mheichelbech

Awesome...thanks! Look forward to reading it. I felt like I had the overall day pretty well organized...I had some trouble locating some plastics which is why I asked about the "special" box. For the next one I plan to have some baits pre-rigged so I'm not digging for hooks and sinkers as much.

You don't find out your partner until the pre-tournament meeting which is end of day on Saturday with the tournament being on Sunday. I can get the name and number from the tournament director of the boater.

Currently a non-boater, likely to become a boater. Backed in my 20's I fished tournaments a lot, then had kids and stopped. Now I am testing the waters to see if I still like to do it. In my 20s I never fished as a true non-boater as I fished all team tournaments with the same guy. One thing I hate doing in a tournament is having to dig through things to get what I want. I am pretty well organized (jig box, 2 crankbait boxes, terminal box) already but looking to see what else I can do to minimize time wasted when re-rigging something that requires different hooks or jig heads, weights, etc.

My apologies if this has been beat to death. I was wondering if anyone makes a separate bag of the baits and setups they expect to use on a specific tournament day. I was thinking of this on Sunday that it would have been nice if most of the lures I was using had all been in one place. Several times when I changed baits I had to dig through 2 different bags, 1 to get the terminal tackle and 1 to get the plastic bait I wanted. I was thinking I should have had all the stuff in one place so I wasn't having to dig through stuff to get what I wanted. I know you can't always predict but I'm thinking next time of trying this. Maybe 2 bags, 1 for hardbaits/spinnerbaits/jigs for the day and 1 for plastics. I had even thought of pre-rigging some soft plastics with a leader line so that I then only had to tie the leader to my main line. Anyone do this? Just trying to figure the best way to change baits quickly during a tournament.

Thanks and your response is pretty much what I expected. I try to put myself in the boater’s shoes and think how would I feel if....I also did my best to not fish behind the boat unless we were relatively static in an area. Interestingly and this didn’t know this while fishing, but my more boater had won over $70k fishing in the last 10-15 years. He was a very humble guy. I knew he could fish but I didn’t realize he was that good. I’d consider myself lucky to draw any other boaters even remotely like this guy. I think he enjoyed fishing with me as well as we chatted throughout the day about various things. When we agreed on DT I knew it was all good..lol! Btw, I checked with the tournament director and he has agreed to let me show up the day of instead of coming to the pre-tournament meeting. It’s kind of a keep it on the low kind of thing but I think he understands I’m not an idiot when it comes to communicating along with having a job that requires me to work 6-7 days a week right now. I am pretty positive about this whole deal right now and may fish the whole trail for the year.

In the tournament I was in Sunday, the a non- boater had over 17 pounds while his boater had 0. I think he may have top weight or close to it for the tournament as well as big bass. He caught 4 fish total. My understanding is they camped on an area all day and the 4 fish were spread throughout the day.

Thanks and I wasn't necessarily complaining about the money part...especially for gas for the boater. The day before "registration/pre-tournament" meeting travel is primarily an inconvenience and I think deters a lot of fishermen, both boaters and non-boaters, from fishing the tournaments that do this. A lot of these guys are fishing all the tournaments on the trail and may fish other trails as well. It's already expensive enough to fish these tournaments without having an additional day of travel. I get that a lot of them may be on the lake pre-fishing but that is optional. If they did everything in 1 day it would at least eliminate a reason for anglers to not fish the tournament. Also, for anyone who may think so, I am not all complaining about the tournament generally. It was a great tournament. My only complaint is in regard to the day before required meetings which seems to be common for tournaments.

I fished my first tournament as a non-boater yesterday. As I think I previously noted, with my kids now almost independent from me on a daily basis I am dipping my toes back into tournament fishing, thinking about a boat and fishing tournaments. Although I didn't catch any keepers, I was fortunate to have a great boater and it was an all around fun day despite 20 mph winds and 15 degree temp drop with a major cold front having passed through the night before. I really could not have asked for a better boater....we were definitely around fish. I do think the one strategic mistake was not slowing down enough but never mentioned that...maybe I should have. After this experience I have a few more questions: 1) Although I only got hung up once to where he had to interrupt his fishing, I was constantly through the day, mindful of not getting hung up so as not to interrupt his fishing. For example, I did not use a trailer hook on my spinnerbaits to avoid hangups. What is a reasonable number of times that a non-boater can expect to get hung up before it's a problem for the boater through an 8 hour tournament? 2) Assuming one is a fairly knowledgeable and experienced angler fishing (on a particular lake)as a non-boater, is it "wrong" to mention a change in strategy unsolicited? 3) And this is a biggie....on this particular tournament trail, most of the lakes are about 1-3 hours away. As such they are within driving distance but not so far that I need to stay over night. These tournaments have everyone come to a pre-tournament meeting the day before (pre-tourn on Satuday, tourn on Sunday). I asked the tournament director if I could skip the pre-tournament meeting and simply arrive extra early on Sunday morning so I would not have to drive 2 hours to and 2 hours back on Saturday and then do the whole thing again on Sunday, and he said that was fine. I heard another angler say some of the boaters were angry because their non-boater wasn't there on Saturday (my boater did not seem to mind and they seemed more angry about the length of the pre-tournament meeting and time it took). From what I saw there were a lot of boaters without non-boaters so it appears to be that non-boaters are "needed" in a sense. My question is, if I wanted to fish this trail but didn't want to do all this extra driving on Saturdays, is it fair to ask for my boater's contact info and not attend the pre-tournament meeting the day before? Or, should I just bite the bullet and either stay over night or do the drive on Saturday to conform? It seem stupid to make people waste all this time and gas to attend what should be an at most, a half hour meeting that could easily be done on Sunday morning. Secondly, with technology today, there is no reason I can think of as to why the boater/non-boater could not be paired up well before the tournament and the appropriate contact info emailed (or texted) to each angler...heck even the day before should be fine. If people want to fish bad enough, they will contact each other and most of the time, 95% of the rules and policies are known in advance. This whole day before thing just seems like an outmoded process from a time when everyone didn't have cell phones and the ability to communicate with ease. Especially with gas prices going through the roof again (and speaking as someone who spent roughly $25 dollars of my own gas driving and gave the boater $40 for gas).

I agree after fishing a tournament with a guy using all 3 of the goodies yesterday. Execellent tools to find and see cover but they definitely don’t make the fish bite! What I thought was one of the best parts was how we could see rock piles and see how far they were from the boat and if fish were positioned around the rock piles. However it was still encumbent upon us to properly position the boat and make them bite which they didn’t.

Thanks. This is pretty much what I thought was the deal. If I get it correctly, only down imaging is useful with the big motor(going slow) moving around...correct? Are there scenarios where the si/di would be more desirable than the forward facing?

This reminds me of the arguments against use of a crossbow for archery season in deer hunting...and arguments against compound bows vs recurve bows when compounds were introduced. Why no one vet protested the use of guns for deer hunting is beyond me. Totally agree it would be nice to have tournaments with limited technology and hp. I guess they sort of have that with the kayak tournaments already. And of course guys with 150 hp boats have an advantage over guys using bass trackers. Eventually prices on all these electronics will come down to “average” fisherman levels and the tournament playing field will be more leveled. To me, it’s a reflection of life in general. People with more disposable income almost always have it easier with nicer, better things but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are happier....in my experience, people who have the most money and things are often the most unhappy.

I haven’t been able to find this, what is the difference between Side Imaging and/or Down Imaging and the Livescope (or Lowrance equivalent)? Trying to research all this.

If I don’t start catching them soon I’m gonna start using a red stick bait called dynamite! Not too good at hooking them but it sure does bring them to the top!

I really miss the smelly jelly worms. They were the best 4 inch work I’ve ever fished. Not sure what happened with them but they aren’t available anymore that I can find. II also like Bang, easy to hit your bait with it hanging over the boat. I like it mostly as it slicks up the bait and helps it slide over and around cover better...especially jigs and plastics.

Travelling shaving bags work well. I like that they have other pockets where I put the specific terminal tackle for the baits it contains. For back of the boat tournaments I use the KVD worm bag. It’s bigger and works as well as anything I’ve been able to find.

Love the 4 inch Zoom Dead Ringer, pumpkin or blue with chartreuse tail. Caught a 9 pounder in one last year. My favorite method in open areas is to throw it with a 3/16 bullet weight rigged Carolina style about 12 inches ahead of the worm.

Awesome to see! My daughter has caught a few big ones....so much fun to see!

I have some custom painted but haven’t been able to tell any difference in productivity. However, a lot of the water I fish tends to be stained. I feel like custom painted baits would be more important if you have unique looking forage in clear water or if you just can’t get a color you like in a specific model lure that you like.

I like these as well. I like to swap out the blades for Hildebrandt blades. They are heavier and provide a much better thump than most standard blades. Some of your better brands use Hidebrandt blades. I like a double colorado on a 1/4 oz spinnerbait with a 3.5 on front and a 2 on the back. A single 3.5 is good too. I love a single no.4 colorado blade but you’d have to use at least a 3/8 oz head or it won’t run strait. If you want the thump, get the Hildebrandt blades or buy a spinnerbait that had them. I think Nichols started using them.

What is FFS?

Whatever it’s called or should be called, it’s not the team formats I am talking about, it is where you are paired with a boater and must fish in the back half of the boat all day and you are competing against others that are fishing as non-boaters/co-anglers. I agree the co- angler terminology is confusing and to me at least, and somewhat impliesva partnership or team format with the boater. Going forward I will use the term non-boater. So yeah, another way to put my question is how much does non- boater success depend on the boater? I would say almost 100% because of the boater doesn’t get in fish then the non-boater has no chance whatsoever.

Hadn’t seen that word in quite some time!

Fishing a lake tomorrow, we have warm temps and a lot of rain yday/today...60 degree rain. Cold front moving in tomorrow. This past week has been the first warmup of spring. I know it’s a tough ask to predict but just looking to see what anyone thinks fish might do. More specifically, fishing Lake Patoka in Indiana. It’s a River created lake to mitigate flooding. Not sure what the water temps have been but I’d guess it’s at least low 40s. I’m mainly just wondering if they’d likely to still be hanging in deeper water. 20 feet would be dee in this place.

Thanks for the info!

Didn't know if anyone knew what the trend was on this...if the winning co-angler in tournaments is usually the one who fished with the winning or top 10 or so boater in tournaments. It would seem like the logical thing but of course with humans and fishing things are often not logical at all. Thanks for any experienced input on this.