Had our store associate tournament today. Associates were able to suggest a lake and vote on them, one of the two lakes with the most votes would be drawn from a hat two days before the day of the tournament, to keep things mostly fair. A lake called Union Lake was picked, and a lot of people complained that it was going to be crappy, and that this lake sucked.

 

I paid in to fish the tournament the last day that I could, thinking I wouldn't have a motor for my boat. I borrowed a friends 9.9 just to get out there, and got one of the non-boaters who wanted to go but hadn't found a boater yet. My co-angler had never REALLY been out bass fishing before, so I set him up with a few good baits for the conditions.

 

This lake is a very deep, very clear lake. Something I don't fish often. It might be 2 or 3 feet deep out from shore for about 20 to 100 feet, and then drops very fast into 20-40 feet, sometimes down to 100. I watched a few of the bassresource videos about contour and summer fishing, to get a bit better idea what I might want to do, being this is the first time I was going to here and the lake definitely has some contour to it.

 

I tell you what, I have NO idea what they were talking about. My partner and I had a pretty good day!

 

Right after blast-off, being in a big, slow boat, The first few good spots I wanted to fish were taken. So we started on a spot right off the launch where two points came together, with a saddle and a nice drop nearby. We were sitting in 20', casting up and dragging baits off the ledge. First 10 casts I landed a 2lb smallmouth dragging a tube. The next hour went without a bite, so we moved to my next spot, that surprisingly, no one was fishing.

 

I thought it looked perfect on the map. A  channel led up from 40 feet into an outlet with a low bridge, steep drops on either side and some grass and rocks. We fished here for the rest of the 5 hours we had, and only seen three other teams go in and come back out. I fished a dropshot for a bit, and landed a keeper smallmouth after seeing some activity on the sonar. I handed my co-angler a dropshot, and he went to town. In no time at all, had a 2lb LMB in the boat. He was happy as could be. We went up and down this channel atleast a dozen times, ended up getting our limit and proceeded to cull about 6 times. We were one of only 3 teams to weigh a limit, and took second place with 10.53. First place had big fish and 13.35.

 

My co-angler not being very experienced, was able to learn a lot from me and he actually ended up carrying me for our second place finish. He caught our two big fish, a 2-5 and 3 pounder. He had another 3 on his line, and came off. I could have taken a tip from him. whatever he was doing was working, my bite slowed down quite a bit for the last hour or so.

 

In terms of size, big bass was just under 4, so this lake might not be great by some standards. But being out there and being able to put a novice on some fish and really letting him get some experience makes me think this lake is pretty under rated. Not only that, but smallmouth after smallmouth, who wouldn't love some of that action? Some of these fish were so feisty, I had to play them out or a few minutes at a time before they would stop taking runs from the boat.

 

All in all, it was a good day.

 

 

Edit: Oh, and second place, we received $150 to split, and I won a Shimano Chronarch in a raffle afterwards. That made it even better.

Sounds like you really figured them out and had a sucessful time doing it.

Sounds like a great time to me!  And a new fisherman hooked!  Congrats!
 

Jeff

Sounds like a good time man.

I need to get myself a buddy who has a boat. I am confident that I would kill it fishing from a boat, eventually that day will come lol

You had a good day!