Friday, May 29, 2009

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake

Our league lakes are chosen by random draw and the first Thursday night ended up being Eagle Lake. I only point this out because I don't remember ever fishing Eagle for league so early in the season. I was happy it worked out that way because its always fun to fish lakes at different times than normal. The turnout was a little bit lower than the previous night with 14 teams competing. Most reported catching a number of fish although some said it was as tough as they had ever seen the lake. There were some substantial weights brought in though.

My dad and I started on what most people consider to be the best stretch of docks on the lake but right away it just didn't seem right at all. We only ended up staying for about 10 minutes before heading to the extremely shallow water on the south end of the lake. On the 3rd dock we fished down there we put our limit of 3 fish in the boat. One of them was about 3 3/4 lbs but the other 2 were small. We continued down the shoreline fishing every dock and catching a fair number of fish but most were in the 2 lb range. Every once in awhile we would hook into one over 3 lbs but we only ended up catching 3 fish over 3 lbs for the night. All of our fish came on green pumpkin red/green flake Strike King Bleeding Bait tubes. Our limit weighed in at 10.53 lbs which was good for 3rd place. 1st place was again Tim and Grant with a massive 13.44 lb limit, 2nd was Wayne and Brad with 10.92 lbs, and 4th was Scott and Al with 10.07 lbs. The big fish for the night was caught by Tim and Grant and weighed in at 4.95 lbs.

West Central Bass League - Nest Lake

Welcome back everyone! It's that time of year again. The bass season has officially opened and our competitive bass fishing is underway once again. I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue with the blog but I decided that I will give it a shot this year again and see how it goes. I will try to give updates after each tournament that I fish including weekend money tournaments and our Wednesday and Thursday night leagues. In addition the the nightly leagues my dad and I will be fishing the Big Bass Bonanza tournament circuit and our West Central Bassmasters tournaments. I also qualified for the B.A.S.S. Northern Divisional tournament that will be held on Big and Little Bays de Noc in Michigan later this summer.

Last year our league was called the Kandi Lakes bass league but this year the West Central Bassmasters have officially taken over control of the league so the name has been changed as you can see. There were a few other changes as well. The biggest change was allowing open entries for both Wednesday and Thursday nights. Now anyone can come and fish whenever they like. We hope this will get more people out to enjoy the great fishing we have in the area.

Our first Wednesday night was held on Nest Lake. 19 teams showed up to give it a shot and almost everyone caught alot of fish. My dad and I started on a shallow rock pile that ranges from 2 - 5 feet of water. We were trying to catch smallmouths but our first limit of 3 were all largemouths. 2 of them were just barely keepers but one was a nice 3 lb fish. We continued working the area and got into a few smallies but they were much smaller than average at about 2 1/2 lbs each. After that we bounced around the lake trying different areas for largemouths and smallmouths. We caught a few fish here and there but nothing that would help us. Eventually we went back to our starting area and worked it over again. This time my dad picked up a very nice smallie that weighed in at 3.82 lbs. I also picked up a nice one in the 3 1/2 lb range. Our 3 weigh fish ended up being caught on green pumpkin Strike King KVD tubes and a black/blue Senko. They weighed in at a total of 10.39 lbs which was good enough for 2nd place. 1st place for the night was the team of Tim and Grant with 10.84 lbs, 3rd was Troy and Chad with 9.70 lbs, and 4th was Wayne and Brad with 9.24 lbs. The big fish of the night was caught by Tim and Grant and weighed in at 4.13 lbs.