Spring Success!

It has been nice to finally get a little revenge on those little green creatures since the face plant I took at the Big Ten Championship. I've been able to get out to some local ponds here in Iowa and have faired well in the past couple weeks.

The key has been looking for those shallow flats with a small break off the edge of them. So far it has been a total reaction type bite with most of my fish coming on a blue crome and green crome Strike King Redeye Shad, and a chart/white/orange colored Booyah Spinnerbait. I have also caught a couple nice fish on a green pumpkin Yum Dinger. Last Thursday I almost hit the 30 fish mark but came up short with 28 bass caught that afternoon. Here are a couple pictures from that outing:






This upcoming weekend we have our first qualifying tournament for the Iowa Bass Fishing Team that will count towards going to the National Tourament next fall in Texas. I will be sure to give an update on how that went after this upcoming weekend. It will be held at a place that is notorious for giving up nice fish when pitching jigs around heavy wood cover. You can bet on it that I'll have my All Terrain jigs rigged and ready to go come Sunday Morning!

Practice Day 3 and Tournament Day

Practice Day 3:
On the third day of practice I had paired up with my partned for the official tournament and we got off to a good start when he landed a 3.5lb largemouth early in the day (oddly enough it was caught on the main lake, a place where no one was catching largemough). We quickly headed out of that area and began heading to the south end of the lake. It was once again windy which meant that you better be wearing your rain gear if your making the treck across the wind swept lake. The high temp for the day was 40 with on and off rain. I personally didn't think the fishing would be that great but we ended up getting three more fish for the day; one smallmouth and 2 largies. After this practice I knew exactly what I wanted to do during the tournament day and I was the most confident I had ever been going into a college based tournament.

The Pattern:
Alright, now that the tournament is over I will spill the info in terms of how we were catching them... First of all we were dealing with 44-49 degree water temperatures, not very warm to say the least. On the south end of the lake there were boat and marina channels. These areas held the warmest water temperature on the lake and also held the best bet for catching largemouth. I was catching them in the channels on spinnerbaits, chatterbaits, crankbaits, jigs, and a dropshot. On the main lake you were looking at 44-46 degree water and the main fish were smallmouth. I caught all the smallmouth on jerkbaits (x-rap and strike king wild shiner) in 4-7 feet of water wherever there was rock. A wind swept bank also helped.

The Tournament:
This is the hard part about keeping this blog up...writing about things you don't really want to write about. To start off, we ended up doing terrible. Our entire Iowa Team consisting of 10 guys accumulated 2 fish (thats not a typo). 2 fish! I stuck to my guns on tournament day and it just didn't pan out. It was the coldest weather I had ever fished in (high of 38) with snow flurries every now and then. The wind had shifted to coming from the north instead of the SW like the other days. I could sit here and complain some more, but we just didn't catch them, theres no excuse for it because some other teams caught fish.

The only thing I would have changed in this tournament is getting a faster boat. Some people beleive that the boat doesn't matter in fishing, the fish don't care, and most times (almost always) it doesn't, but for this tournament it did. When you have small channels where all the fish are biting, more than one boat is going to go there (how about at least 20 of the 30 some boats in the tournament). I got passed by boats going to the channels and literaly watched other boats catch fish right in from of me for the first hour of the tournament. I fished behind them and finally picked up one 13 inch fish on a drop shot with 6lb flourocarbon, not a keeper though. In the channels on the first practice day I caught 5 five, 4 of which would have kept. So I know I would have been able to catch the fish had I been there first, but thats just how it goes sometimes.

I have no excuse for the smallies. I just didn't catch them. We tried adjusting and fishing windy banks, but I think with the wind coming from the North instead of the Southwest it changed things up and we just couldn't get bit on the main lake. I beleive that I am officially cursed in college based tournaments. 3 big college tournaments and I have yet to weigh in a fish. I have zeroed 4 times ever in tournaments, 3 of them in college tournaments. However, I still got to fish for 4 days straight and had a real fun time in practice attempting to break down a new lake. It sure beat being in class and its always good to be humbled every now and then, I just hope the trend doesn't continue during the next college tournament.

Practice Days 1 and 2

The first 2 days of practice are complete, and now its time to get ready for the snow storm/official practice day and the tournament on Sunday (no I have never fished open water in the snow, could be interesting). Thankfully I've been able to locate both largemouth and smallmouth during the past two days on the lake. So I know the general area some fish are in, it will just be a matter of finding them again when the weather changes.

The first day of practice was one of the worst days I have ever fished weather wise. It rained all 9 hours that I was on the lake except for maybe the first half hour. The winds blew 20-30 mph, and with my smaller boat, it makes the lake fish a lot smaller, I don't mind fishing in the wind, but my boat just can't handle it when its that strong. However, the fishing wasn't too bad. I caught all my fish in the afternoon, and everyone of them came on a different bait, not too much for a pattern.

Today was much tougher fishing wise with post frontal conditions. I only caught 1 fish and one nice 18inch walleye for a bonus fish. I didn't hit my spots from the first practice day and was able to eliminate a lot of water which was a plus. The wind blew worse today (didn't think it could get any worse!), but higher temperatures with no rain made it a little bit more pleasurable to be on the water.

Tomorrow I'm looking to mix it up a little bit in hoping I can find some backup spots. The spots where I did catch all the fish on practice day 1 have been getting hit hard by other fisherman. I'm optimistic about the next two days as long as my fish don't change too much. However, the fact that its supposed to be a high of 38 degrees with snow and wind the next two days, has me wondering whether anyone will bring anything to wiegh in on tournament day. I guess we'll wait and see. Hopefully the mental battle with the weather conditions will thin out the field a little bit, thats half the battle!

First Tournament on the Horizon

My first tournament of the 2008 season is coming up this week from April 12th-13th on Lake Maxinkuckee in NW Indiana. The tournament is the Big Ten Championship. This is the oldest Collegiate based bass fishing tournament in the nation and its great to be apart of the tradition. The tournament is on Sunday but I will be leaving on Wed. afternoon skipping out on a couple days of school to go prefish for the tournament (does it get much better ?).

I'm really excited to get back out on the water for the first time this year. Right now if the weather predictions hold up it could make for a tough tournament. They are predicting that it will get colder until the tournament day from here on out. They are even calling for a possibility of snow on tournament day which could make things interesting. We will probably be looking at a prespawn situation. Right now I have absolutely no clue how I will catch them. I've never been to the lake before and I won't know where these fish will be until I put the boat in the water and get a reading on the water temperature. I have an idea of many different things that I think will produce, but I don't know for sure what I will do until I get on the water. I think trying to figure out the fish is the most fun of fishing these tournaments and thats what keeps me coming back for more. Anyways, I have to get some school work done tonight before I leave this week, but check in throughout the week for updates on my practice. I'm going to try and post each day after practice and then a final post after the tournament day, so stay tuned!