From Harris to St. John's.

This is my first season doing fantasy fishing.  So far, I haven't much to complain about.  My Classic picks were ho-hum, but four of my guys made the final cut at the Harris Chain.  I'm pretty psyched about that.  I haven't really talked about my picks much because I don't really have a lot of time to really come up with any sort of strategy other than making picks based on consistency.  So, I'll break down my Harris picks and talk a little about St. Johns.

Harris:

A)  KVD - Picked because he whooped my be-hind at the classic and really, there are few as consistent as this guy.
B)  Bobby Lane- Local stick.  I was disappointed with how it turned out, but that's why it's called fishing and it happens.
C)  Rick Clunn- Honestly, I had no clue who to pick.  Clunn just stood out in that bucket.
D)  Chris Lane- Same as Bobby, except performed way better.
E)  JVD- I was on the fence between Palaniuk and JVD.  Swapped them Wednesday night before I went to bed.  It was a pure gamble that paid off nicely.

St. Johns preliminary picks:

A)  KVD - Cookies.  I've got nothing else to say.
B)  Scroggins - I'm not sure where he's actually from, BASS says Palatka and Bassfan says San Mateo which is supposed to be farther downstream near Jacksonville (depending on which website you choose for maps because Yahoo puts it 10 minutes out of Palatka).  But I do know one thing, the last Bass open there, he placed 7th in.  He's got very local knowledge, a positive record, and will have his own bed to sleep in.  Now.  Here is where the bait-monkey shows up with a nice shiny wrench to throw into the works.  Shaw.  This will mostly likely be a bed fishing show - supermoon style.  After Harris, do you really want to bet against him in favor of someone who finished nine places behind?
C)  I'm still not sure who so I'm going to say Clunn again
D)  I'm between Lane and Thliveros but I'm leaning toward P-T.  They're both locals but P-T won here a while back so that gives me some confidence.  But here's the catch:  He won that in mid-January.  No spawn then and it's been fairly widely acknowledged that this will also be a bed tourny.  How well does he do with site fishing?  Well, let's just say that the Harris event has made me a little leery of jumping in the 'gator infested canals with P-T.
E)  JVD  I'm fairly set on this one.  He placed third in the same open event on the St. Johns that P-T won, and given his performance at Harris, I'm willing to take another swing here.

So there you have it.  I have two picks that I'm solid on (and I don't care how hard you roll your eyes.  They both have cookies.) and three that I'm really soft on.  I'll likely spend the remainder of tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday second guessing myself going over stats and trying to find out more about the river itself  but the biggest theme seems to be this:  bed fishing.  As a side note, interestingly, Shaw only has 5.2% ownership as of this writing.  If he promises to bring more pork chop sandwiches....

Odd Finds In Odd Places

It's rare when a posting on a fishing blog starts with "This morning, while grocery shopping", but this is one of them.  You see, I live way out here.  I like it, one of the cool things is that we have a super Walmart -quit rolling your eyes...-.  I usually cruise by the sporting goods section just because I can and noticed that they had changed the layout of the fishing section.

I grunted a little, that indifferent, lackadaisical response that says "Dang.  I'm going to have to go through it all again" in one cohesive sound.  I started moving on and a yellow box caught my eye.  It said Strike King.  Square bill.  1.5.  KVD  "I thought these were sold out everywhere".  So, I decided for $5.5something that I'd pick a few up.  I wasn't planning on picking up any cranks until the Northwest Sportshow in March/April so it was completely spur of the moment, but it goes to show you that when everyone else is sold out that you can find things where you least expect them.