First and foremost, I want to take this time to thank all my sponsors for such a successful year. Once the 2018 fishing season was approaching I knew this was going to be a huge and busy season for me. I set some tough goals for myself this year that I wanted to accomplish. I would try to fish a few local club’s tournaments, since being President of the local Black Hills Bass Bandits, I needed to stay somewhat involved.  The real focus for me this year was to fish the SD Bass Federation trail this year, there was only going to be 4 tournaments to qualify. I knew I could not do all the local club tournaments with all the commitments I had going on. So, I only made 4 out of the 8 tournaments. Due to all the busyness of the season, I knew I could not do all, so I concentrated on the trail, as I felt that would be my best chance to qualify for the TBF semifinals.

I committed to the trail as a co-angler and chose not to use my boat this year. In the first two tournaments on the tail was on Lake Sharpe and I placed a 2nd and 1st with both days taking Big Bass awards. This would put me in 1st place in points with two future tournaments coming on Lake Oahe. This lake I am not as familiar with and not a real good deep fisherman, but I was able to pull off a 2nd placed on day one, but only an 8th place finish on the last day. But, since I finished the first three in such a good place I finish the year as the Angler of Year on the trail and will be fishing the TBF semi-finals at Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota, September 8-9 in hopes of finishing on the top to go the National Championship.

In the mix of all these commitments to try and fish as much as possible to qualify, I also signed up to be a Marshall for Bassmaster Elite’s that came to South Dakota during the month of June on Lake Oahe. I was able to be a Marshall for three out of the four days, Wow what an experience that was. I got to Marshall for Cliff Prince, Roy Hawk and national champ Caleb Sumerall. This was a once in a lifetime highlight of my life.

Again, I would like to thank Zeko shoes as one of my sponsors, I have worn my shoes for almost all my tournaments and they keep my feet cool and dry. And the comfort helps my legs, back and I feel they have been a major plus to my success, when you can have little fatigue, it makes fishing more successful.