Big Bass Bonanza TOC - Lake Koronis

Sunday September 12th was the Big Bass Bonanza Tournament of Champions. The top 10 in the season points were all invited to fish and throw the name of a lake in the hat. Lake Koronis was drawn and the top 10 teams all got to fish for cash and prizes with no entry fee. I don't have official results for this event but first place ended up being and 8 fish limit for nearly 24 lbs. There were several other weights over 20 lbs as well. My dad and I struggled all day and only ended up with an 8 fish limit weighing 16.75 lbs. That put us in 9th for the day.

In practice we had 2 different patterns going but both were producing quality bites for us. One was fishing deeper weedlines in the 10 foot range for largemouth and the other was fishing shallower weedlines in 2-5 feet of water for smallmouth. We bounced back and forth trying each for awhile during the tournament day but neither one worked nearly as well as in practice. In fact we were barely able to catch our limit and ended the day catching only 9 keepers total. Our big fish was a 4+ lb smallmouth that came on a spinnerbait in the shallow weeds but it was the only smallie we were able to hook up with. The rest of our fish were largemouths caught on the deeper weedlines with watermelon jigs and Sweet Beavers.

Lake Koronis can be very spotty for us but I had much higher expectations coming into this event. I guess that has kind of been how our year has gone on the BBB trail this season. Every tournament ended up being just a grind with tough fishing conditions and uncooperative fish. Generally those are the conditions I like since I feel it is easier to win a tough tournament than it is to win a slugfest but things just didn't work out for the most part. We were able to finish in the top 10 once again though so it wasn't all bad but hopefully next year it will be even better!