They said it couldn’t be won from that spot. They said it would dry up in four days. Stier said otherwise. And he has the trophy to prove it.

As a good championship should, this one continues to change. The Missouri River’s water level continues to drop, the temperature continues to climb and the fish continue to move. Virtually all the pros have changed tactics several times, at least slightly, since day one.

It’s about 3 p.m. on moving day here at the championship, and you can believe there will be some moving going on at weigh-in. I watched Tom Keenan and Paul Meleen put on clinics today on the Missouri River.

I expected gray skies, chilled air and conditions more suited to autumn ducks and pheasants than the sunshine I was greeted with today when I rolled into Bismarck, N.D. It’s borderline T-shirt weather with enough sun to scald a balding head.

FLW Outdoors and several local organizations recently prepared a care package of pillow cases for shipment to Iraq to members of the National Guard. Women of the Marshall County Needlechasers Quilt Guild, Tuesday Night Strippers and Hookers, and Olive United Methodist Church, all capable quilters and seamstresses, were asked by the local family readiness group in Benton, Ky., to prepare 120 pillow cases. Gladly, they met the request and far surpassed it by stitching up 219 pillow cases. FLW Outdoors then paid to ship them overseas.

Things have begun to slow down on Lake Ouachita for many of the pros that made it into the final rounds of the 2011 Forrest Wood Cup. A few have burnt up their fish. Some are running out of new water that fits their patterns. And others have succumbed to the doldrums of constantly changing conditions. In the end, this event will prove to have been a true test of tournament fishing ability worthy of being called a championship.

The weather on day one of the 2011 Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Ouachita was abnormal for this time of year. It felt more like fall, with cool air, cool wind and occasional storms. We saw more sleeves and raingear on the water than shorts and sunscreen. Today, Hot Springs definitely lived up to its name. The sun is up. The air is steamy. The wind is absent. It’s flat out hot.

It was a slow day on the water for a lot of pros during the first day of the 2011 Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita. It was a slow day for the Chevy On the Water Update Crew too, as we spent more time driving and searching throughout cuts, timber-filled bays and shallow drains where the pros had spread out over a great distance than actually getting updates and shooting photos. Those 58 boats sure can disappear in a hurry.

This isn’t Curtis Persinger’s first go-round. It’s not is first hurrah, nor his first “hooah,” as soldiers say. It’s his third trip, to Iraq, that is. But this time everything is different. Capt. Persinger is now a co-angler member of the National Guard Fishing Team, a father to a 10-month-old son, Bryson, who’s growing way too fast for a father about to head into combat, and the commander in charge of 120 lives.

The Folgers pro's chances of making the Forrest Wood Cup
I started working at FLW Outdoors in 2007. The second tournament I ever attended that year was the Forrest Wood Cup held at Lake Ouachita in Hot Springs, Ark. To this day, I have never experienced a more exciting tournament. For that, I say thank you, Scott Suggs.

If National Guard FLW College Fishing fans can learn anything from country music legend David Allen Coe, it’s that even when you think you’ve written the perfect story, occasionally there’s something more that is needed before you’ve got it just right.

Day 1: Speed
The trend from the first day of the National Guard FLW College Fishing National Championship on Kentucky Lake was speed … that’s high speed. Most of the anglers we saw while covering the tournament in the Chevy On the Water Update boat were covering a lot of water with crankbaits, spinnerbaits and other power-fishing lures. I watched competitors burn their lures so fast that, literally, they had to hunch over their reels to get enough leverage to maintain their speed.

It’s not hard to understand why there has been a sudden surge in the production of shallow, square-bill crankbaits. Crankbaits like the Lucky Craft RC series have been dominating tournaments in recent years, and classic square bills like the balsa models made by Bomber have always been productive. But suddenly there is an influx of square-bill, plastic, stump-knocking crankbaits on the market.

According to a press release from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the legendary walleye and smallmouth bass fishery that is Lake Erie should produce another banner year of fishing in 2011. That’s good news to Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and Canadian anglers that live near Erie’s waters, as well as for the waves of anglers that travel from across the world to fish Erie’s, well, waves each year.

A Lake Erie ice adventure

A Patti’s pork chop … mmmmm. It’s almost as legendary in these parts as Kentucky Lake, as is the restaurant that serves it: Patti’s 1880s Settlement (patties-settlement.com). This chop is 2 inches of juicy, bone-in pork cooked to absolute perfection. And did I mention the clay-pot bread? It’s flaky, it’s airy and it’s baked in a clay flower pot with strawberry butter on the side. And then there is the dessert … hang on, let me clean up the drool.

Winter has been a bit boring around here this year. Deer season is long over. Right now, I’m playing in a rec volleyball league, but that’s about it. So what do I do to pass the time? I get ready for spring.

I watched a lot of “Home Improvement” when I was a kid. Tim Allen, Jonathan Taylor Thomas (“JTT” to the girls in my class) and the rest of the cast were downright hilarious, and I rarely missed an episode, including the daily reruns after school. Strangely, I always looked forward to the end of the show. Why? Because that’s when they ran the bloopers reel.

3.7 ounces … 6 feet, 6 inches … 17 colors … 5.1:1 retrieve ratio … dives 6 to 8 feet … and on and on and on. These are the facts, stats, specs and figures that clutter my office, fill my head and get typed into my computer.

Final day marked by tough bite

Heat, boat traffic converge on Cup

All about the brush