Beaver Dam Lake - Tournament Day

Having never been to this lake before, I was a little nervous on how my day would go. However, I seemed more relaxed than I usually am before most of my tournaments because I hadn't practiced and therefore didn't have anyfish located. I wasn't going into the tournament wondering whether or not the fish would be in the same areas where I caught them in practice. I was able to fish by the seat of my pants.

I started off in a shallow bay casting a strike king red eye shad in tennesse shad color. The water was stained to clear in color and 53-55 degrees in this area. After combing a small 50 yard stretch with no bites I picked up a booyah spinnerbait and caught a 13 inch bass on my second cast. Not big enough, but this gave me a little confidence. I continued back over the 50 yd stretch again and hooked up with a nice 17 inch fish, 1 fish in the livewell. After going over this spot a couple more times without a bite I went through into another bay where I threw a spinnerbait, All Terrain Stick Worm, and the redeye shad. I caught a couple more short fish in that bay along with some smaller northerns, but nothing to write home about.

I moved back out the area where I caught the 17 inch fish and moved out deeper into about 7ft of water casting the redeye shad. I immediately caught another keeper at 15 inches but decided to throw it back. I figured it was early in the day and with the no cull rules in Wisconsin I didn't want to burn a spot in my livewell. This decision wasn't easy. I continued fishing the redeye shad in 6-7ft of water with no luck. However, I did hook into about a 20-25 inch brown trout! I thought I had a monster smallie and was freaking out, but it ended up being a big trout.

After fishing for 1.5 hours with only one fish in the livewell I decided to find some new water. I just wasn't seeing the kind of action and quality of fish that I needed to do well. I made a long run into another portion of the lake. I had to go under a culvurt that my boat barely fit through, but it was worth it. I began cruzing around the other part of the lake and noticed the water was murky on this side and also 57-60 degrees. I continued to run around the area and then found the jackpot. I found about a 100yd bank loaded with laydowns and sunken trees.

I didn't know wether this spot would hold fish, but I thought I'd give it a try. On my 3rd pitch with an All Terrain Tackle green 3/8oz jig I caught a good 17 inch fish, 2 fish in the livewell. I thought to myself, "if thats any indication of whats to come on the rest of this bank, then it could get really good in a hurry". I continued down the bank and proceeded to put another 16 inch fish and a 17.5 inch fish in the boat, 3 and 4 fish in the livewell. This was heaven for me, I love to pitch jigs around shallow cover.

The rules we had set for the tournament is that we could weight our best 4 fish, but we could fish for a 5th fish and use it to replace one of the 4 already in the livewell come weigh-in. I proceeded to fish this bank loaded with wood for about 3-4 hours catching many 14-16inch fish. I threw them all back hoping to get a big one by the end of the day. During the last hour I finally hooked into another 17 inch fish and then headed back to the ramp since I had five fish in the livewell.

I took this pattern and expanded it to other laydowns in the dirty water. Even single isolated trees were holding fish. They were just flat out relating to wood. I was catching some in between the wood by pad stalks on a spinnerbait as well, but the main deal was the jig around wood. These fish were all either prespawn or spawning fish. Some were full of eggs, some half full with red tails. Overall I ended up catching 24 fish. 16 on an A.T. jig, 6 on a spinnerbait, 1 on a redeye shad, 1 on an A.T. Stick Worm.

I ended the day with 11lbs for 4 fish and was beat by two ounces by another guy in the club who had mostly smallies (some really nice smallies). I happy with how the tournament went and if I could do it again I wouldn't change a thing. I think the key for me was continuing to milk the area I had found with my jig. I think this is one thing too many people miss; they don't exploit an area to the fullest extent. They will fish a bank once or twice catch a couple fish and then move on. I bet I fished this bank at least 6 times and caught fish everytime I went down it. I've done this so many times, especially when fishing slower baits like a jig, to try and really exploit and area for all its worth on one day tournaments.

Heres some notes on the gear I was using
Jig:
7' MH St.Croix Avid Series rod (casting)
Pflueger Trion reel
50lb Stren Superbraid line
3/8oz Green All Terrain Tackle Jig
Spinnerbait:
6'6" M St.Croix Avid Series rod (casting)
Pflueger President reel
14lb Trilene XT
1/2 oz chart/orange/green spinnerbait