Jeff Gustafson - Livewell

The fourth stop on the 2013 FLW Tour took place this past weekend at Alabama’s Lake Eufaula.
My dad travelled south with me for this event to help me practice, and he also participated in the co-angler division of the tournament.
After the weather got us the previous weekend on Lake Michigan, I was excited to start over and have a good tournament.

Last week, I wrote about my upcoming six-week road trip to compete in three bass tournaments south of the border.
My Dad and I got things started at Sturgeon Bay, Wis. in a one-day tournament that took place last Friday. We spent three days practising down there before the event and had some pretty good fishing for those giant Lake Michigan smallmouths this place is famous for.

The past couple of weeks at home were a nice break for me. It’s a quiet time of year because we’re in between the ice-fishing and open-water seasons.
I’m back on the road this week for a lengthy trip, so I’ve been enjoying quite a bit of time at home getting as much housework and office work done as I can so that I don’t have to worry about it while I’m gone.

Most weeks, I write about my activities and adventures in the field or on the water. After all, I spend a lot of my time outdoors during all seasons; that’s just the way I roll.
But since I returned home late last week from my most recent bass tournament in Arkansas, I’ve been almost in a state of depression with this weather!

The third of six FLW Tour bass tournaments took place this past weekend at Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas.
After struggling at the first two events, I had a good practice for this one and ended up with a solid 45th-place finish, which netted me $10,000.
The goal in these FLW events is to finish in the top 50 because they pay big money down to that position.

After a couple days of travel over the past weekend, I made to Beaver Lake, Ark.—site of the next FLW tournament taking place later this week.
It is my first time fishing Beaver Lake, but my initial impression after a couple of days of practice is that I like it.

Each week in my column I generally try to include tricks and tips for my readers to help them catch more fish, mostly focusing on the Sunset Country Region.
This week I am going to talk about the basics when fishing away from home, as I just returned from a week long trip to the Dominican Republic where I had an interesting last-minute fishing experience.

For those us who like to spend time fishing, the winter in our region is always long.
We have a lot of ambition for those first few trips of the season. Once we get into January and February, however, we go because we like to be out there—though most days we really don’t enjoy the cold temperatures, deep snow, and tougher fishing all that much.

My thought heading south to Alabama this past weekend was that the weather and temperatures would be a lot nicer than in Sunset Country.
Well, there isn’t any snow on the ground down here but the temperatures are not much warmer than they are back home.
It’s been about minus-four C in the mornings when we get up and gets only a little bit warmer during the day.

Since I returned home from Florida a couple of weeks ago, I haven’t done nearly as much ice fishing as I’d planned to do.
I just couldn’t get all that motivated to head out in that nasty weather we had last week!
Over the weekend, though, I got out trout fishing on Whitefish Bay, near Sioux Narrows, and I’ve also been out a few evenings chasing walleyes.