After getting my eye in with some decent results in the opening three rounds of the single player College Series, I was sure that I could carry the momentum and complete all four events on the top step of the podium. You can imagine how I felt then when, after 30 minutes of desperate fishing at the foot of the league table, I came stone cold last of 50 anglers with not a single bass caught throughout the event! Although I did land a nice trout...

St. Lawrence River was not a location I has practiced much at and so off came the tournament jersey and back on went the jeans and hoodie as my avatar went out searching for inspiration and another attempt at the event in mind. Some alternative tackle yielded varying results and I added the Jenko Big T Fry Daddy to one rod in the loadout after a few decent bites whilst experimenting. Now sure I knew at least where to cast for the next attempt, I went straight back in to the final College Series event for another go at lifting that trophy.

Things seemed promising! The first catch was a nice 5 lb 7 oz largemouth bass and I felt sure that 5 more of those would see me fly up the table. But things died down and though the bass were biting with plenty of other fish, with just a few minutes to go, I was firmly in the mid-table with nothing heavier than a 1 lb 10 oz catch joining my first. When the klaxon blew, I was 27th with a total score of 10 lb 1 oz. Drake Nowlin held the trophy aloft rent-free in my head.

I'd seen what DTG Benjamin had been up to on the Dovetail Fishing Live Streams for the Online Chickamauga Event and realised quickly that I was wasting time with fish that didn't qualify for the event. Still riding high on the success of catching anything at all, I was reluctant to let large perch and trout go even though they were wasting valuable time in the College Series. Continuing to fish in areas where there were none was also a big waste and so for a third attempt it was obvious that anything beyond bass simply had to be cut loose. Taking time to understand the Fish Finder a little through the Getting Started YouTube video was a help.

And so, another 30 minutes in my third attempt were clinical in approach. The underwater camera would tell me pretty quickly whether bass were in range and if not, I'd move on. If a trout bit, I left that analog stick well alone and if I struck anyway, I either let them go or reeled the lightweights in as quickly as I could. With 6 minutes left to go the tactics were clearly working. I was 21 lbs up with some 5 lb and 6 lb large and smallmouth bass firmly onboard. Julie Patterson and Drew Isaac were 6 lbs behind me in 2nd and 3th and I knew I was in with a real chance of winning. To secure victory I struck a 3 lb 14 oz largemouth bass and decided to take a victory lap of the water as the clock ticked down to zero! More importantly my arch-nemesis Drake Nowlin was down in 7th.

In short - scouting the waters, ditching the time-wasters, remembering good tackle and moving on when things got quiet were the big takeaways of my first four single player events. It all seemed to work for this, but the real test will come when I hit the bigger leagues later on. I suspect this month's Online event at Lake Seminole will bring me right back down to earth!