Hey Everyone!

 

Tournament #2 in the books. 

 

The day looked to be a fantastic day for fishing. Cloudy, 72 for the high and not too windy however there was a huge wrench that was thrown in to the plans during this tournament. The lake had been sprayed two days or so prior to the tournament for grass reduction. 

 

This is a crystal clear lake with SMB, and LMB. I had a co-angler this time around. An older fella who has 30 years of local tournament experience, and had fished the lake and won tournaments over the years. He also fished the lake the day of the spray job and said he did very well. 

 

Everything started out great. He had a plan, and I had a plan so we combined them to hit all the spots. The water temps on the main lake were low 60's the creek arms were about 65-66ish. I saw quite a few on beds, but they were not locked on at all. They spooked every time you flipped in. The crystal clear water did not help either. 

 

I had a couple times where my outboard did not want to fire, it took like a full minute or two of turning it over etc to get her fired back up. She may need a tune up or something.  That kind of sucks, but she did not leave me stranded. I did break about a 1/2" piece of the skeg off as well hitting something that I did not see. I am honest, I have no idea what the hell it was.

 

The fishing was an absolute nightmare. I saw dozens of short cruisers but were not interested in anything I threw. Jerkbaits, chatterbaits, swim jigs, wacky worms, lipless.  The bed fish were spooky as mentioned, so I came up with the idea of hitting up the pads. I tied on a vega frog, and a punching setup. Nothing, not even an attempt to strike. 

 

I even went and did the fishing I cannot stand to do. Drop shotting 25' of water for the smallies.  The afternoon I thought would kick the bite on, but boy I was wrong. The afternoon hit, and the sun came out, and it was a beautiful 70* degree day. The pleasure crafts came out, and the lake was crawling with jetskis, pontoons and skiers. I chose to spend the afternoon skipping docks, and boat lifts in the marina, and heavily populated areas in coves and creek arms to get away from all the other traffic. 

 

I did not get a single bite all day....probably the roughest day of fishing I have ever had, but I am anxious for the next one already!

 

Results:

5.13 winning weight (2 LMB and 1 SMB)

2.82 big bass

Yikes! 5 pound wins it.
That’s when you pull-up along side a pontoon and ask for anything with alcohol in it.

The bass get to win sometimes to. Get em next time. Good attitude. 

19 hours ago, 813basstard said:

Yikes! 5 pound wins it.
That’s when you pull-up along side a pontoon and ask for anything with alcohol in it.

Yea I should have done that lol, it would have made the day a bit better. 

1 hour ago, GaryH said:

The bass get to win sometimes to. Get em next time. Good attitude. 

Yea they definitely took the "W" that day....

 

I am ready for #3 already. I guess since I did not catch any I want some redemption quickly...

Fishing after a spraying has always been tough for me.

5lbs to win means it was tough on almost everyone or you were fishing the Ohio river lol

 

This is how the tourney addiction begins moving to stage 2

Once you hit stage 3, you'll find yourself fishing tourneys in various leagues, weekends, weeknights, 4 hour shoot outs ... it's really amazing how many fishing tournaments there are

 

 

 

45 minutes ago, BassNJake said:

Fishing after a spraying has always been tough for me.

5lbs to win means it was tough on almost everyone or you were fishing the Ohio river lol

 

This is how the tourney addiction begins moving to stage 2

Once you hit stage 3, you'll find yourself fishing tourneys in various leagues, weekends, weeknights, 4 hour shoot outs ... it's really amazing how many fishing tournaments there are

 

 

 

Yea it was definitely rough for everyone. I am loving every minute of the club tournaments. ALl the guys are cool, and help load and unload etc. 

 

Yea I was thinking of getting in to a few more later on this year outside the normal schedule. 

On 5/18/2021 at 1:55 PM, BassNJake said:

Fishing after a spraying has always been tough for me.

5lbs to win means it was tough on almost everyone or you were fishing the Ohio river lol

 

This is how the tourney addiction begins moving to stage 2

Once you hit stage 3, you'll find yourself fishing tourneys in various leagues, weekends, weeknights, 4 hour shoot outs ... it's really amazing how many fishing tournaments there are

 

 

 

Or anywhere other than Lake Erie in Ohio!!! haha