Friday, August 26, 2011

West Central Bass League - Week 12 & Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Le Homme Dieu

West Central Bass League - Eagle Lake - August 17th

We had 19 boats fishing Eagle Lake on this night and it was sort of a tale of two lakes. 8 teams brought in 3 fish limits weighing 10 lbs or more while the rest of the teams had 8 lbs or less. In addition to that many of the larger bags were comprised mostly of smallmouth bass. Here are the results.

1st - Grant & Tim - 3 - 12.89 lbs
2nd - Ron & Joe - 3 - 12.12 lbs
3rd - Ron & Dave - 3 - 11.65 lbs
4th - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 11.23 lbs
5th - Brad & Wayne - 3 - 10.96 lbs

Big Bass - Jeff & Kris - 5.03 lbs Smallmouth

Despite our strong weight at the end of the night our evening started off pretty slow. We fished docks for quite awhile and only had one lost fish to show for it. After that we moved to another area where my dad quickly put a chunky 3 1/2 lb largemouth in the boat on a watermelon jig. A short while later I added a 3 1/2 lb smallie from a little deeper water on a drop shot finesse worm. After the action slowed in that area we moved back to the dock where we had lost a fish earlier but were unable to get that fish to bite again so we started working the large flat out from the docks and quickly got into the smallies. My dad filled our limit with a 3 lb class fish and just a few minutes later I had a 5 lb plus smallie almost to the net before it jumped off. That was a heart breaker but just a short while later my dad added a 4 1/2 lb smallmouth for a nice upgrade. We stayed in that area the rest of the night and caught several more fish but none that would help us. All of the smallies came on spinnerbaits burned just under the surface.

West Central Bass League - Lake Andrew - August 18th

We had 18 teams fishing Lake Andrew and overall I would have to say the fishing was very good. This lake is not known for big fish in recent years but a few of them showed up on this night. To get into the 5th and final money spot also took the most weight I can remember in years. Here are the results.

1st - Kyle & Jim - 3 - 9.94 lbs
2nd - Andy & Mike Nitchals - 3 - 9.83 lbs
3rd - Travis & Hunter - 3 - 9.28 lbs
4th - Ron & Joe - 3 - 8.67 lbs
5th - Paul & Pete - 3 - 8.55 lbs

Big Bass - Kyle & Jim - 5.65 lbs

Unlike the previous night on Eagle we got off to a fast start on Andrew. I didn't catch one on my first cast but I did on the 2nd and 3rd and we continued to whack em for about a half hour on one small stretch of deep weed line. Many of the fish were smaller but after that half hour we already had a really solid bag in the boat. Once the action slowed we poked around the same general area and a short while later I put a 4 lb class fish in the boat from a little shallower water. All of those fish came on a homemade watermelon jig. A little later in the evening we moved up to the slop and I was able to put a 3 lb fish in the boat on a Spro Bronzeye frog. It wasn't a huge upgrade but it helped a little. I think that might have been the first frog fish I have weighed this year.

Big Bass Bonanza - Lake Le Homme Dieu - August 21st

This tournament was the final event of 5 on the Big Bass Bonanza for 2011. Going into it my dad and I were sitting in 11th place in the TOY standings. The top 10 in the standings are invited to fish a no entry fee TOC so that was what we were gunning for. To make a long story short we didn't get the job done as we finished 24th out of 36 on Le Homme Dieu. Our 8 fish limit weighed in at a paltry 14.35 lbs. The final results are not out yet but I believe we ended up finishing 13th in the overall TOY standings which was by far our worst showing since we started fishing the BBB circuit.

Our practice for this tournament was really tough. We were able to catch fish but for the most part they were all small until the end of the day when we got onto what I thought was going to be a really solid pattern and location. We ended up spending most of our tournament day on a large flat in 6-12 feet of water throwing a variety of baits from spinnerbaits and crankbaits to jigs and Texas rigged plastics. Our first fish of the day was a nice 2 1/2 lb bass which tells me that the quality fish were still around but we were just unable to put any other nice ones in the boat as you can tell from our total weight.

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