From worst to first all in one weekend!

[pooch]

From worst to first all in one weekend!

It was a busy fishing weekend for me, but I am certainly not complaining. Saturday I competed in Canada's premier one-day bass tournament and it certainly lived up to the hype. On Sunday I fished in a tournament on a premier lake in Haliburton with some friends from the Kawartha Lakes Fishing Club.

Saturday - Bass Pro Shops Lake Simcoe Open

 

The weather was near perfect for this tournament with light winds no rain and cool but not cold temperatures. In pre-fish I used my Aqua-Vu underwater video camera to locate a mother load of bass, and big ones too. The problem in pre-fish was catching these fish, but I was confident on the day of the tournament my fishing partner (Dan McMullen) and I would be able to figure them out. After fishing our number one spot for several hours and with only one small fish in the live well we had to make the tough decision to "leave fish to find fish"; a motto most anglers believe is a mistake. We tried a couple other spots and found some more fish, but we were still unable to coax them into biting. With 30 minutes lefty in the day we surrendered to the Lake Simcoe fishing gods and made our way back to check-in to see how the rest of the field fared.

 

As expected the great weather allowed anglers to reach their spots and to fish them thoroughly; a combination that proved to be historic. The first big moment came when James Paluch and Shaun McKay came to the weigh-in with an impressive bag of fish at 23 lbs, but it wasn’t until they brought out their big fish that the crowd came alive. Their big fish stretched end to end in the tank and weighed an outstanding 8.05 lbs! Good enough for the Big Fish prize of approximately $5,000 and lots of cheers from the crowd.

 

The next exciting and historic moment came when Mark Moran and Joe Muszynski came to the stage. The current Canadian record for the heaviest five fish limit ever caught in a major tournament was 30.35 lbs and Mark and Joe smashed the record with an extraordinary 31.50 lbs, a historic moment which won them the tournament and over $45,000 in cash and prizes!

 

Even though my fishing partner and I did not get on the right fish this day I was pretty happy to just be in attendance to witness that spectacle. It was easily the most exciting weigh-in I have ever been too. Congrats to all the anglers for some truly impressive bags of fish!

Sunday – Kawartha Lakes Fishing Club Haliburton Event

 

This small Haliburton lake is a gem nestled just an hour north of Peterborough. In 2008 the big fish was a 6.4 lb giant largemouth bass and in 2009 the winning weight was over 21 lbs of largemouth. There are numerous smallmouth in the lake, but each year it seems green fish win. I was paired up with Jason Zigomanis for the day and our strategy was to try our largemouth spots early and go smallie fishing if the largemouth didn’t cooperate. I’m glad to say we never had to chase smallies this day as by 10 am we had a couple good largemouth and went searching the lake for a kicker (big fish). Over the next few hours we upgraded a few of our fish and culled five times, but without a big fish we knew it would be tough to finish first. At the dock I was surprised to hear that most of the competitors had struggled to catch largemouth and only the smallies were biting on this cold and rainy day. Jason and I ended up with a bag of fish that weighed 14.2 lbs good enough for the win.

 

 

The fishing season is surely winding down, with only one more tournament left this year. I hope we get a warm autumn that will allow me get out many times for some fun fishing before the lakes freeze over.

 

Tight lines,

Andrew

What worked (KLFC Tournament)?

Lure – Black and Blue Strike King Bitsy Jig with a matching Zoom Trailer

Depth – 4 to 8 feet of weed and weed/rock

Rod – 7’2” Shimano Cumara medium power, extra fast action

Reel – Shimano Chronarch CH101D7 7.0:1 gear ratio

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

 

Weather Conditions:

Cloudy with light rain all day

Winds from the east at 10 - 15 km/h

Surface water temperatures 49-50 Fahrenheit

Air temperatures reached a high of 7 Celsius

 

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Edited October 25, 2010 by redsfishin

[johnnyb]

Awesome report, and congrats on the Sunday win

[Terry]

nice going on the win on Sunday

 

and I too have found lots of big fish during prefish only to have them not bite in the tourney, I think they do that to pee us off and it does

[glen]

Great report and congrats on the win. WTG Red.

[spinnerbaitking]

Great Report & a nice bag of Bass