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.