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.