We started the Thursday standings league with 9 teams but unfortunately a team had to drop out so we will be at 8 teams the rest of the year. That means we will change from paying 3 places to paying only 2 spots each Thursday night. That wasn't good for my dad and I last night since we finished in 3rd place with 9.76 lbs. 1st place had a little over 13 lbs for their 3 fish and 2nd had 10.76 lbs. The big fish for the night was 4.67 lbs which is also the big bass for the year so far. As far as the standings points go after 3 nights the leaders have 25 points and my dad and I are in 2nd with 23 points.
The fishing was pretty good last night especially compared to Wednesday night. We caught probably 30 or more bass but most were in the 2 1/2 lb range. We only managed to catch 3 fish over 3 lbs and thats what we weighed in. As far as the fishing it's no secret. Theres pretty much one thing to fish on Johanna and thats reeds. One key for us last night though was to fish little pockets inside the reed beds instead of just the outside edge. All of our weigh fish came from back inside the reeds like that. We used watermelon Strike King Craw Tubes and black/blue Picasso jigs for all our fish.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Kandi Lakes Bass League - Lake Andrew
We had another good turnout for Wednesday night league with 16 boats showing up to fish Lake Andrew. With 16 boats 4 places are paid. 1st place had 8.33 lbs, 2nd place had 6.98 lbs, 3rd place had 6.45 lbs, and my dad and I were 4th with 6.44 lbs. One hundredth of a pound difference. I guess thats just how it goes sometimes. Since one of the boats ahead of us did not enter the side pot we also took 3rd place in that for a little additional money. The big bass for the night was 3.12 lbs. That team also had another bass over 3 lbs, which were the only 3 pounders caught on the night. That was obviously the winning bag.
While the weights were typical for Lake Andrew the past few years I felt the fishing was anything but typical. There usually aren't any big bags weighed in on the lake but at least there are a lot of fish to be caught. That was not the case last night. In fact my dad and I didn't have a keeper in the boat until 8:10 pm. We went over 2 hours without catching a thing and with a 9 pm check in time there was very little time left to make something happen. We mostly fished deep because there are a lot of good weed line spots out there but we hit a bunch of them and came up empty on all of them. We even tried fishing shallow weeds and docks too with no success. The first keeper did end up coming from an inside corner of a deep weed line but there were no more fish so we ran up to the inlet and threw weightless Lake Fork Ring Fries and quickly put a limit in the boat. The fish had started to turn on a little bit I think. Our limit didn't weigh much though and after catching a few up in the bay the fish kept getting smaller and smaller. With about 5 minutes to go I said lets run to the spot where we caught our first keeper. We didn't have much time but as soon as we got there I caught one. Then my dad caught one. We ended up catching 6 or 7 fish in that last 5 minutes and culled out all of our other fish. For whatever reason those fish just turned on right at the last minute. I'm sure glad we made that move because otherwise we wouldn't have been in the money at all. I just wished I gave ourselves 10 minutes instead of just 5. I think we could have made a run at 2nd place anyway. All those fish came on a watermelon Picasso jig tipped with a Lake Fork Pig Claw.
While the weights were typical for Lake Andrew the past few years I felt the fishing was anything but typical. There usually aren't any big bags weighed in on the lake but at least there are a lot of fish to be caught. That was not the case last night. In fact my dad and I didn't have a keeper in the boat until 8:10 pm. We went over 2 hours without catching a thing and with a 9 pm check in time there was very little time left to make something happen. We mostly fished deep because there are a lot of good weed line spots out there but we hit a bunch of them and came up empty on all of them. We even tried fishing shallow weeds and docks too with no success. The first keeper did end up coming from an inside corner of a deep weed line but there were no more fish so we ran up to the inlet and threw weightless Lake Fork Ring Fries and quickly put a limit in the boat. The fish had started to turn on a little bit I think. Our limit didn't weigh much though and after catching a few up in the bay the fish kept getting smaller and smaller. With about 5 minutes to go I said lets run to the spot where we caught our first keeper. We didn't have much time but as soon as we got there I caught one. Then my dad caught one. We ended up catching 6 or 7 fish in that last 5 minutes and culled out all of our other fish. For whatever reason those fish just turned on right at the last minute. I'm sure glad we made that move because otherwise we wouldn't have been in the money at all. I just wished I gave ourselves 10 minutes instead of just 5. I think we could have made a run at 2nd place anyway. All those fish came on a watermelon Picasso jig tipped with a Lake Fork Pig Claw.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Minnewaska
Well the Big Bass Bonanza on Lake Minnewaska was another disappointing tournament for us this year. We just can't seem to get it going yet but hopefully with the warmer weather we are having that will turn around soon. We ended up I believe in 23rd place out of 49 boats with 8 fish for 20.53 lbs. The winning weight was around 24 1/2 lbs. Based on our practice 20 lbs was a realistic day for us but if everything went perfect we could have been close to 24 lbs but obviously that didn't happen. We just didn't get any big bites or even solid bites at all. Our biggest fish was only a little over 3 lbs and all the rest were just 2 1/2 pounders. 7 of our fish were largemouths and 1 was a smallie. We just couldn't make any of our usual big smallmouth spots work for us.
Like I said in my practice report we found one area that seemed to have a group of quality fish so we started there. It was a weedline in about 10 feet of water, but the funny part was it wasn't good weeds at all, just stringy crap but the fish seemed to be using it. That was practice though and in the tournament we didn't catch anything. Next we tried another similar spot with no luck. After an hour we had no fish out deeper so we went to a reed patch and caught 6 fish in less than an hour on Strike King Flippin tubes and Wild Thangs. After that we pretty much bounced around to different areas the rest of the day. We probably hit 25 different spots and ended up catching a keeper fish here and there. Our spots were a wide range of things. We fished reeds, docks, shallow rock and gravel flats, shallow weed beds and deeper weed beds out to about 12 feet. All of our weigh fish came on various Strike King tube baits and Picasso Jigs tipped with Lake Fork Pig Claws.
Our next Big Bass Bonanza tournament is in 2 weeks on Green Lake. Hopefully we can turn it around since it is our home lake. We are going to be out there a lot too since our final West Central Bassmasters state qualifier tournament is there this coming weekend. We will probably be on Green Lake pretty much every day the next week and a half. Even though I know a ton of spots out there it can't hurt to fish it more. There is just so much to learn out there and that makes it fun.
Like I said in my practice report we found one area that seemed to have a group of quality fish so we started there. It was a weedline in about 10 feet of water, but the funny part was it wasn't good weeds at all, just stringy crap but the fish seemed to be using it. That was practice though and in the tournament we didn't catch anything. Next we tried another similar spot with no luck. After an hour we had no fish out deeper so we went to a reed patch and caught 6 fish in less than an hour on Strike King Flippin tubes and Wild Thangs. After that we pretty much bounced around to different areas the rest of the day. We probably hit 25 different spots and ended up catching a keeper fish here and there. Our spots were a wide range of things. We fished reeds, docks, shallow rock and gravel flats, shallow weed beds and deeper weed beds out to about 12 feet. All of our weigh fish came on various Strike King tube baits and Picasso Jigs tipped with Lake Fork Pig Claws.
Our next Big Bass Bonanza tournament is in 2 weeks on Green Lake. Hopefully we can turn it around since it is our home lake. We are going to be out there a lot too since our final West Central Bassmasters state qualifier tournament is there this coming weekend. We will probably be on Green Lake pretty much every day the next week and a half. Even though I know a ton of spots out there it can't hurt to fish it more. There is just so much to learn out there and that makes it fun.
Friday, June 20, 2008
KLBL - Nest Lake
I haven't been on Nest Lake since our West Central Bassmasters event several weeks ago. The fishing was awesome then but last night it was downright tough for us and several other teams. The water is a lot dirtier now and the weedgrowth is really exploding. There were still some nice fish brought in though. The winning weight was 12.46 lbs for 3 fish, 2nd was my dad and I with 9.80 lbs and 3rd was 8.72 lbs. The big fish was a 4.56 lb largemouth.
Like I said earlier the fishing was extremely tough for us. We decided to start on a spot we usually don't start on but has been very good to us the past few years. Unfortunately when we got there a boat was anchored crappie fishing directly on top of our waypoint. We fished around the general area for awhile but it wasn't happening. Then we moved to a deep spot that usually holds some really nice largemouth but we struck out again. Now I was starting to get a little worried. We then ran to a stretch of docks just to fill our limit. We ended up catching 3 pretty quickly on Bleeding bait tubes and Senkos but we only had 5 1/2 lbs at the most. After that we hit a few more areas that we like but couldn't get anything going. We noticed that the crappie fisherman was gone so we headed back to our starting spot and finally caught a nice smallmouth. I actually got my dropshot rig hung in a rock and when I finally got it to pop free I thought I was hung up again right away but it was a fish! I think it was down there looking at that violent shaking action and got triggered to bite. It seems like smallies do that a lot. We kept working the area with dropshots rigged with Lake Fork twitch worms and caught 2 more good smallies in the next 15 minutes and that was it for our fish catching. We hit some more areas but got nothing. We ended up catching only 3 nice fish all night in about a 20 minute period so getting 2nd place was a very pleasant surprise.
Like I said earlier the fishing was extremely tough for us. We decided to start on a spot we usually don't start on but has been very good to us the past few years. Unfortunately when we got there a boat was anchored crappie fishing directly on top of our waypoint. We fished around the general area for awhile but it wasn't happening. Then we moved to a deep spot that usually holds some really nice largemouth but we struck out again. Now I was starting to get a little worried. We then ran to a stretch of docks just to fill our limit. We ended up catching 3 pretty quickly on Bleeding bait tubes and Senkos but we only had 5 1/2 lbs at the most. After that we hit a few more areas that we like but couldn't get anything going. We noticed that the crappie fisherman was gone so we headed back to our starting spot and finally caught a nice smallmouth. I actually got my dropshot rig hung in a rock and when I finally got it to pop free I thought I was hung up again right away but it was a fish! I think it was down there looking at that violent shaking action and got triggered to bite. It seems like smallies do that a lot. We kept working the area with dropshots rigged with Lake Fork twitch worms and caught 2 more good smallies in the next 15 minutes and that was it for our fish catching. We hit some more areas but got nothing. We ended up catching only 3 nice fish all night in about a 20 minute period so getting 2nd place was a very pleasant surprise.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
KLBL - Long Lake
We had our biggest turnout of the year on Long Lake tonight with 20 teams showing up. Most of the boats ended up weighing in their 3 fish but for the most part it sounded like the fishing was pretty tough. Even though it was kind of tough there were still a lot of big weights. I think 7 of the 20 teams weighed in over 10 lbs for their 3 fish. 1st had 12.48 lbs, 2nd had 12.20 lbs. 3rd had 11.98 lbs and 4th had 11.27 lbs. The big fish was 5.19 lbs.
Our night was really tough. We started on the small reed island and my dad caught about a 3 pounder almost right away. After that we didn't catch another fish for over an hour. I finally put a small keeper in the boat off pig farmers point but then it got slow again for us. We ran all over the place trying different things but nothing was really working. We then headed back to the south side and I started throwing a Spro Bronze Eye frog and almost right away had a blow up but the fish missed the bait. I quickly fired my frog back in there and it smashed it that time. It ended up being our biggest fish at 4.11 lbs. So now we finally had our limit and less then 5 minutes later my dad culled up with a 3 pounder on a Lake Fork Ring Fry. That was it for our night. We had 4 bites in 3 hours. Pretty slow. We ended up with 10.61 lbs which was good for 6th place and out of the money. However, 2 of the top 4 teams did not enter the optional sidepot so we did end up 4th place in the sidepot for a few bucks. Thanks guys for not entering!
Our night was really tough. We started on the small reed island and my dad caught about a 3 pounder almost right away. After that we didn't catch another fish for over an hour. I finally put a small keeper in the boat off pig farmers point but then it got slow again for us. We ran all over the place trying different things but nothing was really working. We then headed back to the south side and I started throwing a Spro Bronze Eye frog and almost right away had a blow up but the fish missed the bait. I quickly fired my frog back in there and it smashed it that time. It ended up being our biggest fish at 4.11 lbs. So now we finally had our limit and less then 5 minutes later my dad culled up with a 3 pounder on a Lake Fork Ring Fry. That was it for our night. We had 4 bites in 3 hours. Pretty slow. We ended up with 10.61 lbs which was good for 6th place and out of the money. However, 2 of the top 4 teams did not enter the optional sidepot so we did end up 4th place in the sidepot for a few bucks. Thanks guys for not entering!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Big Bass Bonanza Practice - Lake Minnewaska
It's Tuesday so today was the last day to practice for the BBB next Sunday. One word can be used to describe our practice period on Lake Minnewaska: FRUSTRATING! I won't go into too much detail since theres still a few days before the tournament but I can say a few things. First of all, we have several spots that we have caught good smallmouths on in the past but we cannot get bit on any of them. Our tournaments the past several years have been later in the summer but these are spots I thought the fish used year round. I guess one way to look at it though is that last year we never got bit on those smallmouth spots in practice either and we ended up catching several nice ones during the tournament. We actually should have won if it weren't for 2 giants that got off halfway to the boat. I hope those fish show up again this year.
Another problem with our practice is we couldn't find a big bite at all. Our biggest fish have been about 3 1/2 lbs. We've caught quite a few 2 1/2 lb to 3 1/2 lb fish but nothing bigger. If we're going to win this thing we are going to need several fish in that 4+ lb range. I think a limit of 3 lb to 3 1/2 lb fish will do very well in this tournament but the winner is going to have several fish over 4 lbs as well.
The worst part of practice was we caught fish everywhere. I know that sounds good right, but the problem is for us the fish seemed really scattered. I think the majority of the fish are just coming off the spawn and don't seem to be grouped up at all. We caught fish in 1 foot of water out to 20 feet of water and almost every depth in between. It also seemed like whenever we caught 1 good one there were no other fish with it or only little ones around. Finding a group of quality 2 1/2 lb to 3 1/2 lb fish was almost impossible. I think we may have one spot with a group like that but we didn't fish it real hard so we will have to wait until tournament day to be sure.
I know I've had pretty much only bad things to say but in reality we did pretty good for a practice on this lake. Usually our practices on Minnewaska are terrible and this time we at least caught a lot of pretty nice fish. So with all that in mind I think we have a tentative plan but it might change. Nothing ever stays the same in fishing anyway. We are probably going to start on that one group of fish and hit it as hard as we can. We'll keep fishing that as long as it kicks out nice fish. After that it's going to be KVD style, running and gunning all over the lake. We'll hit all the spots we caught a good fish in practice and a bunch of our old spots as well. We may end up hitting as many as 25-30 spots in the day. I don't know how other people will be fishing but for us this seems like the best way to box a limit of those 3 lb bass. Hopefully it will work out come Sunday.
Another problem with our practice is we couldn't find a big bite at all. Our biggest fish have been about 3 1/2 lbs. We've caught quite a few 2 1/2 lb to 3 1/2 lb fish but nothing bigger. If we're going to win this thing we are going to need several fish in that 4+ lb range. I think a limit of 3 lb to 3 1/2 lb fish will do very well in this tournament but the winner is going to have several fish over 4 lbs as well.
The worst part of practice was we caught fish everywhere. I know that sounds good right, but the problem is for us the fish seemed really scattered. I think the majority of the fish are just coming off the spawn and don't seem to be grouped up at all. We caught fish in 1 foot of water out to 20 feet of water and almost every depth in between. It also seemed like whenever we caught 1 good one there were no other fish with it or only little ones around. Finding a group of quality 2 1/2 lb to 3 1/2 lb fish was almost impossible. I think we may have one spot with a group like that but we didn't fish it real hard so we will have to wait until tournament day to be sure.
I know I've had pretty much only bad things to say but in reality we did pretty good for a practice on this lake. Usually our practices on Minnewaska are terrible and this time we at least caught a lot of pretty nice fish. So with all that in mind I think we have a tentative plan but it might change. Nothing ever stays the same in fishing anyway. We are probably going to start on that one group of fish and hit it as hard as we can. We'll keep fishing that as long as it kicks out nice fish. After that it's going to be KVD style, running and gunning all over the lake. We'll hit all the spots we caught a good fish in practice and a bunch of our old spots as well. We may end up hitting as many as 25-30 spots in the day. I don't know how other people will be fishing but for us this seems like the best way to box a limit of those 3 lb bass. Hopefully it will work out come Sunday.
Friday, June 13, 2008
KLBL - Lake Florida
After canceling last Thursday we finally had our first Standings league night. There are only 9 teams fishing the standings this year which was less than we hoped for, but on the other hand having only 9 boats on the water will make getting to the spots we want to fish a lot easier. Lake Florida is almost entirely surrounded by houses which means its got a lot of docks and this is what most people choose to fish. Theres also a good deep weedline bite which is what my dad and I have focused on the past couple years. The lake used to be known for kicking out a lot of big fish off the docks but the last couple years even a 3 pounder is a really good fish out there. So the weights were typical for the past few years. 1st place had 8.87 lbs, 2nd was my dad and I with 8.67 lbs, and 3rd was actually a tie at 8.18 lbs but one team had a bigger fish so they took 3rd outright. The big bass for the night was 3.83 lbs.
Like I said earlier my dad and I have pretty much focused on deep water only the past few years but with the spring we've had and the water temps still in the mid 60s we decided to start shallow on the docks. We had a limit weighing about 7 lbs within the first half hour by skipping Strike King Bleeding Bait tubes under the docks. This is my favorite bait for dock fishing because it is a double dipped tube meaning it has a lot of plastic so its heavy and skips really well. After that we hit one of our deep spots which is a combination of rocks and weeds. We started a little ways down from our waypoint and as soon as we reached it, it was on. We caught 4 fish between 2 1/2 lbs and 3 lbs within 10 minutes, culling out all of our dock fish. But after that it was done. We couldn't buy another bite out there which is strange because it seemed like they were stacked up pretty good. After that we bounced around hitting some other deep spots and a few more docks with no success. We finally went back to the good spot but once again got nothing. Then we tried a newer deep spot that we haven't really fished as much but are finally starting to learn. The fishing was slower there but we did end up catching 4 more of those 2 1/2 lb to 3 lb bass. All of our fish came on watermelon Picasso jigs (with my dads own skirt color combinations) with Lake Fork Pig Claws and watermelon Berkley Gulp Turtleback worms.
Towards the end of the night I could feel a cold coming on and sure enough when I woke up this morning I was feeling sick as a dog. Thats going to make it tough tomorrow when we plan to head up to Lake Minnewaska to start practicing for the Big Bass Bonanza tournament. If we end up doing bad in that tournament you know my excuse, I was sick as hell during practice. Just Kidding. But hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow and we can get on some good ones. It's gonna be a slugfest I think. I'll report back after our practice is complete.
Like I said earlier my dad and I have pretty much focused on deep water only the past few years but with the spring we've had and the water temps still in the mid 60s we decided to start shallow on the docks. We had a limit weighing about 7 lbs within the first half hour by skipping Strike King Bleeding Bait tubes under the docks. This is my favorite bait for dock fishing because it is a double dipped tube meaning it has a lot of plastic so its heavy and skips really well. After that we hit one of our deep spots which is a combination of rocks and weeds. We started a little ways down from our waypoint and as soon as we reached it, it was on. We caught 4 fish between 2 1/2 lbs and 3 lbs within 10 minutes, culling out all of our dock fish. But after that it was done. We couldn't buy another bite out there which is strange because it seemed like they were stacked up pretty good. After that we bounced around hitting some other deep spots and a few more docks with no success. We finally went back to the good spot but once again got nothing. Then we tried a newer deep spot that we haven't really fished as much but are finally starting to learn. The fishing was slower there but we did end up catching 4 more of those 2 1/2 lb to 3 lb bass. All of our fish came on watermelon Picasso jigs (with my dads own skirt color combinations) with Lake Fork Pig Claws and watermelon Berkley Gulp Turtleback worms.
Towards the end of the night I could feel a cold coming on and sure enough when I woke up this morning I was feeling sick as a dog. Thats going to make it tough tomorrow when we plan to head up to Lake Minnewaska to start practicing for the Big Bass Bonanza tournament. If we end up doing bad in that tournament you know my excuse, I was sick as hell during practice. Just Kidding. But hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow and we can get on some good ones. It's gonna be a slugfest I think. I'll report back after our practice is complete.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
KLBL - Solomon Lake
The 2nd night of Wednesday league probably should have been canceled. There was strong winds, rain, and a little bit of lightening. I was thinking it was pretty stupid when were were out there in the middle of the lake with thunder and lighting going on but there were no apparent ground strikes. When we launched it was only drizzle and wind though so if its like that we usually fish. I was actually kind of surprised 12 boats showed up tonight. Despite the weather the fishing was pretty damn good for quite a few of the guys. I think 6 of the 12 boats weighed over 9 lbs for their 3 fish. First had 12.67 lbs, Second had 11.10 lbs, and my dad and I finished 3rd with 10.90 lbs. Fourth place also had just over 10 lbs, which you would normally think would be in the money, but on Solomon 10 lbs can be just another bag some nights.
While it sounded like some boats caught quite a few fish, some others struggled and my dad and I were one of those. I think we ended up catching only 6 fish on the night, and 3 of those were just 13 inchers. We had a bad boat draw which I knew would let boats get to the 2 spots I most wanted to fish. We started on one of the reed islands but another boat was already in the prime spot. We watched them catch fish while we couldn't buy a bite. We bounced around to some other stuff and after an hour only had 1 13 incher in the well. After hitting that other stuff we noticed no one had gone back to where we wanted to start so we went back there and almost immediately my dad popped a 4.44 lb fish which was our big one for the night. But then it shut down again. We bounced around to a few more reed patches and eventually I put a 2 1/2 lb fish in the boat which is small for the lake but helped a lot at the time. We had let the big fish spot rest for awhile and surprisingly no one had gone to it so we went back a 3rd time and my first flip I nailed one about 4lbs. Once again though that was it for the spot and for our night. All our fish came on Strike King craw tubes that we flipped in the reeds. I was throwing black/red flake which definitely got more bites than my dad's watermelon, but then again his one fish was the big one for us.
I'm usually pretty even keeled when it comes to fishing but tonight I was losing it a little bit. We watched boats around us catching fish when we struggled to get a bite and the wind and rain certainly is not fun. That affected me somewhat. I don't know if it was the difference between winning or not because 12.67 lbs will be hard to beat no matter what, but it could have hurt somehow. We did end up pulling it together for a solid bag of fish. Maybe I'm being to hard on myself since we did end up in the money but to me not winning is pretty much just losing. You'll probably notice that if you read this blog. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to decisions that are made in a tournament. If we don't win I'll focus more on the reasons why we did bad rather than the reasons we did good. Maybe thats good or maybe thats bad, but no matter what theres always room for improvement.
While it sounded like some boats caught quite a few fish, some others struggled and my dad and I were one of those. I think we ended up catching only 6 fish on the night, and 3 of those were just 13 inchers. We had a bad boat draw which I knew would let boats get to the 2 spots I most wanted to fish. We started on one of the reed islands but another boat was already in the prime spot. We watched them catch fish while we couldn't buy a bite. We bounced around to some other stuff and after an hour only had 1 13 incher in the well. After hitting that other stuff we noticed no one had gone back to where we wanted to start so we went back there and almost immediately my dad popped a 4.44 lb fish which was our big one for the night. But then it shut down again. We bounced around to a few more reed patches and eventually I put a 2 1/2 lb fish in the boat which is small for the lake but helped a lot at the time. We had let the big fish spot rest for awhile and surprisingly no one had gone to it so we went back a 3rd time and my first flip I nailed one about 4lbs. Once again though that was it for the spot and for our night. All our fish came on Strike King craw tubes that we flipped in the reeds. I was throwing black/red flake which definitely got more bites than my dad's watermelon, but then again his one fish was the big one for us.
I'm usually pretty even keeled when it comes to fishing but tonight I was losing it a little bit. We watched boats around us catching fish when we struggled to get a bite and the wind and rain certainly is not fun. That affected me somewhat. I don't know if it was the difference between winning or not because 12.67 lbs will be hard to beat no matter what, but it could have hurt somehow. We did end up pulling it together for a solid bag of fish. Maybe I'm being to hard on myself since we did end up in the money but to me not winning is pretty much just losing. You'll probably notice that if you read this blog. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to decisions that are made in a tournament. If we don't win I'll focus more on the reasons why we did bad rather than the reasons we did good. Maybe thats good or maybe thats bad, but no matter what theres always room for improvement.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
West Central Bassmasters Mystery Circuit - Lake Mary
Lake Mary is located a little ways south of Alexandria. It is a lake my dad and I had never been on before so when it was drawn last night I was pretty excited. I knew some of the other guys had been there before but I was ready to tackle a new body of water. We ended up catching a ton of fish and we probably culled 15 times to get to our 5 fish limit of 9.18 lbs which put us in 5th place. Unfortunately there were only 5 teams fishing so that was dead last. 4th was about 9.5 lbs, 3rd was 10.2 lbs, 2nd was 12.99 lbs and 1st place had 14.02 lbs. Congrats to Paul Shimek on the win. Like I said we had a ton of bites but just couldn't get a big bite at all. Going to a new lake like that can be tough to do sometimes but it was fun overall. We caught most of our fish throwing senkos and tube craws in the bull rushes and reeds. That seems to be about all there is to fish on the lake.
I'd also like to say congratulations to John Patock on his 2nd place finish at the Silverado Pro-Am on Green Lake. He brought in 20.65 lbs to just barely edged out 3rd place. This is coming off his win in the Lake Ida BBB. Hes on a roll. Keep it up John!
I'd also like to say congratulations to John Patock on his 2nd place finish at the Silverado Pro-Am on Green Lake. He brought in 20.65 lbs to just barely edged out 3rd place. This is coming off his win in the Lake Ida BBB. Hes on a roll. Keep it up John!
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Kandi Lakes Bass League (KLBL) - Lake Florida
First I want to give some updates on our finishes that I didn't post in the previous blogs. I finally saw the results from The BBB on Lake Ida and we finished 13th out of 49 teams. Not as bad as I expected but still a few places from the money. Last night in the KLBL Norway Cup we finished 16th out of 19 teams. One of our worst showings in league the past few years but thats ok. Read my previous entry to see how I feel about it.
Wednesday night league is open for anyone to come and fish but Thursday nights are what we call the Standings league. This means everyone pays their money up front for all the events and the same teams compete against each other throughout the year. There is prize money for Team of the Year as well as a chance to compete in the Bass League Classic for the top teams.
Tonight was suppose to be held on Lake Florida but due to the weather we talked to everyone and ended up canceling for the evening. The radar shows thunderstorms that are going to last all night long. Rain and wind is one thing but fishing in lightening is just stupid. So there will be no fishing tonight. We are going to push back Lake Florida to next week and that suits me just fine because we plan to fish deep again and another week will really give those post spawn females more of a chance to get out there.
Wednesday night league is open for anyone to come and fish but Thursday nights are what we call the Standings league. This means everyone pays their money up front for all the events and the same teams compete against each other throughout the year. There is prize money for Team of the Year as well as a chance to compete in the Bass League Classic for the top teams.
Tonight was suppose to be held on Lake Florida but due to the weather we talked to everyone and ended up canceling for the evening. The radar shows thunderstorms that are going to last all night long. Rain and wind is one thing but fishing in lightening is just stupid. So there will be no fishing tonight. We are going to push back Lake Florida to next week and that suits me just fine because we plan to fish deep again and another week will really give those post spawn females more of a chance to get out there.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Kandi Lakes Bass League (KLBL) - Norway Cup
Traditionally the Norway Cup for our bass league was the last event of the season and had a very high turnout. Last year only 9 boats showed up for it. So when my dad and I took over we thought putting the Cup the first night of the season might get a better turnout and this year it did. We had 19 teams competing this evening. The Cup is a little different from a normal league night in that the entry fee is doubled and 2 big bass spots are paid instead of just one. It's more money to enter but it's also more to be won. Tonight first place with 19 boats was worth $200.
The league rules have always been, 3 hours of fishing and you weigh in your best 3 fish for the night. Tonight everyone caught their 3 fish limit including my dad and I. Unfortunately our limit of 3 fish for 6.52 lbs was one of the lowest of the night. I'm not sure where we place but it was way down there. Overall the weights were tight though. First place was 8.92 lbs, 2nd was 8.86 lbs, 3rd was 8.84 lbs and 4th was 8.32 lbs. Congratulations to all the winners.
I knew we could catch all the 2 to 2 1/2 pounders we wanted fishing shallow reeds like most everyone else but an event like this with no point standings you just have to go for the win so thats what we did. We started shallow on some docks that traditionally hold some big fish but there was nothing there. We then headed out deeper on a point near those docks but struck out again. We finally put a fish in the boat on a Red Eye Shad in some shallow weeds but it was just a small one. After that we headed to our deep stuff on Games Lake. We put 2 small ones in the boat pretty quick but then the action died. We hit a few other spots and went back to the deep stuff and I stuck our big fish on a Rapala DT 14. It should have been a 4 pounder but it was so skinny and beat up from spawning it ended up weighing only a little over 3 lbs. That made us stick to that spot pretty much the rest of the night but there were no other takers.
Even though we bombed tonight I really don't feel too bad about it. We were fishing for the win and sometimes you strike out when you do that. Catching the good one really kind of hurt us in a way because it made us stick to that when it probably wasn't the best thing to do (even though I probably wouldn't do anything differently anyway.) I already knew we were fishing for just a few fish that might be out deep. Since the spring has been so cold most have not made it out that far yet, but for league we only need 3. In another week or 2 those post spawners will start stacking up on that deep stuff but tonight it wasn't meant to be. Most boats talked about catching a lot of fish tonight but we didn't. That doesn't matter either. Theres been many nights were I think my dad and I have caught the fewest fish of any other team but still won. Numbers don't matter, weight does. Hopefully tomorrow night will turn out better for us.
The league rules have always been, 3 hours of fishing and you weigh in your best 3 fish for the night. Tonight everyone caught their 3 fish limit including my dad and I. Unfortunately our limit of 3 fish for 6.52 lbs was one of the lowest of the night. I'm not sure where we place but it was way down there. Overall the weights were tight though. First place was 8.92 lbs, 2nd was 8.86 lbs, 3rd was 8.84 lbs and 4th was 8.32 lbs. Congratulations to all the winners.
I knew we could catch all the 2 to 2 1/2 pounders we wanted fishing shallow reeds like most everyone else but an event like this with no point standings you just have to go for the win so thats what we did. We started shallow on some docks that traditionally hold some big fish but there was nothing there. We then headed out deeper on a point near those docks but struck out again. We finally put a fish in the boat on a Red Eye Shad in some shallow weeds but it was just a small one. After that we headed to our deep stuff on Games Lake. We put 2 small ones in the boat pretty quick but then the action died. We hit a few other spots and went back to the deep stuff and I stuck our big fish on a Rapala DT 14. It should have been a 4 pounder but it was so skinny and beat up from spawning it ended up weighing only a little over 3 lbs. That made us stick to that spot pretty much the rest of the night but there were no other takers.
Even though we bombed tonight I really don't feel too bad about it. We were fishing for the win and sometimes you strike out when you do that. Catching the good one really kind of hurt us in a way because it made us stick to that when it probably wasn't the best thing to do (even though I probably wouldn't do anything differently anyway.) I already knew we were fishing for just a few fish that might be out deep. Since the spring has been so cold most have not made it out that far yet, but for league we only need 3. In another week or 2 those post spawners will start stacking up on that deep stuff but tonight it wasn't meant to be. Most boats talked about catching a lot of fish tonight but we didn't. That doesn't matter either. Theres been many nights were I think my dad and I have caught the fewest fish of any other team but still won. Numbers don't matter, weight does. Hopefully tomorrow night will turn out better for us.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Ida
Sunday was our first "money" tournament of the year. Over the past few years we have fished Ida a few times for other tournaments but they were all later in the year so starting there early we didn't know exactly what to expect. Like I wrote about in a previous blog we didn't have a great practice but we had a few patterns and spots going.
We drew boat #3 out of 49 so we were pretty sure we would be able to get to our starting spot and we were able to get there but it didn't do us much good. We didn't catch a fish for about 45 minutes. This was the spot we were banking on so pretty much right away we were in trouble. It was an inside turn with cabbage in 6-10 feet of water. In practice we caught the fish on crankbaits and Red Eye shads but tournament day was calm and the water was clear so I started with a small watermelon jig. After working that over I finally got a bite and put a fish in the boat. What had happened was the fish had moved to the very inside edge of the cabbage in shallower water. The main spot still didn't produce much though so we ended up moving maybe 100 yards down and fishing the inside edges of other cabbage beds. I started catching them pretty good on the jig and by 8 am we were culling but the fish were mostly small. The funny thing was my dad was using a bigger, heavier jig and wasn't getting any bites at all so he finally switched and started putting fish in the boat as well. I think the first fish he caught after changing was our big fish of the day at right about 3 lbs. We kept doing that for awhile more but the action slowed so we switched to our 2nd pattern.
Our other main pattern was fishing dead reed beds with a Strike King craw tube. We bounced around the lake fishing the reed patches were we had caught better fish in practice and while the action wasn't nearly as fast as in practice we slowly started culling up. The fish were only in the 2 1/4 - 2 1/2 lb range though not the 3 pounders we needed and thought we could get. After hitting all our reeds we went back to the cabbage but it was totally dead this time. With time running out we had to do something.
We had fished a few docks that have produced for us in the past throughout the day but they were pretty unproductive but at the end of the day we had to do something. I had been thinking to myself that our cabbage fish had moved shallower and the water was warming up so docks should be getting better as fish moved up. Right at the end of the day I got a nice 2 1/2 pounder off a dock and then just a little ways down, with about 2 minutes left to fish I skipped up under a boat, got a bite and set the hook and it didn't move. Right away I said to my dad "big one" but she had me not the other way around. It got me wrapped up in the boat lift and before I could get over to it she was gone. I've switched back to fireline this year for my dock fishing and so far I had been loving it. It has really seemed to give me a lot of control over those dock fish but that one there was nothing I could do. I never saw it, but I know it had to be at least 4 lbs and probably even bigger. What a heartbreaking way to end the day. I really wished we had switched to fishing docks a little sooner. They had moved up but we just didn't allow enough time to take advantage.
The winning weight for the tournament was 25.95 lbs for 8 fish. It was won by two guys from our West Central Bassmasters club, John Patock and Pete Swensen. They are some really good fishermen and seem particularly tough to beat on Ida. Our 8 fish limit weighed in at 18.90 lbs which I think will put us around the top 3rd of the field. We didn't stick around to see for sure but I will update with the exact place when I get the results. Overall I'd say it was a bad tournament for us. We made too many mistakes. We just didn't make good decisions and we dropped a few fish that really hurt. We really need to clean that up if we're going to compete this year.
We drew boat #3 out of 49 so we were pretty sure we would be able to get to our starting spot and we were able to get there but it didn't do us much good. We didn't catch a fish for about 45 minutes. This was the spot we were banking on so pretty much right away we were in trouble. It was an inside turn with cabbage in 6-10 feet of water. In practice we caught the fish on crankbaits and Red Eye shads but tournament day was calm and the water was clear so I started with a small watermelon jig. After working that over I finally got a bite and put a fish in the boat. What had happened was the fish had moved to the very inside edge of the cabbage in shallower water. The main spot still didn't produce much though so we ended up moving maybe 100 yards down and fishing the inside edges of other cabbage beds. I started catching them pretty good on the jig and by 8 am we were culling but the fish were mostly small. The funny thing was my dad was using a bigger, heavier jig and wasn't getting any bites at all so he finally switched and started putting fish in the boat as well. I think the first fish he caught after changing was our big fish of the day at right about 3 lbs. We kept doing that for awhile more but the action slowed so we switched to our 2nd pattern.
Our other main pattern was fishing dead reed beds with a Strike King craw tube. We bounced around the lake fishing the reed patches were we had caught better fish in practice and while the action wasn't nearly as fast as in practice we slowly started culling up. The fish were only in the 2 1/4 - 2 1/2 lb range though not the 3 pounders we needed and thought we could get. After hitting all our reeds we went back to the cabbage but it was totally dead this time. With time running out we had to do something.
We had fished a few docks that have produced for us in the past throughout the day but they were pretty unproductive but at the end of the day we had to do something. I had been thinking to myself that our cabbage fish had moved shallower and the water was warming up so docks should be getting better as fish moved up. Right at the end of the day I got a nice 2 1/2 pounder off a dock and then just a little ways down, with about 2 minutes left to fish I skipped up under a boat, got a bite and set the hook and it didn't move. Right away I said to my dad "big one" but she had me not the other way around. It got me wrapped up in the boat lift and before I could get over to it she was gone. I've switched back to fireline this year for my dock fishing and so far I had been loving it. It has really seemed to give me a lot of control over those dock fish but that one there was nothing I could do. I never saw it, but I know it had to be at least 4 lbs and probably even bigger. What a heartbreaking way to end the day. I really wished we had switched to fishing docks a little sooner. They had moved up but we just didn't allow enough time to take advantage.
The winning weight for the tournament was 25.95 lbs for 8 fish. It was won by two guys from our West Central Bassmasters club, John Patock and Pete Swensen. They are some really good fishermen and seem particularly tough to beat on Ida. Our 8 fish limit weighed in at 18.90 lbs which I think will put us around the top 3rd of the field. We didn't stick around to see for sure but I will update with the exact place when I get the results. Overall I'd say it was a bad tournament for us. We made too many mistakes. We just didn't make good decisions and we dropped a few fish that really hurt. We really need to clean that up if we're going to compete this year.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
West Central Bassmasters State Qualifier - Nest Lake
Our 2008 tournament season kicked off with our club tournament on Nest Lake saturday morning. I didn't get a lot of practice on the lake but I had a good idea what the fish were doing, especially the smallmouths. Most of the little practice I had I used to try to find good largemouths. I saw a lot of largemouths but the size just wasn't there for me so I decided to mostly fish smallies.
The tournament hours were 7 am to 2 pm. We actually had one of our largest turnouts for a club event with 22 anglers participating and many were glad they showed up. The fishing was fantastic. 11 people weighed in 15 lbs or more for their 5 fish limits. I was stuck in that 15 lb range for most of the day until the last 20 minutes when I culled up twice with 2 nice smallies to put me at 17.24 lbs for my limit and 1st place for the tournament. It was very close though. 2nd place had 16.9 lbs and 3rd had 16.8. My dad actually had a bigger limit than me at 16.62 for most of the day but was unable to cull up at all so he ended in 4th place. We are both in good position to make the state tournament.
Like I said earlier I mostly fished smallies, but I did make a few trips up to the shallows looking for largemouths but that didn't pan out at all. There were a lot of smallmouths up on beds but that is not my preferred way to catch them. Still when there are so many fish up you can't pass up a big one if you see it so i did catch a few bedders. I'm not sure if I even ended up weighing any of those though. My dad weighed at least one bed fish that was close to 4 lbs and maybe another one but mostly we just blind casted rocky areas in 2 to 10 feet of water. The typical Nest Lake smallmouth pattern. I ended up catching maybe 15 fish for the day and most came on my trusty Strike King KVD tube in green pumpkin. Thats a tough lure to beat for smallies in my eyes. Towards the end of the day when the action slowed I switched to a dropshot and small finesse worm. I've never actually thrown the dropshot on Nest Lake before but I'm glad I did. I ended up weighing 3 fish caught on the dropshot including those 2 in the last 20 minutes. I said I want to learn dropshotting more this year and this makes me really want to try it more often.
All in all I'd say it wasn't a bad way to start the year. Now My dad and I just need to keep it up on the next state qualifier tournament coming up on Green Lake. Today is actually Sunday and we fished the Big Bass Bonanza tournament on Lake Ida today. I'm really tired now though so I will report on that tomorrow.
The tournament hours were 7 am to 2 pm. We actually had one of our largest turnouts for a club event with 22 anglers participating and many were glad they showed up. The fishing was fantastic. 11 people weighed in 15 lbs or more for their 5 fish limits. I was stuck in that 15 lb range for most of the day until the last 20 minutes when I culled up twice with 2 nice smallies to put me at 17.24 lbs for my limit and 1st place for the tournament. It was very close though. 2nd place had 16.9 lbs and 3rd had 16.8. My dad actually had a bigger limit than me at 16.62 for most of the day but was unable to cull up at all so he ended in 4th place. We are both in good position to make the state tournament.
Like I said earlier I mostly fished smallies, but I did make a few trips up to the shallows looking for largemouths but that didn't pan out at all. There were a lot of smallmouths up on beds but that is not my preferred way to catch them. Still when there are so many fish up you can't pass up a big one if you see it so i did catch a few bedders. I'm not sure if I even ended up weighing any of those though. My dad weighed at least one bed fish that was close to 4 lbs and maybe another one but mostly we just blind casted rocky areas in 2 to 10 feet of water. The typical Nest Lake smallmouth pattern. I ended up catching maybe 15 fish for the day and most came on my trusty Strike King KVD tube in green pumpkin. Thats a tough lure to beat for smallies in my eyes. Towards the end of the day when the action slowed I switched to a dropshot and small finesse worm. I've never actually thrown the dropshot on Nest Lake before but I'm glad I did. I ended up weighing 3 fish caught on the dropshot including those 2 in the last 20 minutes. I said I want to learn dropshotting more this year and this makes me really want to try it more often.
All in all I'd say it wasn't a bad way to start the year. Now My dad and I just need to keep it up on the next state qualifier tournament coming up on Green Lake. Today is actually Sunday and we fished the Big Bass Bonanza tournament on Lake Ida today. I'm really tired now though so I will report on that tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
