Q&A! Kyle recaps 2019! 2020 New Year Fishing Resolution! + Custom Built Rods!!!

Alright everyone, we are in Memphis, Tennessee, Collierville actually. We are at Hunter's family's place for Christmas. It is like two days before Christmas now. I think this video is going to go up the day we recorded. The 23rd. The 23rd. So as you can see right here, I'm actually building my own custom rods now. So that's what I've been working on. Putting a video together of that. I don't know what we're doing with this video. Hunter's idea just came here and set this up. So let us know like what are we doing? Okay, so I have five questions that I want to ask Kyle about the last year. It's going to be about 2019 and also about 2020. So are you ready? I'm always ready. So we didn't know we was going to do this. I have not heard these questions. But yeah, that's all from the Q&A video. Question number one. If you could go back all the way to January 2019 and have one rod reel and lure to use the entire year for every single time, what would it be? It's probably got to be a half ounce weight for flipping. I would use a half ounce tungsten 5-volt trocar TK-130 pegged 20-25 pound fluorocarbon and I would just flip the year away. That's all I would do. I seem to catch a lot of keepers this year flipping. Now the chatterbait was a huge player for me as well this year. But if I can only pick one, I think I'd have to flip. It kind of works in all conditions. And they bit it pretty good this year. Number two. In 2019, if you think about a fish catch, what is the most memorable fish catch that comes to mind? Or the most crucial? The most memorable one? This one I've told the story about the most this year for sure. It's actually my very first tournament bass of 2019. You probably know this story. First one of the year? Okay. Harris chain. I find one on bed on Tuesday. Tournament starts on Thursday. So I pull up in the back of this little canal. I see one. I think it's about three and a half or four pounder on bed. But it's about two feet deep. And two feet deep in tannic water with this visibility, it's kind of deep for a fish to bed. So I thought it was a three and a half, maybe four pounder. Shook him off on a practice video on a Tuesday. Comes around to Thursday, day one of the tournament. Cancel the day. The weather was too bad. So the next day, Friday, super cold. My buddies are like, man, the fish are gone off bed. They're not gonna be in. I'm sitting here like fish bed based on the length of the day. As long as the conditions are not extremely, you know, different from normal, they spawn based on length of day. So I'm like, nah man, them fish are still on bed. Drive straight over there. I'm about like 205 or two. I think I was about 219. Because a buddy of mine was about 224. Boat 219 takeoff. It's like a 45 minute drive. Pull up on that bed fish and she's there. So I pitch up to her. Told my co-anchor it's like a three and a half pounder. Pitch up to her. Five or six casts. Break the fish straight off. Turn around. Drive around the canal. Pull back up to the fish. Pitch up there to it. Sinks down. After I broke the fish off, come back 20 minutes later. Pitch to her three or four more times. Set the hook. She comes up. Jump. It's like a five pounder. Get that fish in the boat. And it kind of set the tone for the entire year. My very first tournament fish was a five pounder off bed that I had broke off 20 minutes before. Everything just went right. It's so hard to find a male that big. It had to be a male because it stayed there for literally at least from Tuesday till Friday. So in my opinion, a female in Florida stays there for like four hours is all that's on bed and they leave. So it had to be a big giant male which is rare in the first place. And I broke it off. So everything just went perfect for that fish catch. First one of the year. Five pounder. And it's on video? Yeah, it's on video. And we can show that right now. That video has actually been set to private because I thought I was going there for next year. So y'all haven't seen that in a while and I'm still not going to make that video public. So we're not going to post it? We'll put that clip. We can put that clip in. Okay. Bigger. Bigger. Real big. You need some help? That is a good one. Don't break that fish. Good job son. Good job. It's bigger than I thought. A lot bigger than you thought. I caught him at three or three and a half. It took me 35 minutes. Mwah. Mwah. Number three. I think I know the answer to this one. What is your most memorable from 2019 fish loss or break on? I think I remember this one. You know, honestly don't rub your, okay. Honestly, um, whenever I lose a fish, I put it out of my mind. Like, the way I see it, if you catch on a normal tournament day, I'm trying to catch 10 or 12 fish. Obviously I want to catch 100, but usually if you catch a lot you're catching small ones. So I'm usually trying to catch 10, 12, 15 fish is a good tournament day. And in my opinion if you get 12 bites a day you're just going to lose one. So whenever I lose a fish, I think it just has to happen. You have to lose one and able to catch the other 11 out of 12. So when I lose one, I don't think about it. So I have absolutely nothing that sticks out that is a loss or broken off fish. Oh, you don't? No. I do have a fish that I caught that I almost wish I wouldn't have caught. It was a four pounder on Chickamauga on day one of the Bass Open. My worst tournament of the year, I run up a different river after I've been up the good river all day, run up a different river, catch a four pounder, and it made me spend like too much time in the bad river for that time of year. But that four pounder really missteered me. So that's one memorable fish that I almost wish I wouldn't have caught. It was my biggest fish of the tournament. But I kind of wish I wouldn't have caught it because I would have made better adjustments on day two if I would not have caught that fish. But anyways, so you have one in mind that I don't know about? Yes. And I can show the clip right here. I don't know what lake it was on, but I remember editing the video. Okay. It was in this giant tree. It was right after you saved that turtle. Watts Bar Lake BFL. Yep, I had a three pounder, maybe three and a quarter, hooked on in a limb. So I pitch in there, make a long pitch, I'm in the current, current's ripping, set the hook on the fish, get him to the surface, and somehow the fish jumped over a limb, tied himself in a knot on the line, and the line was just burning on itself. So I just point the trolling motor right at the thing, I'm going as fast as I can into the tree, and I can't get at the right angle where I can reach the fish, so I'm sitting there holding the line tight, trying to reach him, and he breaks off, comes up and jumps, and then goes back into the water, broken off of my line after I went head first into it. So, yep, that was definitely one that I lost that hurt. That entire day actually was awful. Yeah, it was a rough video. I lost enough fish where I should have been close to leaving that tournament, but like I said, I didn't even think about that because... So that's my most memorable fish of all. Yeah, so, I didn't have one that I had... I don't dwell on that kind of stuff. I try to be positive all the time, so yeah, I didn't know. But yeah, that's definitely a memorable one. Okay, number four. I was here for this, but I don't know if they know the story about it. Let's talk about your 2019 PB. And tell the story about it. I think in 2019 I caught two that weighed eight pounds, two ounces. Well, tell the story about mine. Okay, so I don't know what happened, but there's a river on Chickamauga that usually is known for two-pounders. You usually go up there and catch a lot of two-pounders. And for whatever reason, there were some bream beds in these current eddies up this river. And whenever we kind of figured this pattern out, you could go and you could see big fish cruising around these bream beds. And it's like overnight the fish you was catching up there just all of a sudden were three pounds and bigger. And we actually made a video of that. We got in the back of one of these eddies and it just started going down. I skipped under a bush, catch one that was like a three, three-and-a-quarter pounder. Five casts later, I caught one that was eight-two. It was like a giant for a frog. I skipped under this bush, twitched it like three times, and it just came up in this eddy and just crushed this giant. Eight-pounder crushed a frog, which is amazing. Had it on a seven-foot-six rod. And kind of whooped his tail, bring him to the boat. I just kind of reeled him straight on in with an 8.21, just drug him in. Hunter grabbed him, actually broke one of Hunter's fingernails that cost no telling how much it cost. Caught this eight-pounder. It was a phenomenal fish catch. One of the last fish catches that we caught on Chickamauga, actually, because we moved from there not long after. Put the fish in a live well, take a couple pictures, and make about five more casts, and then catch like a four, four-and-a-half pounder right after. So, in the span of about ten minutes, I caught a three-and-a-quarter, an eight-two, and then a four-and-a-half. And then, we were fishing a termite that Saturday, so I literally stopped catching fish because it was just stupid there for a while. Anyway, the termite was that Saturday. Came back up there and caught almost 20 pounds off the same bushes in the same eddies on the same brim bed. So, for some reason, them biggers just got in there, and that was a fantastic way to catch one. Eight-pounder on a frog. Big, and big, and big old one. Holy crap. I'll get him. Oh, my gosh, dude. Okay, get him. That's like an eight-pounder. You got to get him soon. Do you have him? Oh, my God, look at that one, dude. That's like a freaking seven- or eight-pounder. Oh, my gosh. Let's get real. Give me this dude. Give me my big girl. Oh, my gosh. We did him Saturday in that freaking tournament. Oh, he broke your fingernail? Yeah. I thought about swinging him. See, it was in his mouth. Look at this freaking thing. That is crazy. We're keeping that. That's like an eight-pounder. I'm serious. That's like a freaking eight-pounder. Why don't I try to fish hide another one? I caught two this year. Santee Cooper was another one that probably I don't know. We got the video, though, right here. This is an honorable mention. This was like a 7'12", or 7'14", or 7'10". It was like a seven-and-three-quarters pound bass. I caught on a frog, so this video right here is another one. You caught both of them on a frog? Yeah, this was on a solid white. Nope. This stuff is... Never mind. We're going to Santee Cooper next year. We ain't showing this one. I forgot. Yeah, these videos are private, and we ain't posting them. I'm sorry. We're not posting anything about Santee, because we're going there almost same time of year, next year. Honorable mention, we caught a 7'12", out of Santee Cooper, big one. Not showing it, though. Sorry. I forgot. Okay. Last question. Number five. This one obviously has to be about 2020, because you said the questions were about both years, and we have not heard about 2020 yet. Let's hear about what's going down in 2020. It's not really about 2020. It's more something about how you're going to approach it. I want to know what your 2020 New Year's resolution for fishing is. For fishing, for 2020, is to never get complacent, never get spun out. One of the things that is hard when it's 11 o'clock and you've got 1'12". It ain't easy to stay open-minded, to stay analytical, and to stay fresh about making decisions. You might have one area of the entire lake where you're like, I think this is the best area, this is the only area I think I can catch five in, and then you done fished it for three days straight, and you ain't never caught a fish off this bank, this bank, and this bank, and then you hit the three banks you have been catching fish off of, and you got one for 12". It's just nice to stay fresh and say, just because I haven't caught one here, maybe the conditions are right, I can go here, or just to stay completely fresh whenever things are going bad. It's a tough thing to do, but if I can do that all year, I'll be happy with myself. I don't, you know, like I said earlier, losing fish and stuff like that, that doesn't bother me, but if I make a bad decision, if I pull into an area and I fished around for 45 minutes and ain't had a bite, but I caught them there the day before, if I stay there for three hours and ain't had a bite, that is a huge mistake, and that's the kind of stuff you just can't do. I'm excited to see how I do fishing against the Elite Series Anglers, because if I'm at the top of my game, I know I can hang with them, but if I make bad decisions, you know, continuously making bad decisions at all the lakes, staying too long, running when I shouldn't run, that's the kind of stuff where you can make you have a bad year, so if I can stay fresh, make good decisions, I'll be happy. Just, you know, don't do anything based off emotion or what happened before. You just make good decisions, and you'll catch them. Just gotta remember that. That's it. That's it. That's all my New Year's resolution. Don't get spun out, don't get in a hurry, and don't waste time. Wasting time in a tournament is huge. In the meantime, check this bad boy out. This sucker is so light. It is unreal. And it's purple. It is purple wrap. A lot of people are going to say, Kyle, you got that eye on backwards. So, we just got back from the Angler's Resources in Philly, Alabama. This is a new concept guide that is angled where you have to put it this way, or this is the correct way to put it anyway. So, it does look funny, but I was just talking to the guy who... It looks backwards. Yeah, it looks backwards, but I was just talking to the guy who knows what he's talking about when it comes to this. He said this is the correct way to do it as far as not getting any kind of tangled, so that's what we're doing. Oh, and the next video is going to be Kyle making his very own rod. Actually, the next video is going to be speckled trout fishing in the Mobile Bay, but after that, we're making rods. So, if y'all like hearing me answer questions, leave some extra questions in the comments. Hunter will remember everything that anybody's ever commented, ever. So, any comments now, it'll probably be a year before we make another Q&A video, but Hunter will remember the questions. Unless you like the video. Yeah, if you like the video. If it actually does well as a video, we might do another one, but anyways, leave a like, leave a comment, hit that subscribe button. Hunter had an idea that I think I'm going to let her tell you about because I don't like giving my goodies away, so she's going to have to be in charge of this. Okay, so we are going to give away one Christmas present to one subscriber. If you subscribe to Kyle's channel, leave a comment down below on this video, and also like his Kyle Welcher Fishing Facebook page, we will pick a winner. The Kyle Welcher Fishing Facebook page is pretty skimpy. It ain't doing too well. It's on live support right now, so y'all go there and give it some CPR. We need likes. Yep, that'll be good. And you will get a goodie, but it's a secret goodie. We can't tell you yet. Alright, that's it. That's it from us. We will see y'all next time. The next video will be speckled trout fishing. I know a lot of y'all might not like that because you're bass guys. I've never been speckled trout fishing before, but we caught a few, so check back in probably two days. Probably Wednesday, we'll have a speckled trout video. Wait, that's Christmas. Yeah, it's Christmas. Probably Christmas. Christmas. Don't forget to subscribe. Kyle, what is your top favorite boat snack? Granola bar. What? Did he say granola bar? Okay, we're about to have a guest on. This is my favorite person in the whole world besides Kyle. This is my little brother Ace, and he has a question that he wants to ask Kyle. Ideally, how long would you like it to take you to get all the eyes on a wrap? Let's see. 30 minutes? Maybe 25 or 30 minutes ideally, but this one right here took me about four days. So, we need to cut the time down. Yeah, 25 or 30 minutes to get all the eyes on, all the wrapping. That'd be good. How fast could you do it? Uh, three years. Three years, all right. Next up, we got Hunter's Pops. So, let's see. We got any questions? All right, Kyle. Five minutes. What's wrong with that? Nothing. I don't know what they're doing. Why are they laughing at you? Five minutes what? All right, Kyle. There's five minutes left in the tournament. You're three minutes from the weigh-in. What is your ideal situation to pull up to and your ideal bait to be throwing that you need to land a four-pounder to win the tournament? Okay. This is something we come across a lot. He's a fish with me, so we actually did this a lot. So, what I look for headed back to the ramp, and by the way, if we're three minutes away and we got five minutes to get there, I'm probably going to fish for five minutes. We've made it a lot of times with ten seconds left. I'm looking for whatever is the most isolated. It doesn't matter what I drive by. If there's one single dot that sticks out far, if there's one lay-down tree that's all by itself, anything really, really isolated because it doesn't take a lot of time to fish. I can pull up to a tree and flip it five times in one minute and hit a really, really high percentage area. It takes me one minute to fish the entire tree and it's super isolated. So, when I'm running back to weigh-in, I'm looking for anything isolated that I can pull up to and fish fast. As far as the bait is concerned, I like anything that I can get into the cover quickly and get out of the cover. So, something like a jig, something like a flipping bait. If we're fishing current seams or something like that, I'm going to pull up on a point that's pretty isolated and throw a crankbait or something like that. Anything I can get into the cover very efficiently is what I want to use in the last couple minutes of a tournament and on a super high percentage area, that's what I'm looking for. It's paid off a few times. It usually seems like the worse you need one, the easier it is to get a bite. I don't know, it's always seemed like that, but that's what I like doing. Okay, so now that I see the theme here, I'm answering all these hardball questions. I'm going to call my grandmother, who is, as the kids would say, A1 since day one. So, we're going to call her, see if she'll pick up and see if she'll answer a question. Let's see what's going on with her. I call her Nana, by the way. Hello? What you doing? What you doing calling me from a different number? I'm trying to, I know you don't answer my phone, so I've got to call you from somebody else's. Nah. Okay, we're putting you in a I thought maybe by some miracle Hunter was calling me. You're on a video. We're putting you in a YouTube video. What? Yep, so you've got to ask me one question. It's going to be on my YouTube channel. You've got to ask me one question about anything fishing related or whatever, and I've got to answer it on video. Like what, Connor? You're going to have to tell me what. You've got to ask the question. Any question. You ready? I am ready. Oh. Yep. What are you looking forward to the most when you're fishing the lake? I'm sure it's winning. Yeah, winning would be nice. Qualifying for the Classic would be pretty cool. That's what my goal is, and I'll be extremely looking forward to fishing the Classic one day. That's the goal of everybody. So how do you qualify? I don't know the exact number yet, but it's going to be the top 40-ish from the Elite Series next year when they make it to the Classic. So hopefully we can squeak in there and 39th as usual or something. So that's the goal. And that's also... I know you'll make it. I hope so. You know I believe in you.