A rough start to the tourney season!

[pooch]

A rough start to the tourney season!

 

My tournament bass season began on Saturday, with back to back days on Rice lake for the Competitive Sport Fishing League eastern series. I never do well on this lake, and the days of practice told me this weekend would be no different.

 

My fishing partner and I pre-fished (think practice for the tournament) a few days last week to get an idea of what the fish were doing and what our game plan would be for the weekend. Our pre-fish did not go well, as many of my proven spots from last year were void of bass, and the fish we did find we could not get them to bite (Dang you small mouth bass!). My new Aqua Vu underwater camera worked great at finding and seeing the small mouth bass, but it still doesn’t put them in the live well.

 

We figured out a big fish pattern late on the Friday before the weekend, and we thought it was our best chance at a winning strategy for tournament day. This ended up being the right decision as the winning team and runner up team were also fishing the area and the same pattern, but there was something missing in our technique. I can not reveal the technique or the area we fished, as that would not be fair to my fellow competitors, but I will say that those anglers that were successful had this technique mastered to a fine science, whereas my partner and I were just on the cusp of the learning curve even after two straight days of fishing. My partner was even throwing the exact bait the winning team was throwing, yet we couldn’t get our five fish limit!

 

Our poor showing is a hard pill to swallow, but that just goes to show you how important “on the water practice” is. The first and second place teams have been fishing this pattern for years, and have won numerous tournaments doing it. I will certainly be working harder next year to master this Rice lake tactic.

 

My next tournament is tomorrow for a “fun” twilight clubbie on the Scugog river. My plastic frog is going to get a work out I’m sure!

 

What worked?

I’m thinking I should change the header of this section to read “What didn’t work?” Seems to be a bit of a trend…

Lure – Black and Blue Strike King Pro Model flipping jig, and YUM trailer

Depths – fish we caught were in two to four feet of water

Rods – Shimano Crucial Medium Heavy / Extra Fast

Reels – Shimano Castaic

Line – 65 lb High-Vis Power Pro braided fishing line

 

Weather Conditions:

Mostly sunny

Winds were southwest 15-20 km/h

Surface water temperatures 70-73 Fahrenheit

Air temperatures reached a high of 30+ Celsius with the humidex

 

@http://twitter.com/RedsFishin

[fish_fishburn]

Sounds like tough fishing. Did you concentrate at all on 0 to 2 ft depths. I have been in your situation before and would start fishing 0 to 2 feet and be totally amazed that hawgs would be in 8 inches of water. I won a 2 day tourney once by doing that, about 3 or 4 teams were fishing the same patterns but we were the only ones fishing shore to 2 ft and we were hammering them while the other teams were just getting a few because they were fishing deeper. It gets that percise.

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Sucks about the rough start but it must be exciting just to be in a tournament and get the adrenalin going!

[WeedLine]

That's fishing. Hope you guys put some big bags in the boat this year. Good luck.

[Rich Clemens]

You'll always have a day like that here and there. Let's just say the "Bad Day" is behind you now .. nothing but great days ahead.

[bdox]

Saw a couple noticeable skunkings in the results.

 

Day 1

67 JAMIE STOTHART COLIN JUNKIN 0 115 0

Day 2

89 LEO STAKOS RON JAMES 0 250 0

[fish-miester]

ya the scugog twighlight was no beeter I bet, lot of people coming in with skunks or under 10lbs tho the winning weight had somthing like 19.2

[dheitzner]

Ron & Leo don't usually show up too high in the results.

That being said there were a few skunkings in the Casey Cup that really surprised me.

[OhioFisherman]

Used to fish a quarry here in Ohio, old guy had a small bait shop 10 feet from the waters edge. Every morning when he opened his shop he would skim the dead minnows off the top of the bait tanks and walk over to the edge of the land and drop the dead minnows in the quarry. The dang bass could tell his footsteps by the vibrations and were waiting for the minnows. e and my buddy would walk over and they would take off.

 

Pitching a lure onto shore and dragging it back into the water can catch bass very shallow!

 

Tournaments can be tough, it`s nice to catch a limit every time, but there is some luck involved. No bluffing at a weigh in.

[Dutch]

I can't find the results at all - can someone please link?

 

Thanks.

[thalweg]

Don't beat yourself up. I was in the same tourney. Both days. Day one we got 7 lbs and dumped them. (a lot of zero's aren't complete skunks btw...guys dump em figuring its a waste of time to wait for weigh-in) Day two, complete change of tactic and we got a pay spot.

 

Pre-fish can mess with your brain...patterns rarely last more than a couple hours. Make decisions the day of hour by hour...draw up basic guidelines during pre-fish.

 

There's no silver bullet..or secret. Time on the water and having lots of spots for various conditions is the key. Some guys luck out first time on the lake by making good decisions during tourney day. Others have fished the lake for decades and have established spots for certain conditions. Some guys just get pure luck (rare) but it does happen.

[thalweg]

Link for Dutch

 

http://www.bigfatbass.com/viewthread.php?tid=15210

[jimmer]

The fishing was kind of crazy on my home lake this past weekend. Too many boats running around , a ton of fishermen and what seemed like a dead lake for about 4 days, then Sunday night came and the lake was alive again.

[fish-miester]

The fishing was kind of crazy on my home lake this past weekend. Too many boats running around , a ton of fishermen and what seemed like a dead lake for about 4 days, then Sunday night came and the lake was alive again.

 

 

what lake was that ? sturgeon ?

[jimmer]

what lake was that ? sturgeon ?

The next one over, Pigeon.

[Stoty]

a lot of zero's aren't complete skunks btw...guys dump em figuring its a waste of time to wait for weigh-in

 

He's hit the nail on the head...just because there's a 0 on the board, doesn't necessarily mean that the team got skunked.

 

I'll be the first to admit that fishing was horribly tough over the weekend for MOST of us, lol.

Kudos to the teams that figured out how to catch them and weigh in good bags!

 

I am really looking forward to the two tournaments on the Bay of Quinte in a couple weeks!!

The spots I've found seem to be holding some MONSTER fish, so with any luck, they will still be there come tournament time!

 

Anyone else fishing the Quinte Bassmania events?

[Harrison]

Yep, that's T fishing.

 

Your biggest competition on the water is you, especially after listening to "dock talk". Sure listen to whats hot, but you have to do your own deal. Best advice a buddy gave me years ago was pick a technique/bait and certain type of water you LIKE to fish and MASTER it.

 

I fished with the guys who won Rice day 2 and the two of them are MASTERS at what they do.

 

To win or place consistently on various lakes takes YEARS to dial in.

Edited July 8, 2010 by Harrison

[pooch]

For sure the high and lows are part of tourney fishing, and that is what makes it all the more exciting when you do figure it out!

 

I'll be out there on Quinte also, love that place. Monsters galore, smallie option and quantity too. My next CSFL tourney is the Tri-Lakes wildcard out of Bridgenorth, should be fun.

 

Thanks for all the feedback.

[Dutch]

Link for Dutch

 

http://www.bigfatbass.com/viewthread.php?tid=15210

 

Much appreciated.