Mike McClelland – Final Preparations Stratos Open House and Getting the Rig Ready

I’m still on the Stratos Open House circuit each weekend. I’m at Dawson Marine in Houston, Tex. this weekend, and these folks have been great.

Speaking of Stratos; I finally hooked on to mine and took it out on the water for a little bit to tune up some McStick jerkbaits for my upcoming outing for Don Wirth’s Bassmaster Day on the Lake Series. I can’t wait to get out and give this boat a go for real.

I’ve been spending time getting myself ready for the Classic practice, which is only a couple of weeks away at this point. But, part of getting ready is rigging up all of the new gear from our sponsors. I’ve been playing recently with the new Quantum Smoke PT reels. They feel really good. I’ve always used the Tour Edition PT reels, and these feel like they have all of the same features of our high end reels, at a little more economical price.

Knowing that I’ll be hitting the road for weeks at a time, I’ve been busy packing up the Tundra and the Stratos for the trips. I switched my Truck Vault from the back of my old truck to the bed of the Tundra, and it worked – with a little modification.

I put the thing up into the bed, and because I didn’t take the bed liner out of the Tundra, I had just a little bit of it hanging over that wouldn’t let the tailgate shut. Instead of taking everything out, I got my Dremel tool out and modified the bed liner so that the Truck Vault would fit. Now it’s perfect and I’m ready to go.

Aside from packing and playing with tackle, I’ve been spending as much time with Stacy and the boys as I can. We watched the football playoffs last weekend, and while I don’t have any favorites left in the playoff; they both turned out to be pretty good games.

I’m also now on Facebook so if you get a chance, find me on there and “like” my fan page.

For more on Mike McClelland, visit www.mikemcclellandfishing.com.