July 4th Weekend

Man I could not wait to get home. take a break from my summer job, and FISH! Joe had previously asked me if I wanted to fish the Friday night Lake Catoma tournament and I couldn't turn that down. I need every penny I can get. lol

Dad had been looking for another rig for the family since Jordan would be taking the Z20 that we had to school with him to fish for the Auburn Bass Club. We found the perfect boat!! 2007 Ranger Z20. My new baby!! Words can't describe how excited I am about the boat! I cannot wait to put some miles on her in the fall!!!! (Pictures will be up shortly)

Anyways, back to the fishing. We went out in the new rig on friday to Guntersville. We didn't get up too early since I got back late Thursday. We faced high skies and of course a TON of boat traffic. That didn't stop us from catching fish! We boated a few good keepers before the afternooon arrived and at one point doubled on a couple of 5lbers! Only of the fish was a channel cat. lol

We had to head back in early in order for us to get our stuff together for the night tournament. We were really excited to fish another tournament together and I couldn't wait to get on the water again. A lot of our good buddies got to fish the tournament too that night which always makes for an enjoyable time. We ended up weighing in almost 15lbs and took home second place. This is one of the good fish Jordan caught on a small finese jig.

We caught all of our fish on a Strike King Series 5 crankbait in ghost shad color and a brown 3/8oz finesse jig. We had an awesome time on the water and, like always, really enjoyed each others company.

Summer Interning

So I've found out a lot about life and the real world so far this summer. I have spent my time crammed up in an office at NASA Langley for a month now. I cannot wait to get out of here and get back on the lake! Being away from fishing so far this summer has helped me realize just how much I love it! Nothing makes me happier than being on the water and I can't wait to stay on the lake this fall!! Hope all is well!!

Matt

Holly Pond Tournament

May 23, 2008

Fished the Holly Pond tournament today with my brother Jordan ( who by the way is in FIRST place in the AOY Standings for the Alabama North series of the weekend series! Go Get Em JOE!! ) . We knew we were on some fish for this tournament and should have had over 25lbs easy. Of course it is always the "should have" and "what if." Well.. we started off at our first spot where we thought we would just wack 'em. The fish had started to spread out with TVA not pulling as much current and so the day proved to be a little tougher than expected. We ended up with just under 18lbs and had a 4+lb fish hit the boat and come off and I lost a 6+lb fish on a custom painted D22 from EliteBass.com. It would have been real nice to weigh in those two fish especially after it only took 19.89 to win it. Third place was ok for the kind of luck we had. Looking to improve on the next trip.

Auburn Guntersville Tournament

While I am in the process of creating a club here at school I still plan to compete in some college tournaments. I invited one of my good buddies, Will Foster, who has never been bass fishing before, to join me for the tournament. Auburn's Tournament trail is a series of three tournaments followed by a championship, all of which take place in Alabama. I wasn't able to attend the first tournament because of the BBQ trip. I made it to the Guntersville tournament, but I just missed the third tournament at Wheeler because the boat was getting worked on. Each tourament they put on is a friday/saturday tournament with practice on Thursday. It's really hard for me to miss that much school. It's amazing how the Auburn guys, for instance, get to travel and fish almost every weekend. With the academic rigor of Birmingham-Southern that would almost be impossible for me!!

Anyways about the tournament. Practice went pretty well with me catching a couple of four pounders in two spots where I thought fish should be holding. Day one would prove to be different as I scrambled around on the Northern part of Guntersville and only managed to catch four all day. I weighed in almost 9lbs. It was okay for me pretty much fishing solo but I expected more.



Day 2 would prove to be even tougher. With wind gusts touching 25mph and keeping steady 15mph all day, my spots were ruined to say the least. I only had one fish and only one cast left on the day. I had made a run back to a small pocket shielded by the wind. When I arrived I found myself sharing the 50 yard stretch of rip-rap with about 12 boats. All of them were fishing right up against the bridge so I decided to move back off a little, upsize from my Xr50 to the Xr75 lipless crankbait, and try my luck in about 7-8ft of water. On the very last cast I ripped the bait free of the grass and hooked into a toad. She felt like a rock pulling her into the Ranger.

I got her inside the boat and went nuts. What a way to end the weekend. I am glad Will had a good time. He only caught three shorts, but he still really enjoyed the lake. We ended up 13th out of 51 teams, which is not to shabby for my partner having never been before. Check out the story at the story, pictures, and results on the Auburn Website.


God Bless,

Matt

Matthew 4:18

January

As you might already know I attend Birmingham-Southern. It's a small liberal arts school in Alabama. We have a 4-1-4 semester system which allows students to take the full month of January to take a single class, travel abroad, or contract their own course. Well, me and three of my buddies decided that we should study BBQ in the South. You might be wondering how in the world this could be academic... It was going to be a writing intensive course and my main job would be to design the website. We took off on our trip and made it to 19 restaurants in 17 days, traveling to five states, and over 3500 miles. It was awesome. Little did we know how much media attention we would receive... We have had the pleasure of being on Good Day Alabama, Fox 5 Atlanta, and even Fox and Friends in NEW YORK!!! We have also been in over 200 newspapers worldwide... Crazy.. I know right. Just a few days after getting back to Birmingham, school started again. On top of that I have been working on a final barbecue paper, trying to balance a budget as Treasurer of my fraternity, and trying to start a fishing club. And on top of that, trying to find some free time to fish, update my website, and keep up with my blog.

I apologize for me neglecting the blog. Totally my fault! I'll do a much better job from now on.


You can check out me and the boys' BBQ adventure on our website!

What a great day for fishing

One of the coaches at Cullman High, Matt Hopper, sent my brother a picture of a 5lb + fish he caught over at Lake Ingrams in Cullman so I had to go check it out for myself.

Well I got frustrated after about five hours of fishing and only dinks to account for. I fished one stretch of the lake that always seems to produce and had a 3+ lb bass shake the hooks of my crankbait out of his mouth at the boat. I was pissed to say the least but I kept chunking the crainkbait. Not even ten minutes later I caught this little slaunch that went almost 5lbs. I was pumped to catch a pretty decent fish.



I can only pre-fish Guntersville for the tournament there on the 20th and 21st on the weekends and the Thursday before the tournament so I'm back at school for a couple of days. I'm gonna fish G'ville hard this weekend with my brother. I'll keep ya updated on how it goes. Maybe not too much detail but I doubt any of my competition reads this blog. ha

Catching hawgs errday,

Matt Lee

Lake Ingrams

Got to head out to Lake Ingrams for a couple of hours again yesterday. The bite on Tuesday was pretty good so I thought it would only get better as the wind picked up a little and I was right. I couldn't fish a lot of my areas from the day before really thoroughly because of the gusts but I was able to find one bank that was absolutely stacked. Big fish of the day was 3lbs 6oz and ended up having a five fish limit that went 13 1/2 lbs. So I was fairly happy with that. Not bad for a couple of hours of fishing. I caught my fish on an Lucky Craft RC 2.5 from EliteBass.com. All of the bass are just holding in 2 to 4 feet of water on that lake. It's a great time to go fishing out there. Looking at heading out to Smith Lake tomorrow so look for an update.

God Bless,

Matt

Matt. 4:18