cleaning off after the race and changing rooms for people to get out of their muddy clothes. To say we were muddy is an understatement; I went through eight Q-Tips trying to get my ears clean after I got out of the shower once we got home.
We had a lot of fun.
I took my brother-in-law and his wife to Folsom Lake to go fishing last week for a little while last week, and at first, the bite really sucked. We tried a bunch of stuff on the main lake and didn’t get a bite until we went into the back of a creek and started fishing there. My sister-in-law caught a couple of fish on a dropshot rig and then we started tossing Chartreuse Shad Lucky Craft SKT DR’s around; then we caught some decent ones.
It’s funny how things can be different; I actually had to burn the bait on my Victory 701 reel with 12-pound-test Berkley 100% Fluorocarbon to generate bites. Good thing I had it on my 7’ SGlass Cranking Rod, because when they hit it, they stopped it, and a graphite rod would have pulled it out of their mouths.
I’ve got a little traveling to do this week. Dick’s is opening three new stores in the Tulsa, Okla. area this weekend, and me, Shaw Grigsby and Ike are each supposed to spend the day at those stores. I’m pretty sure that we’ll each spend our whole day at one of the stores, so come and see me if you are in the area and can stop by.
10/27/2011
Skeet's Beat - Lowrance Winner Trip
I got on the water this week with the winner of the Lowrance, Fish with Skeet for a day, contest.
The winner's name was Scooter Boyette from Louisiana, and he had not been to California before. He didn't get to see Clear Lake when he arrived because it was after dark by the time he got there.
When he woke up the next morning and stepped outside, he just stood there looking around. Apparently, he hadn't seen much in the way of hills and mountains and he was really taken aback with the beautiful surroundings of Clear Lake.
The fishing wasn't spectacular; Clear Lake is in that funny, summer to fall transition with water temperatures that were around 72 to 73 degrees. They've also got weed extraction machines out there cutting up all of the weeds, and the grass clippings are blowing into areas making it harder to fish.
We ended up catching several fish, and we even caught some good ones up to six pounds.
We caught them on the new Lucky Craft LVR TO, and the Lucky Craft Fat Smasher. We threw everything on my 7' Wright & McGill SGlass cranking rod with a Victory 701 reel and 15-pound-test Berkley 100% Trilene.
I also made a trip to Dick's Sporting Goods corporate offices. I can't say that I've ever seen a more impressive headquarters than that.
The CEO basically got tired of having to move as the company grew, so they had a new building designed that the company could grow into.
They've got basketball courts, and fitness areas, a bank in the building and their own Starbucks Coffee shop there; It was really impressive.
On the home front, Lea started basketball camp this week and when soccer is over, she'll move right into hoops.
Other than that, not much; oh, while I want to say congratulations to Paul Elias for his win at Guntersville FLW; I'm bummed that he won it on the Alabama Rig. I was hoping to keep that one quiet for a while longer.
If you’ve read Skeet’s Beat over the past couple of years you’ve learned that I’m an IZOD Indy Car Series fan. Through my career in fishing, I met several people who are associated with the Indy Car Series, Kim and I have been to the Indianapolis 500 and the race here at Infineon Raceway at Sears Point several times.
I have many friends that work on the Series and for teams that race the Series, and the crash at Las Vegas and the eventual passing of Dan Wheldon really struck me hard. I didn’t know Wheldon very well, but many of my friends do, and they are all really struggling with his passing.
From what I know of him, Wheldon was very popular amongst everyone at the track; he was very well liked and respected as a driver. I feel really terrible for his wife and kids; he and his wife had two sons, and I can’t help but really look at my house with Kim and our two daughters; it really makes you think.
The whole Indy family lost a great friend and talent Sunday, but more importantly, a family lost a husband and father, and my heart goes out to them.
I took a whole crew of friends from Wright & McGill Co. / Eagle Claw and TroKar to Boston last week for a striper / bluefish outing on the Atlantic. The Northeast part of the country is known for their striper fishing and we were looking for some of those big ones that the area is known to produce.
We didn’t catch any true giants, but Tenny Mount, the VP of Marketing at Wright & McGill Co. caught one that pushed 40 pounds; which was the biggest of the trip. The rest of u caught a lot of 20 to 25 pounders and a bunch of bluefish.
I’d say that we probably caught 50 striper and more than a hundred bluefish. Those bluefish have teeth and they really chew through line. We probably went through more than 100 Eagle Claw treble hooks loaded with cut bait that day. They had no problem biting through 40 to 50-pound-test monofilament leaders, but we couldn’t go to steel because the stripers wouldn’t bite then.
We were supposed to be there at a really bad time for the striper bite. Everyone was saying that the striper bite was long past prime, but our guide; Captain Chuck DiStefano from www.bostonsportfishing.com said that he’d take care of us, and he did. He’s a true salty dog, and he knew how to put us on the fish, and he really did a great job of it. We had a great time, caught a lot of fish and had a lot of fun doing it.
I’m getting ready to take the winner of Lowrance’s Day on the Lake with Skeet contest at Clear Lake tomorrow, and I’ll give you a full report next week. If I remember, I’ll even snap a few pictures of us along the way to share with you too.
I took a chance to go salmon fishing last week with my friend Roy Gray; he’s the Lucky Craft rep in our area. We went out on the American River, and caught nine or ten fish. We went out with Vance Staplin, and he put us right on the fish.
The trip was a lot of fun, and we brought home some salmon for eating, and I was able to get some roe to get ready for my steelhead outings later this winter.
I had so much fun, that I booked a trip to take Kim and the girls out with another guide, Brad Bugica a couple of days later. The American River is absolutely full of salmon right now, and Brad proved it by pulling across the river, to the first spot, and within 30 seconds was hooked up with a fish. He handed the rod to Lea, who fought it for a while and while she was fighting that one, they hooked up again and handed the rod to Courtney, who fought it for a minute before losing it.
Lea landed hers, and it ended up being the biggest fish of the day – about a 15-pounder – and we all went crazy when she landed it. By the end of the day, Lea had reeled in five fish and Courtney had reeled in four of her own. They were exhausted from all of the hard work, but they had a blast.
They had so much fun we booked another trip for Kim and the girls to take their grandma and grandpa on the river later this week. That will be a lot of fun too.
We brought home a bunch of fish from that trip and we were able to share it with friends. My buddy smoked some for us too. But, by far the highlight of the experience was the Salmon cook off that Kim and I had here at the house.
We both got to mix our own salmon patties and the girls and our friends were the judges. I put Creole seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, mayonnaise, parmesan cheese and a few other things in there and cooked mine up. I don’t remember exactly what Kim put in hers, but it was really good.
In the end though, I was able to come out with the big win - by a vote of my peers – and I was really proud. I’m thinking about writing a cookbook – NOT!
Anyway, it was a good week; I’ve got a trip with some of the guys from Wright & McGill Co. to go to Boston and go after some giant striper. I’ll let you know how it goes.
It was kind of business as usual around Camp Reese the past week.
The girls are in school, and I’m working on getting into shape for the season and making my preparations for the 2012 season. Right now I’m mainly just looking for lodging and doing some research, but I’ll start getting into tackle inventory and setting up my new Stratos Elite 210 / Mercury 250 Pro XS; but that part comes a little later in the winter.
I’ve been really working on getting into shape for the season, and mainly I’ve been riding my mountain bike on trails around here. But, I’ve had to take a little break from that the past couple of weeks. I had a little wreck on the trails and banged my knee up a little, and when I ride it gets a little puffy and uncomfortable, so I’ve only been able to ride a couple of times. I’ll probably have to go to the doctor and have it looked at.
I was supposed to have an in-store appearance for Berkley at a Grand Opening in Missouri last weekend, but when I checked in at the airport, they told me my flight was delayed. The bad part was that the delay would cause me to miss my connection flight. I tried to get another flight, but there was none to be had, and I was forced to cancel the trip.
So, I got home and got to go to the girl’s soccer games. Lea’s team dominated once again, and Courtney’s team got beat by a team with a bunch of boys on it, but she tried hard.
Outside of the family stuff, I’m getting ready for a few salmon fishing trips. Minoru, my sponsor from Lucky Craft is coming up, and I’ll take him for a couple days on the American River, and I’m going to go another time too.
Oh, I took my father-in-law with me for an afternoon / evening trip to Folsom Lake near my house. I was shocked by how much water was still in the reservoir, and when I saw the water flooding the willow bushes, I tied on topwater baits for us.
My father-in-law doesn’t have much experience with walking baits, so he had a hard time getting the bait to walk. He was just pulling it forward in a straight line trying to get it to do something. When it was about halfway back to the boat I saw a big shadow underneath it stalking it like a cat on a mouse. I tried to get him to twitch the bait so that the fish would react, but every time he moved it, it just slid forward. By then, the fish had seen the boat or us standing in the boat and swam away. The fish looked every bit of six pounds, and I sure wish we would have been able to see that one up close.
After trying topwater a little more, we picked up my Wright & McGill Co. Micro Honeycomb Dropshot rods and tied on some 4 ½’ Berkley Havoc Bottom Hoppers and caught some small fish with a few keepers mixed in. It was fun to get out and chase bass again; I’m starting to get the itch to go fishing.
9/19/2011
Skeet's Beat - Fishing Fun and Hidden Treasures
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. The kids are from Hayward, Calif., and they all go to a school that the State of California has decided needs to have all of its programs revamped completely.
Some of these kids don’t have the same opportunities as kids we know, and Fisher, and the woman who run this youth group, Ms Lori Campbell spend their own time and money showing these kids love, support, guidance and friendship.
When Fish told Kim and I about what he was doing last year, Kim and I sent them a 10-pound bar of chocolate as a Christmas present last year. When we talked to him at ICAST this past July, and he told me about some of the activities they had been doing; we wanted to get involved.
Yesterday was the day. Kim and I chartered a 50 foot fishing boat out of Emeryville, Calif. on the San Francisco Bay to take 20 of the kids from the group out fishing for the day. Fisher contacted Plano, Okuma, Top Brass Tackle, B.A.S.S. and of course Wiley X, and all of them donated something for the kids to take with them.
We met up at 7:00 in the morning at the pier, and all loaded up onto the Captain Hook Sportfishing vessel and headed for the Bay. None of these kids had ever been on a boat before, and only a few of them had ever been fishing at all, so it was a real thrill to see them experience the sport.
The fishing wasn’t great, we only caught a few fish, but it didn’t matter. They kids played with the baitfish; the anchovies that the crew got for fishing with were a real hit. Many of the kids spent more time at the bait tank playing with those than they did at the actual rail fishing.
They did manage to catch four halibut, two of them undersized, and had to be released, a keeper striper, a small shark and a little smelt. Everyone that caught a fish said that it was their first that they’d ever caught, I always love hearing that.
I told the kids that whoever caught the first fish of the morning would get a $20 bill, and it took a little while, but this little boy named Arnez caught a small halibut and we all made a big deal of it. Then we pulled him over for photos with the fish and a trophy ceremony with his twenty dollars.
Later in the day, one of the teachers told us what a struggle it is for families in that neighborhood that has few jobs and so many people looking for work. Then we realized just how much value $20 could have—or even a tackle bag or pair of sunglasses—things that we might take lightly. That kind of hit all of us hard; including my oldest daughter Lea, who talked about it for a little while on the way home; before she fell asleep that is.
There were a lot of tangled lines, a lot of busy work helping all of the kids with so many rods on the rail of the boat, but in the end it was the amount of smiles that mattered. We would have liked to have them all catch bunches of fish, but when we stopped and realized that these kids had experienced things that would wind up being lifelong memories for them, it was a great day.
To hear many of them say that it was the greatest day of their lives was rewarding, and it made me feel really good inside to be able to do that for them. Honestly, we were just honored to be a part of it; those people are doing great things for those kids.
September is a slower month for me business wise, so it’s been really nice to be at home more and get to take part in what the family is up to.
The girls are in the full swing of school now, and for the first time, they are both at the same school. Courtney started Kindergarten this year, so she has a full day, and that all comes with the homework and everything else, so, life gets busy around here.
On top of school, both of them are on Youth League Soccer teams, so we have practices three days a week and games on Saturday. This weekend were their first games for this season and Lea’s team won, but unfortunately, Courtney’s team did not. Even though they both didn’t win, it sure is fun to watch them run around and play the game.
Other than that, I’ve been wrapping up a little business and planning some fishing trips for this offseason. The first one will be a Kid’s Fishing outing on the San Francisco Bay with a charter boat. My friend Mark Fisher from Wiley X volunteers to help inner city kids get a chance to participate in some outdoor activities, and Kim and I decided to help by hiring a charter boat for the outing.
We’re going t take the girls and go out on the boat with them, so we’ll have some pictures and a report of the outing afterward right here in my blog.
Along with that trip, I’m planning a striper and bluefish trip to the Boston area with sponsors, I’ve got a trip with the winner of the Day on the Lake with Skeet promotion that Lowrance ran this year, and I’m working on a Peacock outing to Brazil for later in the fall with some friends. Along with those trips, I’m really itching to get some steelhead fishing in, and I’ll be spending some time at Clear Lake too, when the lake isn’t being beat up by bass tournaments.
I’ve also been burning up the trails on my mountain bike. I’m really having a lot of fun learning about off road riding on the bike. A few of my friends are into it, and they have been showing me the ropes a little bit. I have to say that I seem to come back from each ride with a new scar or dent.
I seem to handle the riding part just fine, but stopping when your feet are clipped in to the pedals can be tricky. The last outing was one of them; I was trying to climb over a rock, and I guess I was in too high of a gear and I couldn’t pedal anymore. When I tipped over, I caught the handlebar in my ribs, and that has me a little sore today; oh well, I guess that’s part of it.
So, I’ll be enjoying a little more time at home, then start ramping up preparation for next year, and I’ll keep you updated right here.
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. The Phoenix Junior Bass Club came and met me and heard what I had to say. There were a dozen or more kids there from 10 to 15 years old.
I always like it when I get a chance to talk to the kids about fishing. They are always so excited about fishing and it really is motivating to hear how much they get excited about the sport.
Other than that trip to Phoenix, I’ve spent a lot of time on my mountain bike. I must have done more than a hundred miles on that bike this week riding the hills and trails near my house. I’ve really enjoyed mountain biking, it’s a great way to get great exercise and have a lot of fun doing it.
The whole weekend seemed to revolve around water, we went to a swim party at a friend’s house on Saturday, then on Sunday we took the girls to a water park in a town near our home. They talked about it all summer, so we took them on their last weekend open for the season and despite the fact that the place was absolutely packed; we all had fun.
Well, to be honest, Courtney got a little scared on the first slide we went on. It was a four person ride on one of the big slides and when it turned around and she was the one headed heading down the slide backwards, she got pretty scared. Despite that, we had a lot of fun.
On Monday, we had a bunch of people over here for a pool / build your own pizza party. Everyone made their own pizzas, and they even rolled their own dough, then we baked them on the Big Green Egg on a pizza stone. The Big Green Egg takes about five minutes or so to bake a pizza, and they are some of the best I’ve ever tasted.
The pizza was great, and then the whole thing kind of turned into a Flour War. Everyone was running around the back yard throwing flour at each other. I had flour in my ears and Kim had it in her hair and the backyard looked like a big bag of flour was dropped from the sky.
I guess I’ll get the pressure washer out and give it a workout and try to get this place cleaned up.
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. Brian and Rocket are both bass anglers and we struck up a friendship and we stay in touch.
Whenever the Series comes west to Infineon Raceway at Sears Point in Sonoma, we get together and they had a surprise for me this year.
They told me a couple of weeks ago that I was going to ride in one of the National Guard two seater cars on the track. Then, as the day got closer, I found out that not only was I going to be riding on the track, but my driver was scheduled to be Mario Andretti.
That kind of got me excited, because Mario is one of the best Indy Car drivers in the history of the sport, and I couldn’t believe what I was going to get to do.
I got to the track on Saturday and got all checked in, said hi to Brian, Rocket, and some other friends at the race. Donnie is the right rear wheel changer for Marco Andretti’s team, and I know Glenn, the crew chief for the National Guard car, so I made the rounds and said hi.
After hanging out in the pits and the garage area during qualifying, I went and got registered for the ride along. They outfitted me with an IZOD fire suit, race shoes, fire hood, gloves and helmet. I got to meet Mario and talk to him for a few minutes before the ride. He made us all laugh when I asked him if he fished. He responded kind of mischievously, “No, not really.”
I got to talk to Al Unser Jr. for a little while too, and that was pretty cool. To be there with Indy Racing Royalty was unbelievably humbling and honoring.
Anyway, they strapped me into the car as the first person in the seat behind Mario for the demo rides; which was cool because it meant that I got two laps instead of one. The first lap was pretty quick and exhilarating, but then he made the first turn and punched it and I couldn’t believe the rush of that car as it went from 30 MPH to 100 in about three seconds.
By the time he reached the top of the hill on the front straightaway I thought the car was going to spin out, but it stuck to the track and whipped around the corners. They tell me that the cars pull something like 3.9 G-forces in corners at Infineon. Then we hit the back straightaway and he accelerated again and I’ve never felt anything like that speed.
We got back to the pit area and I was so pumped up with adrenaline that I really didn’t know what to say except wow. That was one of the most exciting things I have ever done. Thank you so much to Brian, Rocket and all of IZOD Indy Car for setting that up.
We went to the race itself on Sunday and they had a privately owned stunt pilot jet team called Patriots Jet Team www.patriotsjetteam.com that performed for 15 minutes before the race; that was the best air show I’ve ever seen.
In the race itself, Will Power won from the pole; it was a pretty exciting race. We took some friends with us who had never been able to go before, and to see the excitement of the experience with them was fun. Advanced Angler was able to come to the ride along on Saturday, and they’ve put together a video of it that I’m sure you’ll enjoy – maybe not as much as I got to, though.
I’ll have the video and a photo gallery on my website soon too – www.skeetreeseinc.com
JW Player goes here
8/22/2011
Skeet's Beat - Wilderness
We just got back from a week of camping at a lake a couple hours from our house. The lake is called Union Valley Reservoir, and it is up at almost 5000 feet elevation and lake, the area and the scenery was just awesome.
We took the bikes and the kayaks and had a great time with the family. The girls rode their bikes a lot, and had a really great time riding up and down the hills and trails. Actually, Lea took a little spill on our first outing and she was a little tenuous after that, but they still had a ton of fun.
We fished a little bit. Union Valley has smallmouth bass and trout in it, so we caught a few little bronzebacks and some rainbows there. They weren’t anything big, but they were fun to stretch our lines and play with a little.
Along with that, we swam and played in the water that we could probably see down 20 feet in because it was so clear. Those high mountain lakes can get really clear, and they have some of the cleanest, most refreshing water for swimming and playing in.
I was supposed to leave this week to go and film in Florida with my TroKar Hooks teammate Dave Mercer for his Facts of Fishing TV Show on WFN. Dave and I were going to go to Florida and film a show where we fished for Goliath Grouper and Hammerhead Shark, but the trip got cancelled.
The guide who was supposed to take us out said there was a problem with the weather, or the water and made the last minute decision to cancel. It sucks because I was really looking forward to the trip. I’ve fished for Goliath Grouper before, and that was a blast. I was also really looking forward to going after the Hammerhead Shark too, that sounded like a cool trip.
Mostly though, I really feel for Dave; having to stop and reschedule all of the travel and planning for him and his crew really creates a logistics nightmare for him, as well as some additional cost to that episode.
Other than that, I’m headed out here in a couple of days to Spirit Lake to meet with Berkley on some new Havoc projects. Havoc has been a big hit, and I can’t wait to see what the team will come up with next.
8/16/2011
Skeet's Beat - FLW Cup and Late Night Eggs
Skeet’s Beat 8/15/2011
Forrest Wood Cup
I just got back from the Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Ouachita in Arkansas.
I went there for a day to work for Stratos in their booth at the FLW Outdoors Expo for a day. I flew into Little Rock on Friday and met Scott Arms from Ranger and Stratos and rode with him up to Hot Springs to be ready for the show on Saturday morning.
I was kind of wondering how many people I was going to know when I showed up. It’s been so many years since anglers had to make a choice between FLW Tour and the Elite Series that I kind of wondered how many people I would know.
It turned out to be really cool, because I knew about half the people I saw there. It was good to see old friends that I know from the industry, and anglers that I used to compete against as well. It just goes to show that this is really a small industry, and we’re all inter-related in one way or another in the business
It was fun to be there for several reasons, first, I love the fans, and I got to spend eight hours signing autographs at the FLW Outdoors Expo in the Stratos booth. It was a line that never seemed to end, and I really enjoy doing that.
I got to spend some good quality time with the folks at Stratos and we talked about new product ideas and about boat performance. I’m not sure how they could improve on the Elite 210; because it’s the best boat I’ve ever been in, but they certainly keep trying to make all of their products even better.
It was also fun because I’d never been to an FLW Tour event before. I got to go backstage and see how they do things and greet the guys as they waited to weigh in. I knew several of the anglers there, and was pulling for them to do well; but in the end, my TroKar hooks teammate Scott Martin proved to be too tough to beat on Lake Ouachita. He blew the field away by a little over five pounds, and if he wouldn’t have stumbled slightly on day two, would have won by more than 10 pounds.
I know the folks in Denver at Wright & McGill Co / TroKar were probably doing a victory dance when Scott won; that’s a big deal for him and all of his sponsors; a big congratulations to Scott; that’s really cool.
I flew home that night and picked up my truck at the airport to make the hour long drive home. I was just about home when my truck was hit by something and it scared the crap out of me. Turned out that some kids decided it would be funny to egg some of the passing cars, and at 1:00 in the morning, I was out in front of my house washing egg off of the truck.
While I was washing the truck, I heard another car screech to a stop and I thought he crashed, but then I heard him yelling at the kids and then I heard the kids screaming and running away. I hope he found them and taught them a lesson.
Anyway; it’s the last week of summer before the girls head back to school. So, we’re going to take the chance to go camping one last time this week; and we’re looking forward to that.
After that, I’ll be heading to Florida to film a Goliath Grouper and Hammerhead Shark show with Dave Mercer for his Facts of Fishing show, and then I’m off to Spirit Lake to work with Berkley on some new Havoc projects.
This week was one of my few down weeks between the end of the season and the promotional work I do throughout the offseason.
I spent as much time with Kim and the Girls as I could, and my oldest friend Jeff came to town for a couple of days too. We went on a couple of mountain bike rides, and I thought I was going to die before I finally got in the groove. After those daytime activities, we pretty much hung out at the house and talked a lot.
I got the Lucky Craft / Berkley Havoc Big Rig all cleaned up from the grind of the season. Now everything is all detailed and ready to get set for next year. The truck itself will get some maintenance and my Stratos Elite 210 will get the wrap pulled off and get ready to be put on the market.
My goal is to get the 2011 sold quickly, and then I’ll order next year’s boat so that I can get everything ready to go before it gets late into the winter like I did last year. I’ll be putting my order in for the 2012, and pricing out the 2011 for sale, and with everything this thing’s got on it; somebody is going to get a sweet ride.
We took a day last week and went to a Giants versus Phillies game at AT&T Park in San Francisco. If you’ll remember last year, I got the chance to fish with Phillies ace pitcher Roy Halladay, and we’ve stayed in touch. We got to go to the game, then walk down near the bullpen so Kim and the Girls could meet Roy.
Courtney was excited to meet him; she brought her little pink and purple tee ball glove for him to sign, and she was thrilled when he did.
We tried to get there early, but with doing a little tailgating and the walk to the park, we were arriving in the second inning when we heard a loud BOOO! Go through the stadium. The Phillies had scored two runs, and the Giants scored one in the late innings; the Phillies won 2-1.
I’ve got some business travel set up this month. I’m heading to the Forrest Wood Cup this weekend to do some promotional work for Stratos, then I’m going to Florida to film a show with Dave Mercer for his Facts of Fishing show, and then I’ll be heading to Spirit Lake to work with the Berkley Havoc team on some projects.
In between all that, we’ll be dusting off the camp trailer to get in one last hurrah of a camping trip before the girls go back to school.
It was a long, hot two weeks in Montgomery; down in L.A. – Lower Alabama!
Fishing the Toyota Trucks All Star Week was a lot of fun. It was a lot more relaxed environment the last two weeks without the Angler of the Year title being on the line. The head to head format certainly added a fun wrinkle to the whole experience.
Once again, the Alabama River had my number. I was really surprised about it too. I had a really good practice on the river, and was looking forward to beating Casey Ashley, but things just didn’t work out that way. My bite disappeared down river with the lower water levels, and I just couldn’t find the bigger ones.
Then, to see Ott Defoe win it upriver near the Bouldin Dam and the Tallapoosa River; where I know the kind of quality fish live. I just missed it, and it shows me how out of sync I am this year.
The highlight of the week were two things; seeing the Legends fish against each other, and getting a chance to be a part of the Hope for the Warriors event again this year. My partner for the day, Bobby Davis lost an arm in combat and seeing him go after it was a lot of fun.
We caught a couple fish early on a Lucky Craft 2.5DD crankbait, but the deal for the day was pitching an Okeechobee Craw colored Berkley Havoc Pit Boss over brushpiles and rockpiles then swimming it back over the top like a little bluegill was our best producer.
Bobby and I were using identical Wright & McGill Co. Micro Honeycomb Football Jig / Big Worm rods with a Victory 701 reel and a 1/4-ounce Eagle Claw Tungsten weight with a TroKar TK 120 Magworm Hook. We’d swim that thing over the tops of the brush and they’d choke it; it was a lot of fun,
When we got off the water, I gave Bobby the rod and reel he was fishing with to take home with him. It really isn’t very much, but it feels great to be able to spend a day with them and give back to those guys who gave so much for our country; even if it’s just a little bit.
Other than that, I’m looking forward to getting home to NorCal where the humidity is tolerable. I don’t think I ever fully dried out in the last two weeks.
I made it through the Semi Final round of Toyota Trucks All Star Week on Lake Jordan.
I squeaked through in 8th place, but I made it, and I’m really happy to have made it in. To make it even just a little sweeter, to finish one spot ahead of Kevin (VanDam) was just a little extra icing on the cake. Not that I have a vendetta against KVD; we’ve actually got a friendly rivalry, but to get a little bit of revenge here of all places was pretty cool.
I have to say, it was an absolute grind, and I almost didn’t make it through; twice. I thought I’d screwed it up around midday on Saturday when I jumped off a three pounder. To lose a good fish like that was almost heartbreaking, but I caught one again later and made up for it.
Then, I had a fish really struggling in the livewell as we pulled up to the dock for weigh-in, and when I finally got Chuck Harbin, the B.A.S.S. Tournament Manager to check my fish, it moved once and was certified as alive before it died, so I didn’t lose the half pound because of a dead fish.
Had I lost the eight ounces, Kevin and I would have tied, and he would have gotten in because of the tie breaker being most live bass weighed in. Obviously, I’m glad it worked out the way it did.
I caught most of my fish on a Ghost Minnow colored Lucky Craft Gunfish 95 on my Wright & McGill Co. Topwater / Jerkbait rod and my Victory 621 reel spooled with 20-pound-test Berkley Trilene Big Game line. I usually use braided line, but I wanted the stretch because I would have to make short casts at schools that blew up near me.
I filled in a few fish on a Carolina Rig on Sunday, I put a 10-pound-test leader of Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line on a 15-pound-test 100% Fluorocarbon main line with a 3/4-ounce Eagle Claw Tungsten sinker and a 6” green pumpkin Berkley Havoc Bottom Hopper on my 7’6” Carolina Rig / Swimbait Rod and Victory 621 reel.
I was able to fill in my limit on the Carolina Rig in the afternoon.
The water schedules were all whacked out, and basically, they pulled more than a foot out of my area on Saturday, and then backed up the flow on Sunday and brought the water back to the area; that was the main difference.
Now it’s on to the Alabama River and the head to head matches. My first one is against my Lucky Craft teammate Casey Ashley, and I’ll start practice on Tuesday after relaxing tomorrow and doing a little bit of tackle.
The Lucky Craft / Havoc Big Rig is still trucking. Thank you again fans for helping me get here; it still means the world to me.
7/19/2011
Skeet's Beat - Thank You Fans ICAST and Off to All Star Week
Well, thanks to you – the fans – I’m packing myself up to head to Toyota Truck All Star Week in Montgomery, Ala.
I can’t even begin to tell you what a humbling feeling it is to be going because the fans of our sport voted me in; it’s absolutely unbelievable. I never would have imagined being in this position after the season I had, and I can only say one thing about it.
THANK YOU FANS
To have one in a region that included stiff competition like Alton Jones and Brandon Palaniuk; amongst others was unexpected. I can only try to make it up to you by going to Alabama with the intent of fishing hard and trying to win the events down there.
I’ll do the best I can to try and honor your votes by fishing as hard as I can and try to end the season with a great performance. It would be a great way to make up for the year I had.
ICAST is behind us now, and I am really encouraged by everything I saw down there from my sponsors, and the response from the buyers was very positive.
Lucky Craft really made a great showing with the new baits they release at the show, and the new colors are excellent too. I’m really excited about the new Fat Smasher and the new rattling version of my SKT crankbaits are going to be awesome too.
TroKar came out with a couple new hook models, but the new TroKar trebles are going to make fishing with any treble hooked bait even more effective.
Then, the six new models we released in my rods; the new Micro Honeycomb spinning rods and the casting rods in my Tessera SGlass and SCurve series were well received and I’m looking forward to hearing what the public has to say.
Well, the next time I put my blog together will be after the first round of Toyota Trucks All Star Week; I can’t wait, and I hope to have some good news to share with you.
Well, we’re back at home after a week of houseboat camping at one of the nicest places I could ever even think about taking my family for a getaway.
We went to Bullard’s Bar Reservoir, about an hour away from home and rented a houseboat and went camping with our family and friends. It was just the kind of week we needed to get away and relax. We swam, boated and fished; a little, but mainly just had fun.
We went out of Emerald Cove Marina http://www.bullardsbar.com
http://www.bullardsbar.com there on the lake, and those people are always so good to us. The lake is amazing, the water is clear and it’s relatively uncrowded and it’s full of BIG spotted bass.
I managed to catch a few good ones in the little time I went fishing. I caught them on a Lucky Craft Staysee 90 jerkbait and a 6” Watermelon Magic Berkley Handpour worm on a dropshot rig. The fish were up shallow because of the high water, and I was able to catch a four and a half pounder, a four pounder and several fish over three pounds.
We got home and we’ve been getting ready for ICAST. I’ll be in the Wright & McGill and TroKar booths on Wednesday, along with a little time with Wiley X for a press conference, then Lucky Craft and Berkley on Thursday.
ICAST is a great place to get an idea about what the trends for the next tackle year will be, and I’m really excited to see what my sponsors are going to show, and how people will respond to the products I’ve been working on.
The other thing about ICAST this year is that B.A.S.S. is going to be making the announcement of the four anglers that the fans voted into Toyota Trucks All Star Week in Alabama. First of all, you guys all made me feel humbled to see my name as the top vote getter in my region as the “polls” were being announced.
I really hope that I held on to have a chance to fish, and if so; it’s because of you all. I’m looking forward to having a chance to go out there and try to end the year on high note. It should be interesting, and I’m looking forward to finding out what you guys said with your votes.
Thanks, and we’ll talk to you after ICAST – Later.
6/28/2011
Skeet's Beat - Family and Fans All Star Week Vote and Fun at Home
I guess I’ll have to start with the fan vote for All Star week.
I really would love a chance to go there; for a few reasons. One, I really want a chance to settle some old grudges with Lake Jordan and the Alabama River – me and those bodies of water got a score to settle.
Two, after the year I’ve had, I’d like a chance to continue the momentum I started at Wheeler Lake before I forgot how to count. I felt like I had turned a corner with the fishing and things were starting to go the way I’d like them to go and I’d like the chance to go after it for another event.
Lastly, and more importantly, I can’t imagine the feeling it would be to get voted in by the fans. We start this career because we love fishing and we love the competition. But, somewhere along the way, the fans really become a part of you and I’d like the chance to say thank you for their support by going out and kicking some butt in the Alabama heat.
With all of that in mind, I’d really appreciate your vote for the Toyota Trucks All Star week; it would mean the world to me. If you would, please go to http://vote.bassmaster.com and vote every day. Plus, you’ll have a chance to win some prizes too; maybe even a boat.
We had some fun at the Reese house this past week. We celebrated my youngest daughter Courtney’s fifth birthday, and Kim’s birthday on the same day. So, we had a kid party during the day and the grown up party that night.
The kids had a blast, we set up a water slide bounce house out by the pool, and the kids must have gone down it a thousand times. In fact, they went down it so much that Lea’s backside got a little irritated by sliding down the vinyl; so that was fun. After the kids cleared out, we had Kim’s party and everyone had a lot of fun with that too; it was a really good day.
We went to Southern California this past weekend for my brother-in-law Tommy’s wedding. He’s 45 years old and finally found the right girl. He might move a little slow, but I was really happy for him and his wife. It was a nice little ceremony with all of the family there.
Other than that, we’re getting ready for our family houseboat camping vacation, and we’re all looking forward to that.
Then, we’ll get back and start getting ready for ICAST in a couple weeks. There are some new products coming out from Wright & McGill Co., TroKar and Lucky Craft that I can’t wait to show you. And, you never know, there may be some other things in store too.
Later, and in case I don’t get to tell you before then; Happy Fourth of July from us.
I put an exclamation point on a sucky year at Wheeler.
This had already been one of my toughest years on tour when I had to go a make it even tougher with a bonehead mistake. In case you hadn’t heard; I had to turn myself in after weigh-in on Saturday at Wheeler for finding a sixth fish in my livewell.
After finally getting things on track, and finding what would eventually be the winning fish (I was sharing the water with David Walker, who eventually won), I was in the Elite 12 a friend brought his kid and friend over to say hi. As they were climbing around in my Stratos Elite 210, they looked in the livewell and found a fish.
Their dad asked if it was a shad or a bluegill that one of my fish spit up, and the kid said no; it’s swimming. I said “what??!!” and went to look in the livewell and saw a bass swimming around in there. I couldn’t believe it. I had to go turn myself in, and it cost me my full day’s weight.
Had I found it before I went to weigh-in, I could have taken all six fish to the scales, and they would have culled my biggest fish; which would have only cost me about six ounces because all of my fish were about the same size.
Bottom line is that I still would have been fishing, and had a chance to have a high finish; get some TV time or even possibly win and make the Classic.
I’ve played it over in my mind and I still don’t have a clue as to when I lost count; but, I did, and it cost me.
Anyway, I was on the right fish, and I was catching them on a Lucky Craft RC3.5DD in White Shad and a 12-inch plum colored Berkley Power Worm.
I threw the crankbait on my signature Wright & McGill S-Curve 7’10” Magnum Cranking rod with a Victory 621 reel and 10-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line and prototype TroKar treble hooks. For the worm I used my 7’2” Micro Honeycomb Football Jig / Big Worm rod and a Victory 701 reel spooled with 15-pound Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. I rigged the worm on a jighead for a little different action.
Anyway, on the positive side of things; I found the winning fish and was fishing really well; which was a nice change to end the season; I just wish I could have kept it going.
On another note; I would really like a chance to go to the Toyota Trucks All Star Week in Alabama at the end of July. With B.A.S.S. giving fans a chance to vote four anglers in; I’m hoping that I get to be one of those four and give Lake Jordan and The Alabama River a run for my money again.
So, if you want to vote for me; or anyone else for that matter, go to http://vote.bassmaster.com and vote every day. I know I’d appreciate it, and so would some of the other guys.
6/13/2011
Skeet's Beat - Little Rock, Big River
We had a lot of water to cover during the Arkansas River tournament. I’m happy to say that it felt good to catch ‘em a little bit better than I had for most of the season.
Not that I killed ‘em; I had some missed opportunities, but after a bad first day, I recovered and caught a pretty good bag which moved me from 82nd place after day one, up to 36th. I managed another limit on day three and moved into 24th place.
I spent the first day in pool 8; the top pool that we could fish, and I shared a backwater with Mark Davis; neither one of us did well. The area started kicking out small fish, when it looked like it would give up at least 12 pounds a day.
On the second day, I ended up only going up one pool, into pool 7, and that’s where I caught my 12-pound bag to move into the cut. My first keeper was one that was close to five pounds, so that made me feel a little bit better about the way things could go.
On day three, I actually stayed in the Little Rock pool; pool 6, but I decided to lock back up to pool 7 at around 11:00; Edwin Evers did the same thing.
I got into the pool, figuring I’d give it about an hour. I went to the area that I caught them in on day two; which had little isolated pad clumps that I was Flipping. I flipped my Berkley Havoc Pit Boss in to one of the clumps and heard a voice ask me if I was a bass fisherman.
When I looked up, I saw a little old lady sitting there fishing. She asked me if I’d be able to help her get her cork; I guess she lost her bobber, and when I looked back, my line was swimming out of the pads under the boat. I set the hook, and a 2-1/2 pounder jumped and came off. I was so pissed at myself for getting distracted with my bait in the water.
I flipped into the next clump and caught a two pounder, then flipped a clump of pads next to a metal pipe and set the hook. When I did, the fish; which looked like a pretty good one, wrapped me around the pipe and sawed me off.
I let myself get distracted and it cost me two fish that would have helped me, and if I capitalized on everything this week, I probably could have been in the top 12. Oh well, I’ll take an improvement at this point as a very positive thing.
I caught my fish on two baits this week; a Lucky Craft LC 1.5 crankbait in Chartreuse Copper Shad and a black / blue flake Berkley Havoc Pit Boss. I threw the crankbait on my Wright & McGill Co. signature Tessera S-Glass cranking rod, 20-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon and one of my Victory 621 reels. I was also using prototype TroKar treble hooks, and they worked really well.
The Pit Boss was rigged on a 5/0 TroKar TK130 Flippin’ Hook, a ¼-ounce Eagle Claw Tungsten weight, 25-pound-test Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, my 8-foot Flippin / Pitchin Rod and a 701 Victory Reel.
Now I’m in Decatur, Ala. getting ready for the last tournament of the season. I have to fish to win for a chance to make the Classic; we’ll just see how it goes when practice starts.
It was a relatively mellow break after we finished the Kids Fishing Day.
We went to a family barbeque in celebration of my nephew graduating and Memorial Day. It was fun to see all of my family, it had been a while since me and my brothers got together in one place.
We had fun. We played basketball and I think I beat up my brother John pretty bad; he must’ve been black and blue for a few days after the get together. I may not be able to shoot the ball very well, but I can certainly put up one hell of a strong defense.
Along with the basketball, we had a chipping contest with the cousins and nephews and my nephew pretty much beat us all pretty good.
This last week we got the girls together for their Pioneer Day Parade in Meadow Vista. Every year one of my buddies goes out there in his rock crawler 4x4 and the kids all go along in their little electric jeeps.
Lea had been using her pink Barbie Jeep for it, but told me this year that she was tired of the pink and she wanted it black and lime green. I took the ting apart, painted it and put it back together for her to parade in her bright jeep. She was the driver and Courtney was going to be the candy thrower in the back of the Jeep. Kim took them over there, and I can’t wait to see the pictures.
Another thing that came up recently was my friend Don Barone, who writes for B.A.S.S., Wired2Fish and Bass Resource has been working really hard to try and help the victims of the storms that hit the South so hard over the past couple months.
Don started calling it “Tackle the Storm,” and he was looking to friends and the industry to help by donating items to give back to people who lost everything in the storms. We donated some Skeet Reese Jr. Champion combos and by the time all was said and done, Don was forming it into a 501c3 non-profit corporation. He asked me to be on the board, and I was so proud to say yes.
Don is a great friend, with a big heart and I was so humbled to be asked to be a part of it.
I flew into Little Rock to pick up the Lucky Craft / Berkley Havoc Big Rig in preparation for the last two event s of the season and got a shock when I drove out. They don’t have any RV parking there, so I parked it in regular parking, and when I checked out my bill was $1200; I was shocked and pissed to say the least.
After that, I drove over to Mike McKinnis’ house; where I’ll be staying this week, and I couldn’t get my rig up the steep gravel driveway, and had to back it all the way down. Luckily, the neighbors have a spot I can park it at with power, and I get to use a quad to shuttle myself between the houses.
Well, I spent today driving around the area looking for launch ramps in the five pools of the river that we can fish. I didn’t want to waste time on practice days trying to find ramps, so I did it on Sunday. I probably drove for close to five hours by the time I was done.
I’m ready for these two events, I really want to give myself the opportunity to win one of them. It’s been a difficult year and I’d really like to end it on a good note.
5/23/2011
Skeet's Beat - About the Kids Kids Fishing Day Wrap Up
Saturday was the highlight of my year.
We hosted our first Skeet Reese Kids Fishing Day in the community where our girls go to school; Meadow Vista. Kim and I have always wanted to do a kids event, but we didn’t really know how we wanted to do it. When we talked about doing a combination kids fishing day / fundraiser for the Community Center in town; we decided to do it.
I have to give Kim most of the credit for pulling this event off. We decided to do it months ago, and with my travel schedule, she did most of the work and planning. It’s basically been a full time job for her for a while now, and she really pulled it off with a lot of attention to detail and a great deal of professionalism; I’m really proud of the job she did with it.
We got a lot of comments from people about how things went, and when they found out it was our first event like this; they were shocked. Even with Kim doing such a great job, there’s no way we could have done it without the help of the community and most of all; our family and friends. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this possible.
Saturday was amazing; we had pre-registered more than 300 kids for the day, and way more than that showed up to fish. The families kept coming and everyone seemed to have a great time enjoying the fishing, the fun, the food and the music.
I’m not sure how much money was raised for the Meadow Vista Community Center; we haven’t even had a chance to think about pulling figures together with unpacking from the event and life going on today. I’m sure that it will be something we’re happy to present to help get the Community Center on its way toward completion; but for me that wasn’t the best part of the day.
I got to see kids having fun doing what I love – fishing. With so many kids’ activities being about video games, computers and television these days, fishing is a lost family activity. I was introduced to fishing when I was young, and it inspired me to want to fish for my whole life, and we shared that love with a lot of kids Saturday.
I don’t know how many kids caught their first fish on Saturday, but it was a lot. It seemed like every time I went down by the pond, another kid, or their parents were telling me that it was their first fish; that meant so much to me.
I don’t know if anyone will turn fishing into a career like I was inspired to do when I was a youngster by the event on Saturday, but if one boy or girl learned that fishing was fun enough to make a lifelong hobby; then it was worth it to me.
A lot of hard work, preparation, energy and passion went into planning this event. Kim and I put a lot into this, but so did a lot of other people who really helped make this an amazing day; and I really want to thank them all from the bottom of our hearts; it wouldn’t have happened without you.
Wright & McGill Co., Eagle Claw, Berkley, Wiley X Eyewear, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Stratos Boats, Mercury Marine, AdvancedAngler.com, California Bass Federation Nation, Meadow Vista Lions Club, Meadow Vista True Value, Friendly Neighbors, Woodshoprocks.com, Best Buy, Newcastle Meats, Safeway Sonora, Beach Hut Deli, Emerald Cove Marina, Emerald Cove Marina at Bullards Bar, The Ridge Golf Course, Winchester Golf Course, Will Fish Tackle, TNG Motor Sports Guide Service, MJP River Adventures & Guide Service, Mark and Karin Zona, Reddy Ice, Mt. Lassen Trout, California Department Of Fish and Game, Auburn Recreation and Park District, Auburn Rooster Tail Fishing Club, Meadow Vista Merchant’s Association, Meadow Vista Library, Meadow Vista Fire Department, Mountain Mom’s & Little Folks, Meadow Vista Rod & Gun Club, Cheek Thrills Face Painting, Placer County Nature Center, Canyon Keepers, Placer County Youth Soccer, Café Vista, Jay Vanti Salon & Spa, Jamba Juice, Road Grill BBQ, Vincent Maintenance & Handyman Service, Joe Caribe Restaurant, Parkside Church, The Beda Place, Sierra Hills School, Roy & Brandy Halladay, Ivan & Mary Ichters, Joe & Sheila Coster, Sierra Pacific Reality, Dr. Randall Hensley, Sandy Edwards, Laurie Sweeney and our family and friends…
There's a full photo gallery on my website if you want to see the fun www.skeetreeseinc.com
5/16/2011
Skeet's Beat - Two More Wrap Up of West Point & Murray
West Point and Lake Murray are behind us, and I’m still getting the question; “what’s wrong with Skeet?”
First off, nothing’s wrong with me; everything is fine personally; I’m just having one of those years on the water that things just aren’t going right. I’ve been finding programs and patterns that guys are using to finish high every event, but a few bites here or there that go the wrong way, and next thing you know; you’re at the other end of the leaderboard.
Take West Point for example, I found fish on the laydowns all over the main lake, but there were so few of them on the lake that by the time you got on one of them, you might have been the 10th boat to have hit it that morning.
I had a one to two hour window in the morning at West Point that I could catch them really good on a Lucky Craft G-Splash 80 in Ghost Minnow color. Once that window closed; it was a real grind to catch good ones. My first fish at that tournament was a four pounder, and I thought I was on my way, but things went downhill from there.
Then, at Lake Murray, I got on the soft jerkbait bite that Casey Ashley eventually won the tournament with and on the first morning I had a five pounder, a four pounder and a three pounder eat the bait. I was so full of adrenaline from working the bait so fast that I didn’t give the fish a chance to turn before I set the hook; that I pulled the bait out of their mouths.
I was throwing the bait on my Football Jig / Big Worm rod, a 7.0:1 Victory reel, 15-pound Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon and a 5/0 TroKar TK180, so I should have drilled them; but I didn’t and that’s just the way it goes sometimes in fishing.
Back to West Point for a minute; I had two things that were really neat to be a part of. First was the resort I stayed at; Highland Marina. Denny and Shirley Brauer stayed there, as did Dave Wolak and Pat Golden and my old friend, Alan McGuckin from Dynamic Sponsorships stayed in my cabin for the week.
The cabins were some of the best I’ve ever stayed in at a resort like that, and the view of the lake was amazing. Tammy; the lady who runs the place, really took great care of us, and if you’re looking for a great place to stay for a week at the Lake, you need to give her a call.
The other thing that happened at West point was getting to take Gabe Hawks; a seven-year-old boy who’s fighting Leukemia on stage with me on the second day of the event. His family contacted me through my website and told me about Gabe’s battle and how big of a fan he is. Kim and I sent him some signed stuff, and when his aunt realized we were going to West Point; his home lake, she asked if we could meet up.
I talked to Steve Bowman and Kyle Carter at B.A.S.S. and they helped me set it up to take him across stage with me. The funny thing is that I actually met Gabe and his dad Lance in practice and didn’t realize it until we met up again backstage.
I was fishing in a cove when I bumped into John Murray and we started talking. Then a father and son came into the cove and the dad pointed to his son and said “Hey Skeet, meet your biggest fan!” and pointed to his son on the back deck. They then asked if I wanted to see the fish he’d caught, and held up a four pounder. I told him great job, and they went on their way; I realized that it was the Hawks when we met up again backstage.
Gabe is a real fighter, and he’s on a maintenance program for his Leukemia; which is now in remission. I know that his battle is tiring, but maybe we lifted his spirits for one day. Thanks to B.A.S.S. for helping put it together, and more importantly; thanks to the Hawks for letting me meet Gabe; he’s a special little boy.
A couple things that I wanted to talk about really quick was that I had a blast rooming with Dave Smith and David Walker at Lake Murray. We had good meals and good conversations. Smith is an amazing businessman, and it was really cool to get a chance to talk to him more than usual.
I also want to wish Steve Kennedy and my Lucky Craft teammate Casey Ashley congratulations for their wins the past two weeks. Both of them were hard fought battles; and they did great jobs. How Kennedy does what he does with such a carefree attitude towards practice; I’ll never know, but he’s a great angler.
Also, my sponsor Wiley X Eyewear sponsored NASCAR driver Matt Kenseth’s car for two races this year; and his black #17 Wiley X car won the Sprint Cup race yesterday at Dover. I’m really excited for Wiley X to have that happen; it’s great exposure for the brand, and I know it must have been a huge thrill for them. They seem to be able to pick a winner here and there; and they make a pretty good product too.
Kim and I are getting ready for an event this weekend that has us pretty busy. I’ll tell you all about it in my blog next week. Sorry for the long winded blog this week, but there’s a lot going on and I just wanted to share it all with you.
I’m at West Point Lake getting ready to start practice for the fifth tournament of the year at West Point Lake in Georgia. I’m ready to get the second half of the season underway, and I feel ready to fish. I know I need to start the second half on a good note and carry it through the rest of the season, but I’ll concentrate on them one at a time.
West Point looks like it’s going to be a tough bite; I think that 12 to 13 pounds a day is going to be solid. There will be some 20 pound bags caught I’m sure, but the bite should be tough overall; I need a good finish to get back on track.
Some of us took the time to go down to the marina at the resort where I’m staying; Highland Resort / Marina to go to a kids fishing club event that was happening there on Sunday. About 10 or 15 of the Elite Series pros went down there and met everyone and signed autographs for the kids that were there. It was fun to see how excited they got in having us there to watch their club in action.
While I know what I need to do as a professional angler this week; it all seems like it kind of pales in comparison to what the South went through last week with the big storms that ripped through the area. 130 tornados touched down, hundreds of people killed and missing and billions of dollars of property damage can put a lot of things into perspective.
I got to see the aftermath on Friday when I flew into Birmingham to pick up the Lucky Craft / Berkley Havoc Big Rig to head to West Point. Seeing the area, all of the destroyed buildings and tracks that the tornados took from the air was too real to imagine.
We hear about tornados and the damage they cause all of the time, but to see it only a day or so after they went through with such ferocity was absolutely chilling. Last week was a real reality check for me. I do what I love for a living, and whether things go exactly as I want them to on the water, I need to remember how lucky I am.
My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who lost friends, family and loved ones as well as those who are trying to dig out of the debris.
4/25/2011
Skeet's Beat - A Mellow Week Easter, Mowing and Friends
It was Easter week last week, and I was home to spend it with Kim and the Girls. They were off of school all week, so it was a nice time to just take it easy and spend family time together. Sure, there’s always work to be done around here, and we always stay on top of the daily workload and planning for future events. Other than the community Easter Egg hunt on Saturday and the one we did here for the girls on Sunday; it was a pretty slow week overall.
I mowed the property last week, and with the way the wild grasses grow around here; the correct way to say it is that I mowed, and mowed, and mowed. But, it’s good that it’s done; now there’s less fire hazard in the back yard. The wet winter we had made the grasses grow really high, but that is a bad thing once it dries out in the summer, so keeping it mowed down is important.
We had some friends over Saturday night for a big dinner, and it was really fun to get together and hang out with good people for a good meal and hanging out. Then on Sunday night, my friend Mike Mora; a firefighter from Sacramento brought some abalone over that he got while they went camping on the coast. We ate that, and man was it good.
Other than that, we’ve been planning for a fundraiser that we’re doing in May for the town where the girls go to school. The town built a community center and haven’t been able to open it for public use yet, so we’re doing a Skeet Reese Kids Fishing day as a fundraiser to try and help.
The town, my sponsors, the California Department of Fish and Game, the recreation department and our friends are all getting together to put on this kids fishing day on a little pond in the town. CA DFG is providing all of the trout, Wright & McGill Co. is providing a bunch of my Junior Champion combos and some Eagle Claw hooks, Pure Fishing is providing Havoc baits, PowerBait and line and Dick’s Sporting Goods has sent a bunch of stuff too.
Some of the more interesting items for the raffle are a Soccer Ball signed by Mia Hamm, a football signed by some of the San Diego Chargers. Duane Calkins form Woodshop Rocks is donating a custom guitar and we’re supposed to be getting some stuff from other places as well. Kim said she is going to try and get the Mia Hamm soccer ball. The event is a little less than a month away, and Kim and I are working on it as much as we can.
I’ve been doing some workouts too to try and stay in fishing shape, and while the first half of the season has not gone anywhere near what I had expected; I’ve still got four more events to turn it around, and that’s what I’m planning on doing.
A couple of top 10’s and a couple of solid finishes and I’m in position again. It’s been kind of funny how quiet things have been. People aren’t calling and texting, but when I string a couple of good tournaments together, and they’ll feel comfortable to call again.
I’ve got one more week at home, and then I’ll be heading to West Point Lake for the next stop. See you all there.
I gotta admit that I missed the bite at Toledo Bend. I mainly fished out in 15 to 25 feet of water with a football jig and Berkley Havoc The Deuce, and it turns out I was about 10 feet too deep.
I practiced for the deep offshore bite, and totally missed the football jig bite on shallow points that seemed to produce really well for some of the top finishers. Outside of being too deep with a football jig, I had a couple small areas that I could get a bite or two on the Rago SKT Swimmer; and that didn’t work out either.
My first fish in practice was a six-pounder on the Rago, but in the tournament, all I could get was followers on it. Two of them were big; I mean really big, and they even bit the bait. One was an easy ten pounder that swam all the way up to the boat and bit the tail of the bait. The other was an eight pounder that followed the SKT Swimmer; turned away then rushed back and bit the bait by the tail and swam away.
That sucked; but what really made it worse was finding out that there was a swimbait bite elsewhere on the lake that I never found. I started the event with super high expectations and I guess I was wrong; chalk it up to a new lake or whatever, but I just missed them.
The highlight of the week was where I stayed. I was supposed to stay at a buddy’s lake house, but it wasn’t finished, so I ended up at a place called Wildwood Resort www.wildwood-resort.com there on the lake. They have cabins, an RV Park and a huge lodge that can sleep something like 24 people in several rooms.
I can’t believe there weren’t any other of the Elite Series anglers there, because the place was perfect, with plenty of boat parking. It was the kind of place that I’d take my family for a big event, and I had the lodge all to myself. It was a great place to stay, and I’d like to return there someday.
I got reminded why I love my boat so much while I was there. I’ve been running this Stratos Elite 210 hull for so long that I sometimes forget how good I’ve got it. The wind was big on the lake, and because the lake was so low, we had to run the boat lanes. What that means is, you pretty much have to take what the wind gives you.
I took my first day Marshal for a ride. His name was Ross; a tank driver in the military, and when we took off, I trimmed the bow down in those two to three foot rollers and let my Mercury Pro XS 250 push my Stratos over those waves at 60 to 65 miles an hour and it felt like we were on air shocks.
So many guys punched waves and Captain Nemo’d their boats this week, but I had it good in my boat. It was actually kind of fun to push the boat a little this week and see how it handled the rough water. This was the first tournament in a while that’s been rough.
I got to go to a crawfish boil put on by my Elite Series colleague Dennis Tietje’s sponsor Southern Barbeque Company www.southernbbqsauce.com while I was there. I grew up eating some crawfish; my dad was born in New Orleans and we ate them all the time. But, it had been a long time since I had them as good as that.
Dennis used to be a rice and crawfish farmer, so he had the hookup to get the best and biggest crawfish I’ve seen in a while; they looked like mini lobsters. I ate a bunch, and surprised all them Cajuns that a California boy knew his crawfish. There was enough food leftover that I had enough to put in a foam cooler and take it to my great uncle’s house on Saturday night for a family meal; I ate it all again; it was so good.
4/4/2011
Skeet's Beat - Oh Rats, Hailstorms
I’m sitting in my room at Pickwick waiting for the weather to calm down.
We got severe weather warnings in the area and are anticipating tornados coming through the area this afternoon. So, instead of being out there practicing, I’m sitting in a hotel room waiting for high winds and golf ball sized hail to hit the area.
I guess it wouldn’t be a trip to Alabama without some kind of severe weather coming through.
The tournament at Pickwick this week is going to be interesting. Wilson Lock is broken, so we won’t be able to get to Wilson Lake until the third or fourth day of the event. What sucks is that I learned a lot about Wilson last year, and would have liked to give it a try this year; but with the lock being under maintenance, I won’t even be able to look at it until the third day of the event. Bay Springs and the other end of the lake are off limits to us too, so I think the lake is going to fish small.
The big decision will be choosing between smallmouth and largemouth. I think it’s going to take 18 pounds a day to finish high, and around 20 pounds a day to win, so whatever decision we make, it’s going to take some healthy sacks to win.
While those kinds of weights would usually mean fishing for largemouth; not on Pickwick, there’s been a couple of tournaments here lately that have been won with limits of smallmouth over 27 pounds.
We’ll just have to see how it shakes out, and how the weather affects the fish the rest of the week.
There was some excitement at home this week; Kim and the girls battled with rats. At first we thought it was some mice in the back yard near the barbeque, so we set some mouse traps out; but they didn’t work.
Our neighbor came over and said he thought it was a rat, so he set his rat trap out and put bacon in it as bait. Sure enough, they went out the next day to check it and it turned out to be a new breed of super rats that tipped the scales at like 100 pounds or something. Just kidding, they were 14 to 18 inches long, and when I showed a picture to someone on my phone and they said it looked more like a squirrel.
Our neighbor said he knew we had more, because while the one was lying dead in the trap, the bacon was missing. He re-baited and set the trap again and they caught the second one too. We’re waiting to see if there are any more, but we’ll have to see what happens.
Well, I guess I’ll go sit and wait for the storms to pass then get ready for another practice day tomorrow.
3/28/2011
Skeet's Beat - What Might Have Been Thoughts of Japan
Today I started thinking about where I was supposed to be this week.
I was supposed to be in Japan at the Yokohama Fishing Show this week for Lucky Craft, but because of the tragic events with the earthquake and the tsunami, the show was cancelled. I was excited about the show; it’s the biggest fishing show in the world, and it’s always fun to see everyone from Lucky Craft, as well as the other friends I’ve made over the years, but not now.
When news of the events came out, my first thoughts were the people that work for and with my sponsor Lucky Craft. I’ve been with them for almost 13 years and some of them have become like family to me, so I was concerned for their safety first and their business second.
Fortunately, the safety wasn’t a concern, because Lucky Craft is in the southern part of the country, so they weren’t immediately affected. However, how it will affect business for all of Japan is yet to be seen. I’m sure that with the amount of devastation, the country will be feeling the effects for a long time to come.
The country as a whole has been in my thoughts since, I feel terrible about what has happened over there and I hope they get the recovery started soon.
I’ve been home for a week, and we’ve done a lot of family things around the girls’ school and activities.
I went to one of Lea’s indoor soccer games this week and watched he hustle like she always does. I’ve talked about how competitive she is before in Skeet’s Beat, but it never ceases to amaze me at how hard she plays and works in a competitive setting.
She scored the first goal of the game, and she played really hard, but unfortunately her team didn’t win, but they’ll keep trying hard, and do better next game.
Kim and I took the girls to a movie last week, and I was a little disappointed in it. We took them to see Rango, and I think it was a little too adult oriented for kids. Kim and I kept looking at each other throughout the movie, and the girls kept looking at us wondering what the characters were talking about. I didn’t like it much, the theme wasn’t right for kids.
Other than that, I’ve been working out a bunch trying to stay in game day shape between tournaments. I did a yoga workout the other day that really kicked my ass; guess it’s been a while between yoga sessions.
Anyway, Pickwick is just around the corner, and I’ve got some ground to make up; we’ll see what I can get done there.
3/21/2011
Skeet's Beat - Frustration on St. John's Citrus Slam Didn't go as Planned
I don't know what happened for sure at the St. John's River, other than to say it sucked.
I thought it was going to be a good tournament when practice was over. I found a bunch of good bed fish, and a few big ones.
I was so sure about what I was going to be doing that I spent a little extra time on Wednesday doing my tackle before going out. I was pretty excited to break out all of my sightfishing tricks, and my gear was all ready.
I was really hoping that I'd get an early boat number since I drew a 90's number at Harris Chain last week. No such luck, I drew out in the third flight, with a number in the 60's.
I got to my first area and was ready to fish for one of the big ones that I had found. When I got there, Greg Hackney was fishing for one and J. Todd Tucker had already caught another on his third flip to it.
I decided to go try one of the other 15 or so waypoints I had that was a fish over five pounds, but they were all gone. I don't know what happened, but they weren't there.
If the weather had changed, I'd have understood, but it didn't. I talked to a few of my competitors about it, and we still don't know for sure.
I finally started fishing for small males; just trying to get a limit, but was only able to come up with three fish for a little over five pounds.
On day two, at one O’clock, I only had one fish in the boat when I finally gave up on the sightfishing. I picked up a soft plastic jerkbait and made long casts around weeds with spinning gear.
I threw it on a final prototype of a new Wright & McGill Co. Micro Honeycomb Football Jig / Big Worm spinning rod and size 4000 Victory spinning reel with a 4/0 TroKar Wide Gap Worm Hook on 20-pound-test Spiderwire Fluorobraid.
By the time I had to leave, I had pulled together a limit for around eight pounds. Not much weight, but at least it was a limit. If I would have done that all day, I probably would have caught a decent limit.
This was the worst tournament I've fished in quite a while. I didn't think I was on a winning program, but I was in the area with at least half of the top 50. I was hoping to be able to finish in the top 25, but that didn't happen.
My only frustration, other than the tournament itself is that I took myself out of the AOY race. I probably did, but I'm going to go out and try to have a bunch more top five finishes and make up for it.
I can't do anything about it for a couple of weeks. So, I get to go home and spend some time with Kim and the girls until it's time to go to Pickwick.
3/14/2011
Skeet's Beat - Survival at Harris Chain Grinding out a top 25
I’d like to say that my Harris Chain experience could be called “Survival of the Fittest,” but; honestly, it was all about survival.
Before I get too far; I want to say congratulations to my Dick’s Sporting Good and TroKar teammate Shaw Grigsby; he’s one of the truly nice guys on tour, and to see him pull out a victory like that was really cool.
Also, to Grant Goldbeck; you had an amazing three days; the best of any of us, and while the first day didn’t work out, you did an amazing job.
My practice really did suck; I mean it really was terrible. I spent the first two days fishing, not looking for bedded fish because I thought that the sightfishing bite was pretty much over. Man was I wrong.
The first day and a half of practice only produced a few bites for me and that was when I figured out that I’d better get shallow and look for some spawners. I went looking, and found a couple good ones locked on beds in a little pond, so I left the area.
The next practice day, on Wednesday, I went in there to check on them, and the four pounder I had found was gone, and the five and a half pounder I had found had been prop washed by someone, and she was all spun out, but still there. I went a little further and found an eight and another good one.
I went to the meeting hoping to get a good boat draw out, but when I drew a number in the 90’s, I knew I was screwed.
I fished for a while, with very little to show for it, then decided to go look in the spawning area. I found one four pound male still on a nest, and I caught him; but, all of the others were gone. At first I thought somebody caught them, but nobody did, I guess the storm pushed them all off the nest. I managed to scrape a limit, but when I lost three good ones on a Lucky Craft Gunfish 115 at the end of the day; I came in with a little over 11 pounds and ended up in the 40’s.
I thought that the second day would be tougher, but the fish actually bit better. I caught 13-11 and moved up into the 20’s.
The last day started out rough; I lost five of the first six bites I had early. The fish were biting funny, probably because they were mostly fry guarding males, and I just didn’t land them. I managed to scrape together 10-14, and finished 23rd overall. I feel pretty good to have scraped together enough to have finished in the top 25 after a bad practice, but knowing that I lost the fish that would have put me in the top 12 really sucked.
I caught my fish on two main things this week, I was swimming a worm on a 3/0 TK110 TroKar Wide Gap Worm hook, and 15-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon on my Wright & McGill Co. Skeet Reese Tessera Spinnerbait / Worm rod and Victory 701 reel. I kind of used the worm in a swim / hop motion; swimming it through the water until I got to pockets, then I would let it settle.
The other thing I did was Flip, with my Berkley Havoc Pit Boss in black and blue color on a TroKar TK130 Flipping Hook on my signature 8-foot Flip / Punch rod and 701 Victory reel with 25-pound-test Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon.
I’m here starting to switch gears to the St. John’s River, and because I’ve never been here, I’ve got to admit; it’s an unknown X-Factor right now. I’ll get out there tomorrow and see what I can figure out.
3/7/2011
Skeet's Beat - Filming in Florida With Captain Blair Wiggins
The day after I did my appearance at Bass Pro Shops, I played around on Lake Toho for a day while I was waiting to head to Titusville, Fla. to film with my Wright & McGill Co. teammate Captain Blair Wiggins. Our plan for the day was to go after some really big redfish. We were hoping to go out there and catch enough big fish to film one of Blair’s television shows.
We went out on the coast in an area called Mosquito Lagoon; which is right near the Kennedy Space Center, where they launch the Space Shuttle from. I can’t only begin to imagine how cool it would be to watch a launch from that close, but we were there on a different day.
We met up and went out in a little 16 foot Ranger flats boat with a 60 horsepower engine on it. We were running in less than two feet of water as we were going back into the bay to fish. Once we got in there, we started to come off plane and the motor was bouncing on the bottom until we stopped.
Once we did come to a stop, we had to push pole our way through the shallow water looking for schools of big redfish. We found a bunch too, most of them in the 30 to 40 pound range, in big schools.
We were sightfishing for them, and it turned out to be a really tough day for us. Blair caught one big one that weighed 35 pounds, but I wasn’t able to catch any of the redfish.
I did catch a giant black drum though. It was cool because I had a final prototype of my new Micro Honeycomb dropshot rod with me. I put one of my size 3000 Victory spinning reels that I had spooled with 15-pound-test Spiderwire FluroBraid, a new sinking braided line made by Spiderwire; I put a 15-pound-leader of Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon on it. I put a live shrimp on a 3/0 TroKar TK190 Tournament Tube hook and made casts to the school of drum.
It took about ten casts, but I finally got one to bite, and when it did, I set the hook and the battle was on. It took about 15 to 20 minutes to land the fish and that finesse rod handled everything that 50-pound drum tried to give me, and I’m totally impressed.
Those were the only two fish we caught that day, so we decided to try again the next day. That day turned out to be a bust too because once we got on the water the wind started blowing and the clouds came in. When the skies opened up and started raining, we all got soaked, because we didn’t plan on it and didn’t bring any rain gear.
Well, practice starts for our first Elite Series event at the Harris Chain today. It’s going to be a tournament that we’ll have to decide whether to sight fish or fish for them normally. It could be both, we’ll just have to wait and see what practice shows.
Harris Chain is the site of my first Tour Level win, and I’m hoping to find a way to duplicate that result.
2/28/2011
Skeet's Beat - Time with the Girls Chasing a Mouse
After the Bassmaster Classic was over, I took Kim and the girls to Orlando and Disney World for a fun family outing.
We did everything that Disney had to offer, and I think we started off a little too fast for Courtney. The first ride we went on was the “Tower of Terror,” a 12 story free fall ride that basically ruined Courtney for the rest of the trip. She screamed the whole way down, and wouldn’t go on anymore rides for awhile.
She did go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride with us, but instead of enjoying it, she lifted up my t-shirt and hid underneath it; it was funny.
Lea, our oldest daughter turned out to be a true “Thrillbilly” though. She’s finally gotten big enough to go on all of the big rides, and she did. Everyone that I wanted to go on, she went on, and the more adrenaline the ride would produce, the more she liked it.
They left on Saturday and it was heartbreaking to see them go. I really enjoyed being able to spend that alone time with them, and we all miss it when it’s over. They got home that night, and were all totally wiped out from the Classic and our trip to Disney World. They’re sleeping as much as they can to get caught up.
I worked a Bass Pro Shops Spring Fishing Day at the Orlando store on Sunday, and I had a great time with the fans. The seminar went really well, and I helped a lot of people pick out the rods and reels they need. It’s really fulfilling to see all of those black and yellow rods and TroKar hooks exit that store while I was there.
I’m with Ryan McCollough from Wright & McGill Co. down here, and we’ll spend tomorrow fishing the Disney Lakes. I’m excited though because they are letting us fish lakes that are not normally open to the public; I can’t wait to jack some pigs.
A little more work to do after that, and I’ll be heading to the Harris Chain to get ready for the first Elite Series event of 2011.
Well the Bassmaster Classic is over and it didn’t go exactly as I had wanted it to, I’m not entirely disappointed in my tournament. I will say this, I am glad it is over because I am beat.
I made the decision to commit to the Venice area which meant that I was going to be making long runs and burning a lot of gas through my Mercury 250 Pro XS. I really put my equipment to the test this week, in the final practice day and the three tournament days I pushed my Stratos Elite 210 more than a thousand miles on the water.
This tournament was not for the faint of heart, the fisher was so vast that you basically had to commit to one area or another and live with your decision. I fished a pretty clean tournament, and I’m happy with the way it turned out from a fishing perspective. Of course I would have loved to have won it, as would all of my competitors, had the weather stayed cold the Venice area would have been the star.
Everything lined up over the three days for the guys in Cataouatche, and they took full advantage of it. No one did it better than Kevin Van Dam and I’ve got to give him credit for putting a program together and capitalizing on his opportunity; congratulations Kevin.
I don’t think too many people expected this tournament to go down the way it did, how could anyone have envisioned breaking Luke Clausen’s record by more than 13 lbs. What happened this week was really a perfect storm and it produced an exciting tournament. I don’t even think the locals would have seen it being that big. I had figured that 18 lbs a day would give me a chance to be there at the end.
Several factors changed the way the Venice bite went, not only did the water warm up but the level also rose. When that happened it flooded the Roseau cane which gave the fish much more room to roam, making it harder to catch them. Once those fish get 20 feet back into the canes they’re are nearly impossible to catch. When the water levels are lower, the fish are in the canals around isolated cover and that’s when Venice is at its best.
What is amazing is that Venice is so productive that even with water temperatures in the low 40’s the bass would still nearly jerk the rod out of your hands when they bit.
I spent all three competition days with my Wright & McGill 8ft. Flippin’ stick in my hands. I used my Victory 701 reel, which I spooled with 65 lb test spiderwire ultracast. I used my new Berkley Havoc Pit Boss with a 1/2 ounce Eagle Claw tungsten weight and a 4/0 TroKar TK130 flippin hook. I’m really impressed with my Pitt Boss and I truly believe it’s the best flippin’ bait I’ve ever used.
Another piece of equipment that was truly impressive was the Lowrance Broadband Radar I had installed in my boat. I used the radar everyday of the tournament and would have not been able to get to Venice through the fog had I not had it. I learned a lot about it and believe it will always be a piece of equipment I’ll have at the ready; Lowrance really outdid themselves with that.
I’ve got no regrets about my decisions or the way I fished.
Now I’m the way to Florida with Kim and the girls for a little R and R and family time at Disneyworld. Then after that I’ve got some filming to do in Florida and it’s not too long before the Elite season starts on the St. Johns River.
2/15/2011
Skeet's Beat: Classic Week
What more can I say, it’s Classic week and I’m fired up. As far as bass fishing goes Classic Week is our Mardi Gras time. The one thing I’ll say about this Classic is it’s going to be different than just about anyone we’ve ever had.
The person who wins this classic is going to have had everything go right. There are tons of variables that could decide the outcome of this tournament even if the guy is on the right fish. Most of those factors have nothing to do with the actual fishing. This tournament is going to be a test of our bodies, our stamina, our minds, and our equipment.
The first order of business is just getting there and back; wherever we go. Most of the field will be making runs of an hour or longer and a lot can happen in that amount of time. Hopefully I’ll be able to get there, put together a good stringer and get back.
I’m glad that I’ve done this many times; especially for this tournament, because as players we need to be able to focus on the game and not the distractions.
Despite the cold conditions that we’ve come out of the fishing should still be pretty good. I know it’s going to be a different Classic than the previous three we’ve had here. As to who is going to win it’s going to be a pure guessing game right now. The person who wins it will have found the right canal and have it all to himself in order to win.
I’m going everything I can to maximize efficiency. I’m stripping the boat down to the bare necessities. I’ll probably carry five Wright & McGill Co. Tessera Rods and Victory Reels in the boat and that’s it as far as setups go. I’ll probably have two lures and only a couple of each, a couple bags of my new plastics, a box of TroKar hooks, and Eagle Claw tungsten weights. I’ll try to keep the boat as light as possible to avoid distraction and to maximize fuel economy.
One thing I did was add radar to my Lowrance HDS, that way I can navigate through the fog should we run into it which is a high possibility. I’m still processing my practice. I have some decisions to make and I’m just ready to get started.
I’m excited about the show. Kim and the girls and our friends will do a great job there. We have a bunch of new stuff for everybody. That’s another great part of the Classic; seeing all the people get excited about going fishing again while they are at the show.
It’s classic week and I’m ready to go; don’t take this personally but I only hope to see everybody from the stage; I want to win another one.
2/7/2011
Skeet's Beat - Ready for New Orleans Rig on the Way - New Sponsor
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. But, now they are resolved and my friend Jimmy Sparks, who used to be one of the “Dirty Dozen” that drove the Bassmaster Sponsor rigs to tournaments, is on the road in the rig.
Jimmy flew in the other night in time to go to a Lion’s Club fundraiser dinner. They had a live band and put on a great crab feed; which I never mind too much, and they had dancing for the evening.
There were four couples, Kim and I, our neighbors that are in their 80’s and some friends with Jimmy along for the ride. The music was great and we all danced a lot. Our neighbors said it had been 10 years since they danced like that. It was fun, and all a fundraiser for the Lion’s Club community activities; so, it was worth it.
I had some good news recently; I joined the Dick’s Sporting Goods fishing team with Shaw Grigsby and Mike Iaconelli. I’m excited to be working with them, and it’s really cool because I don’t have anything exclusive with them, so I can still do appearances and seminars at other retailers too.
I’ve got an appearance at a Bass Pro Shops set up for this spring in Florida and a couple to do at Cabela’s this year too, and they were really cool about all of that. They’re the biggest retail chain of their type, and I’m looking forward to working with them.
The Classic is just around the corner, and we just got in some new shirts, hoodies and sweaters for the show. Everyone that has seen them says they look really good, so I’m excited to see what the attendees of the show will think.
I watched the Super Bowl on Sunday, and it was a good game. I thought the Steelers were going to steal it away from the Packers there for a while, but they pulled it out. It’s cool to have a Northern California Native as the Super Bowl winning quarterback. Aaron Rodgers is from the Oroville and Chico areas, about an hour and a half from my house; he must be on cloud nine right now.
Classic practice starts Friday, and I can’t wait to get down to business; it’s just around the corner.
1/31/2011
Skeet's Beat - Birthdays and Classic Prep A Couple of Big Ones
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.
After the party was over, one of her girlfriends came and had a sleepover at our house. They started out playing the new Michael Jackson The Experience Wii Dance game. That thing got a workout. You can go head to head in kind of a competition and Kim and I battled it out; she won, I couldn’t quite figure it out.
Other than that, I’ve been in the shop putting together all of my stuff to get ready for the Classic. I’m getting my truck back from getting wrapped this week, so I’ll be able to load it up for the trip to New Orleans. This is my final full week to finalize all of the packing plans for getting the last minute stuff I need for the year.
Speaking of last minute stuff, we were able to get our final plans for the Skeet Reese inc. booth at the Classic. I’ll of course have all of my Skeet Reese inc. apparel there at the show, and I’ll have my Wright & McGill Co. rods and reels for sale at the show; but there are a few other cool things to add.
For the past couple of years we’ve partnered with Lucky Craft to release new bait colors at the show, and we’ll be doing it again this year. Minoru and I got together a while back and came up with four cool new colors to add to the line and they’ll be for sale at my booth exclusively at the Classic.
I ordered them on five or six baits, but I can’t remember all of them. I know that I’ll have them on the SKT crankbaits, and the BDS 3&4’s and some LV’s but can’t remember the others. They’ll be there, so come and check them out.
We put together some really smokin’ deals for the show as well. Last year we gave away a mock Skeet Reese jersey when somebody bought one of my Wright & McGill Co. Tessera rods, and we’ll be doing that again this year. Only, this year you’ll get a jersey when you buy a rod, or one of my Victory reels, plus, you’ll get a choice of a Skeet Reese t-shirt or hat.
We’ll have some Jr. Champion combos there as well, and if anyone buys one of those, they’ll get a Skeet Reese kids’ t-shirt to go with it. I’ll also have a new tackle bag at the show this year, and if anyone buys one of those, they’ll get one of my new color Lucky Craft baits for free.
There’s a lot to get ready for the show, and, if you’re near your computer today (Monday) I’ll be on Bass Talk Live with Mark Jeffreys and the guys at BASS ZONE .com; should be fun. Check it out at 1:00PM Central Time at basszone.com.
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.
Saturday was cool; I spent the day at the International Sportsman’s Expo show in Sacramento. I got to see a bunch of people I know while walking around the show. It’s always great to see people I haven’t seen in so long, and that happens a lot at a show like that.
The first thing I did at the seminar tank was to take part in the Ultimate Bass Round Table that my friend Kent Brown organizes each year. Kent brings in as many tip level pros as he can, and the fans get to ask us questions, and we all answer them.
The speakers this year were Gary Dobyns, Ish Monroe, John Murray, Cody Meyer and me. It’s always cool to hear what their answers are to the different questions that come up. We even get into friendly little back and forth jousting matches from time to time, which is probably entertaining.
The bass tank basically a big fish tank on a trailer that is brought in for the seminars. On one end is a platform that we speak and cast from. The tank is full of fish that the DFG brings in from the Delta, and oh my God there were some giants in there this year.
I got distracted quite a bit during the round table by all of these five to ten pounders swimming around in the tank. They told us that one of those fish was over 13 pounds. Some of them were starting to get pretty aggressive and roaming around looking for food. There were some little bluegill in there, and I’m surprised any of them made it through the day.
I had a nice honor on Saturday after the round table. San Francisco Chronicle Outdoor Editor Tom Stienstra did a little ceremony for me and announced that I was in the California Outdoors Hall of Fame. I’m not sure how it all came about, but apparently there are only two bass fishermen in there now; Dee Thomas, and myself.
I know this, to have my name and career accomplishments mentioned in the same list as Dee is something I never imagined growing up in the sport. It was pretty cool to hear that.
After the announcement, I did a seminar in the afternoon and gave the attendees some tips from my experience to catch more bass. During the seminar I decided to show a new crankbait I’ve been working on with Lucky Craft, and it snagged a couple of the fish. I had to let one of them swim around for a while before it came off.
Maybe I shouldn’t have, it could have been that 13 pounder. I wonder would that have counted for my personal best if I caught it?
Just kidding.
Also, congratulations to Gerald "G-Man" Swindle for his first BASS victory on Lake Toho this past weekend. Well done G-Man, well done!
1/18/2011
Skeet's Beat - Camping, Cows and Disco Fun with Family and Friends
We’re back from a camping trip through the three day weekend.
Our family and two other friends went to the coast. We were going to go to Doran’s Beach, but when we called on the way over, there were only seven sites left. Since we were sure we wouldn’t be able to camp together, we went back to Dillon’s Beach, where we camped over Thanksgiving.
Gratefully, the 700 campers that were there at Thanksgiving weren’t there this weekend, so we had a little more room to move. That wasn’t all the space brought us though, it brought us cows too. There must have been a herd of cattle that with about 200 that settled in the campground.
One of the kids, an 18-year-old named Adam slept in his tent and he got awakened in the middle of the night by something bumping his tent. When he opened the tent, a cow was staring straight at him; he said it scared the crap out of him.
We went out late one night to go try our hand at cow tipping, but they must have gotten smart to it after all of these years. They were either laying down on the ground or standing up awake.
We came back from one of our outings, and there was about a 1200 pound cow standing under our awning licking the table. We were afraid that if we spooked it that it would freak out and destroy everything, so we waited until it left.
We went crab fishing and poke poling for Monkey Faced Eel and had a great big seafood feast on Monday before we left, that was a great meal.
The kids got filthy, they ran up the sand piles and rolled down them, and then when we went over to the Doran Beach area to go use the shrimp pumps to find grass shrimp for crab bait, they saw how much sand the pump pulled up and started spraying it at each other; they had a blast.
The most entertaining night of the trip came Saturday night, probably at the expense of the other campers. We turned the stereo on in our trailer and the girls started dancing, then the moms and finally the dads all jumped in. Before you know it, we had a full blown dance party with 15 kids and adults going on at our campsite.
Then, when it got too cold to stay outside, we turned the Reese trailer into Soul Train, all the way to the strobe light. My buddy Mike is a fire fighter and he had an emergency light with him that flashed and it made for a really cool effect in the camper.
It was a lot of fun, but it’s time to get back to work, the season is getting closer and there’s still more to do before I head to New Orleans. I’m going to be at Cal Expo in Sacramento this Saturday for a day at the ISE Show. I’ll be a part of Kent Brown’s Ultimate Bass Round Table with Ish Monroe, Gary Dobyns, Cody Meyer and a couple other guys, and I’ll be doing a seminar too.
1/9/2011
Skeet's Beat - The Frozen North 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.
I’m sitting on the couch watching football playoffs and getting travel plans pulled together. Saturday’s games were great, but I hated the outcome of the Colts and Jets game. I’m a big fan of Peyton Manning, and to see them lose on a last second field goal sucked. Sunday’s games have been a little different, but they’ve been fun.
Now that we’re home, it’s time to get back to work. The girls start school tomorrow, and I’ve been working in my to do list. The boat and trailer have been at Sticky Graphics in Roseville, Calif. getting wrapped. The trailer is done, and he’s working on the boat; says things look good, can’t wait to see them.
My to do list includes unpacking boxes of my sponsor products for the year. My shop has got a bunch of boxes in it that have my Trilene and Spiderwire order for the season, as well as a bunch of new soft baits from Berkley and Hardbaits from Lucky Craft. I’ve got some TroKar hooks to add into my storage boxes as well as some backup rods and reels from Wright & McGill Co.
Along with unpacking the shop, I’ll start packing for a camping trip this next weekend. We’re taking the trailer to Dillon Beach for a little bit of time with the family. We’ll take the shrimp pump and get some grass shrimp to use as bait for the perch, I’ll do some poke poling for eel and we’ll fish for crab too.
That meal will be awesome; a boiling pot of Dungeness crab and a pan full of fried eel and perch; I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.
We’ve only got about a month left before we leave for the official Classic practice period and I’m getting excited thinking about it. I’ve got a sport show to do at the ISE Show in Sacramento in a couple of weeks, and that will be cool, I always see some old friends there.
Anyway, that’s about it from here, talk to you next week.
1/3/2011
Skeet's Beat - Mexican Christmas Fun with the Girls, Big Tuna and More
We spent our Christmas vacation in Mexico this year, and it was a great getaway. We’ve done all kinds of things as a family, and outside of a few activities, it’s been a totally mellow trip.
The girls have been enjoying themselves a bunch, they’ve been swimming like mermaids, and they’ve been able to experience some things with nature that have been really unique. They got to release some sea turtles from the beach into the Gulf of Mexico; which was totally cool. They’re getting ready to swim with some dolphins too, and they’re really looking forward to that.
I got a real treat while we were down here; I got to go on a two night, two and a half day fishing trip to sea on an amazing boat. The boat is a brand new 75-foot sportfishing vessel / yacht that we fished and slept on for two days. The boat is called “The Redneck” it’s owned by a guy named Murray Dallas, and it’s one of the nicest boats I’ve been on in a while.
We fished for everything from tuna to Dorado, and even some squid. I’d never fished for squid before, and that was a lot of fun. Fishing for tuna is one of my favorite things to do, and I personally caught four good sized fish; a 110, a 130, a 150 and a 200 pounder. The Dorado fishing was crazy too; the whole trip was epic.
The cool thing about it was that I realized when I got back that it was the first three days in a long time that I didn’t think about work. It was after I returned to the condo that it struck me that business hadn’t even crossed my mind once on the boat; it was just what I needed.
We’ll have a few more days down here but when I return, the business of getting ready for the Classic will be on my mind. I’ll get back to a hardcore workout routine, and start finalizing more and more plans when we get home.
The boat is at Sticky Graphics getting the wrap installed, and the truck will soon follow, so that means the season is fast approaching. Now that I think about it, it’s only six more weeks before we slide our boats into the water for Classic practice, and when I do think about it, I start chomping at the bit to get going.
Now that it’s live, and you’re reading Skeet’s Beat here, I’m really excited about the partnership with Advanced Angler.com. I’ve been a part of helping set up the features that I’ll be doing here, and with the plans they have for the site, I think it’s going to be something anglers will enjoy and be able to learn from.
Skeet’s Beat will now be here weekly, as well as on my site (www.skeetreeseinc.com)
and I’ll be doing as many educational features here on Advanced Angler as I can. I’ve always wanted to have a forum to help people catch more fish, and this is really something I’m excited about being a part of.
There’s more plans being made and announcements to come from me in the near future, so keep an eye out for them. Most of all have a Happy New Year, and may it be full of fun, family, success, and a bunch of fish for all of us.
12/20/2010
Skeet's Beat - Awash in Good News Skeet Offers Christmas Wishes
I went on a forced diet this week. The first couple of days of the week were spent battling Montezuma’s Revenge, and I lost about four pounds in two days. Not a diet that I’d recommend.
After recovering, I spent a full day trying to get an hour and a half of footage for one of my sponsors on the water. But, the reason it took a full day was partly my fault. The cameraman, named Cody from Careco Multimedia flew in with his camera for the shoot.
We went to the California Delta figuring it would give us the best backgrounds and might even give us a decent shot of catching some quality fish on film too. But, as can happen, the day didn’t go as planned. After waiting three hours for the fog to lift so we could start filming, our outing on the Delta lasted only a few moments.
One of the shots they wanted was a shot of me running my Stratos Elite 210 past the camera in a high speed fly by like you might have seen in the movie Top Gun. So, I dropped Cody off on a wooden structure that we call a pump house in the East Delta, and proceeded to get the boat in position to make the high speed pass.
When he was in position, Cody signaled me to start, and I put the boat on pad and got it up to speed. I steered the boat close to the structure, buzzing the tower as they said in the movie; I found out a moment later that I’d gotten a little too close to the tower.
I got the camera wet. I don’t mean I gave it a little spritzing; I totally drenched it with the wash coming off the back corner of the boat. As I turned around to see if he got the shot, I saw him wiping off the camera. As I got closer, I saw water pouring out of it – not good.
We got a hold of a local rental house, and were able to rent the same camera for the rest of the day, but in getting the camera, we had to go closer towards home, so we changed lakes and did it at Folsom Lake. I think we got all of the footage we needed, but I’d especially like to see the footage of the camera taking a bath.
Other than that, I got some news this week from my friend Don Barone, a writer who has followed us on tour the past couple of years. Don is my favorite writer, his articles always touch me, and they usually get me kind of choked up; okay, a bunch of them have brought me to tears.
A couple of years ago, Don ran a story about an orphan kid named Javier who he had learned loved to fish. I wouldn’t do that story any justice if I tried to tell it myself, so if you want to read it, I’ll let Don tell you himself in his story Christmas for Javier from Bassmaster.com.
Anyway, I got an email from Don this week letting me know that Javier had been adopted by a family, and that his Christmas dreams were coming true; let me pause to wipe the tears off the computer – thanks Don.
In the spirit of news like that, Kim, the Girls and myself want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, and a safe holiday season.
Thank you for making our lives a part of yours - Merry Christmas.
For more on Skeet Reese, his sponsors and career accomplishments, visit his website at www.skeetreeseinc.com
12/14/2010
Skeet's Beat - Viva Mexico
I just got back from a fishing trip to Mexico with some of the folks from Wright & McGill Co. But, we didn’t go bass fishing.
One of my favorite offseason activities is to go saltwater fishing, and my favorite is to go after big tuna. I really was excited to show these guys the tuna bite, but it was shut off. Instead of trying to chase fish that weren’t biting, we turned our attention to inshore species.
We went after Rooster fish, Pargo and African Pompano on light tackle, and the action was non-stop and everyone had a blast. I heard from a couple of guys that it was the trip of a lifetime. We caught between 50 and 100 Rooster, 50 to 75 Pargo and some big Pompano.
We were on two boats, and there were periods of activity that anglers were hooked up one after the other. Some of those activity periods were three to four hours long, and the see looked like a pot boiling on the stove there was so much action. Some of the fish were taken on plugs, and some of them came on live bait, but it was all fun.
We started experimenting with my tackle while we were down there too. We took my Wright & McGill Co. Tessera rods and Victory reels out there and battled some of those inshore fish on them. We caught some Pargo up to 15 pounds on my Shaky Head rod and 3500 size Victory spinning reel spooled with 20-pound-test Berkley 100% Fluorocarbon. Those fish had the rod bent all the way to the handle, and none of them broke; it was amazing.
We also took my Carolina Rig / Swimbait rods out there with my Victory 621 reels to play with the big Rooster fish too. Like the spinning rods, they handled those fish pretty well. Everyone wanted to hook up with those big fish on the bass gear because it was so fun to fight them on it.
I made a plaque for the angler who caught the biggest fish on the trip, and that honor went to Wright & McGill Co.’s National Sales Manager Mike Jackson. Mike caught a Rooster that weighed right at 50 pounds, which was enough to take home the trophy.
When we weren’t fishing, we had some great meals together, and enjoyed the time talking and laughing, which for me was the best part of the whole trip. Wright & McGill Co. has been a really good partner for us, and more importantly they have become good friends and it was great to spend some time with them.
The folks at Marla’s Sportfishing were our hosts for the fishing outings each day. They are operated by the Osuna family, they do a great job for us, they help make the fishing experience world class, I’d recommend them to anyone. Check them out at www.marlasportfishing.com/index.html.
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