Long Day of Practice

Put in 12 hours pounding the ledges on Pickwick today. Found several schools of fish. I think some of the key spots will get pretty crowded during the tournament. We have three more practice days.  I'll need all of them I'm sure!

Give-Away:  I have another Stihl ball cap and shirt to give away.  Drawing on Thursday of this coming week!   The winner will be chosen from followers or subscribers in a random drawing.

Behind the Scenes

Since I only had a couple days home after UMF before heading to the FLW event on Pickwick Lake in Alabama, I hastily got some production work done for Stihl's Reel in the Outdoors. I had five new episodes shot that needed what we call "sit down interviews". 

Basically, I tell the story of each fishing episode so the show flows smoothly. That is another very time consuming aspect of TV production that people don't see. With my producer, Jim Kramer, who is a breeze to work with and with my son, Ryan, who wants to go into video production handling the light reflector disc, we had all five interviews done on less than four hours. Starting early to get good morning light helped me as well since the temperatures were fairly cool! Now, I'm off to Alabama for my final regular season FLW event of the year.

UMF Winner

UMF Championship Belt

Today we crowned our 2011 Ultimate Match Fishing Champion! One Pro Angler is now $50,000 richer. As usual, production of the the final match took much longer than the preliminary matches. We didn't wrap the shoot and the season till 8 PM!  

I'm heading home tonight, so I can get an extra day with my family before I head to the FLW Tournament on Pickwick Lake in Alabama this weekend. My GPS shows me arriving home at around 4 AM tomorrow morning. Long, long day!

Over the Top

My co-host Fish Fishburne is over the top as he displays the UMF Championship Belt!

UMF Third Quarter Complete

We completed our third quarter final UMF match today on Mullett Lake. The new Evinrude powered Rangers are performing flawlessly and the weather and fishing continue to be great! Our crew is doing an outstanding job even though the production days are long. 

Shooting Aerial Footage of UMF

We were able to do lots of running and aerial footage from a helicopter before our Ultimate Match Fishing this morning.  It was a perfect, crystal clear morning. The footage looks fantastic. Oh yeah, the match was pretty awesome too. I love Mullet Lake and the Indian River, Michigan area!

All Stars

Today was the our first Ultimate Match Fishing quarter final match on Mullett Lake in Indian River, Michigan.  The lake lived up to its reputation as a stellar smallmouth fishery, with several big smallies caught by each angler. I wont say which anglers made it to the championship round, but I will say it is an All-Star lineup that you won't want to miss when it airs on Outdoor Channel! 

Our new UMF boat graphics and our mystery anglers