I'm back home now after spending 5 days in Pittsburgh, PA for the National Guard Junior World Championship and the FLW Cup on the 3 rivers. I qualified for the NGJWC by winning the Virginia state championship tournament on the James River back in May, and when I heard this tournament was going to be held on the Alleghany (pools 6 and 7 in Kittanning, PA) I was very excited because 95% of my fishing is on rivers.

However I found the conditions to be much less than ideal when I arrived at the Omni- William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh. It had be pouring rain constantly for almost 3 days and had turned the beautiful clear, green water of the Alleghany into a muddy mess. Upon seeing this I had to greatly alter my gameplan which had relied on drop-shotting roboworms, small tubes, and small Lucky Craft crankbaits and jerkbaits. Now I had to revert back to the baits and tactics which I usually use on the often muddy waters of the rivers back home. Which I thought wouldn't be that much of an inconvenience because I was used to it, but I knew that in a river system like that where the fish were so acclimated to the clear water that any sort of color added would make the already tough bite even worse.

So when I woke up at 3:30 Friday morning and stepped outside the lobby to yet another torrential downpour I was slightly discouraged. We loaded up all of our gear and boarded a charter bus for the ride to the launch in Kittanning. After arriving I met up with Johnathon Newton, an FLW pro and member of the National Guard fishing team, and my partner for the day, a younger angler from Minnesota named Josh. After launching we headed to my first spot, a series of backwaters and islands which I hoped would hold some largemouth but it proved to be pretty worthless. So we headed to my second spot which was a beautiful steep, rocky bank behind an island near the mouth of a creek. This spot was absolutely perfect, even my pro was impressed lol, I was able to get 4 smallmouth bites on my homemade finesse jig but only 2 of them were big enough to keep and several more short fish on a spinnerbait and that was it for me.

I was extremely nervous throughout the whole weigh-in because it seemed most everybody had either zeroed or only had 1 small keeper and I thought I might have a chance at it. After waiting nearly 2 hours I was finally called up on stage to weigh-in and I took the lead with 2 fish for 2.7lbs. But the next guy to weigh-in had 3 fish and beat me with 4 something I think. So I came in second in the mid-Atlantic division and couldn't fish on saturday. But I ended up coming in 7th overall in the nation so it wasn't too bad lol. Also, the younger angler from Virginia, Ryan Drewery, also placed second in the mid-Atlantic division. This was the first time Virginia had both anglers finish that high in the standings.

I had a great time and FLW/TBF and the National Guard did a wonderful job putting the whole event together and making it enjoyable for everyone.

Here are a few of the pictures...

Seventh in the nation , that's pretty darn sweet !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!