I guess I've put off writing this for about as long as I can but as most of you know by now I didn't fare very well out in Michigan. The tournament was held August 12-14 and my 3 day total was 3 fish for 8 lbs 13 oz. That put me in 94th place out of 113 anglers. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong but for the most part nothing really went right for me the entire week. I'll do a quick recap of the highlights few as they may be.
I arrived in Escanaba Michigan on Thursday the week before the tournament was to start. This gave me 5 full days of practice time before the actual tournament began. 5 days may seem like a lot but if I had it to do over again I'd want much more time. Not only did I struggle to find areas holding concentrations of fish but getting around on the water was difficult and time consuming. It would have been much nicer to have more time to pick and choose when and where to go out. With so much water to cover on a huge place like that 5 days really isn't a lot. But I'm not making excuses. Out of the 5 days of practice I only really had 1 good day where I thought I got onto something that would work for me in the tournament. That day was actually sunny and calm which was a rarity throughout the time I was there. I got onto a super shallow rock/sand pattern and was able to catch fish in most of the areas that seemed to have the right mix of bottom cover. I ended up getting around 20 bites that day but I shook most of them off. I did end up boating 5 of the bites I had and by my caculations would have had nearly 22 lbs for those 5 fish if it was a tournament day. Among those 5 fish were my 2nd and 3rd biggest smallmouth ever weighing in at 5.60 lbs and 5.10 lbs. Needless to say I was pretty excited about what I had found and thought I had a decent chance in the tournament even though the rest of my practice was not very good at all.
On day 1 of the tournament we again had calm conditions so I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I started on an area with the shallow rock/sand mix where I had caught my biggest fish. Right away things didn't seem right. The entire week we had been having south winds and the day before the tournament was a pretty strong north wind. With so much area of water the wind really moves alot of it around. The south winds had been blowing water in all week and the north wind blew it right back out. My already shallow area was now almost a foot shallower than it had been. I don't know for sure if that was the reason but the fish were entirely gone. I ran a few more miles down to my next similar spot and found the same thing. All the fish were gone except for one that we spotted. I made a few casts at it but was unable to get it to bite but my partner threw one cast at it and hooked and lost it. That fish looked to be between 4-5 lbs but it was the only fish in the area. After spending a few hours on my stuff we made the long run over to Big Bay de Noc. At least the lake was calm because it still took a little over 30 minutes running wide open to get to my partner's spot. That is by far the longest run I have ever made and when we got there it looked like it was going to be well worth it. Almost immediately I boated my 1 fish of the day. I caught it on a green pumpkin KVD tube and it weighed in at 4 lbs 1 oz. We continued fishing the area for several more hours and my partner boated 4 fish but I was never able to put another one in the boat.
Day 2 was again cloudy and with a fairly strong south wind. With the change in conditions I decided to start in the same areas again. I was just hoping something would move those big fish back in there or at least some keepers. That didn't happen and after a few hours I knew I needed to do something else. My backup area was a huge sand flat. There were high spots and grass patches on it but where I ended up catching my fish was a pipe that I hadn't even seen on my practice day there. We were just going along the sand and my partner says he thinks he saw a pipe running out across the lake. I turned the boat around and sure enough there was a pipe in the sand. Some of it was buried under the high spots but where the water was deeper it was exposed. We followed it for as far as we could and I eventually boated a 3 lb 4 oz smallie on a chartruese and white spinnerbait. After that it was off to his spots and that ended up being the only keeper I caught for the day.
On day 3 the wind was blowing right off the bat in the morning. My partner wanted to make the run to the Big Bay and I said we could go there because I didn't have anything going. Several of the boats ahead of us started in that direction but soon turned back around. Right as we were about to blast off my partner says not to make the long run. Now we were going to have a lot more time to fish instead of run but the problem was I didn't know where to catch any. I didn't want to go to the same areas first thing in the morning since that hadn't worked at all so instead we went to the pipe from the previous day. I struck out on the pipe but further down on a weed patch I boated my 1 keeper for the day on a green pumkin KVD tube. It was only a 14 incher, which is the minimum length, but it was a keeper. It actually ended up being my only claim to fame of the tournament since it weighed in at 1 lb 8 oz. which was the smallest fish weighed by any competitor all 3 days! After that we tried some of my partner's areas where he boated a small keeper but nothing for me. By now it was getting later in the day and I wanted to see if my big fish areas would be better at that time. Unfortunately the waves were huge by this time and it took forever to get there. Once we did get to the area I wasn't even able to fish it properly. I needed to be really shallow but the waves were so big if I got up real shallow the boat would have been bottoming out in the troughs. All the while the wind continued to build and by the time we were ready to head back to the weigh in the waves were consistant 6 footers with a few even bigger than that. It was the wildest water I have ever seen and honestly I'd rather not see it again. One boat actually got flipped over and they needed to be rescued by the Coast Guard. It wasn't my idea of fun thats for sure.
So all in all I'd have to say this was my worst tournament performance in years. I feel like I've gotten pretty consistent with my performances but this was a total bomb. If I had to do it all over again I'm not even sure what I would change. Obviously I needed to practice differently and probably spend more time over in the Big Bay since that is where many of the best bags came from even though the ride there and back would be treachorous. I basically fished like a rookie which at this level I was since it was my first time. Next time I make it back to the Divisionals I guarantee the same thing won't happen.
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