Mississippi River - Pool 19 - Burlington, IA

A couple weeks ago we had a boater/non-boater club tournament for our University of Iowa Fishing Team down on pool 19 of the Mississippi River out of Burlington. Each U of I member was paired up with a Lake Cooper Angling Association club member. Since it is extremely difficult to find boats to use for tournaments, the LCAA club helped us out tremendously.

I was really looking forward to this tournament because I had never fished the Miss. River this far down before and I also thought it would be a great opportunity for our U of I members to have a chance to get some experience and tips from some of the older guys that had been fishing tournaments for much longer than we had.

We (10 club members) left the Iowa City area around 4:00 am and started our trek towards Burlington, IA. After about an hour drive we arrived and got paired up with our boaters and got ready for the tournament. We launched at 7am and weighed in at 3pm.

Overcast skies and rain greeted us on tournament morning. The rain didn't let up once throughout the entire day which left for some wet anglers and rusty stored tackle box hooks at the end of the day.

Me and my partner, Tony, made about a 40 minute run down to the Montrose area of the River. We were fishing a backwater cut that was a couple degrees warmer than the main river channel. It was a really cool spot that was always replenishing throughout the day. The fish would swim by this little cut while on the main river, feel the warmer water, and swim into the cut. We went up and down about a 30 yd stretch most of the day and fished a couple other areas close by this stretch too. There was one specific laydown that would ALWAYS replenish. We would catch a fish off of it, come back 5 minutes later and catch another, it never failed and was really an awesome learning experience for spring time fishing (always replenishing in a transition area).

Tony was mainly fishing with a sweet beaver and a chatterbait. I caught all my fish on an All Terrain finesse jig in texas craw color with a green pumpkin trailer. I bet we caught close to 40 fish that day, but only 4 of them were over the length minimum of 14 inches.

We ended up weighing 4 fish for 10lbs 11oz which was good enough for 4th place out of 12 boats. The best part about this tournament was the amount of funds our club raised. We expected to raise about $400 going into the event, however, once the top finishers started donating the cash winnings to our club we ended up walking away with more than $1000.00! Its was an unbelievable event and we were greatly appreciative of the donations. It went a long way in terms of helping out with the Big Ten Championship. By the way, stay tuned, I'll be posting about the Big Ten Tourney here in the next couple days.

P.S. we ended up finishing the highest that Iowa has ever finished before! it was tough, but it worked out...

Lake Dardanelle - Arkansas Tech Invitational

My bass tournament season officially began a little more than a month ago when me and a buddy of mine went down to Lake Dardanelle to represent the University of Iowa Bass Team at the ATU Invitational. We had high hopes while traveling to the event after reading about how many big bags this tournament has kicked out in past years. Limits were the norm and 20lb sacks were consistent in past years. We were down there from March 16-21, a week before the BASS Elite Series guys were down there. After picking up my boat in Minnesota with temps in the low teens we eventually arrived in Russelville, Arkansas with balmy 60-70 degree weather, definitely a good way to spend a spring break... Also, anyone ever heard of the Arkansas Grand Canyon? Yeah, me neither, but we drove right through it on the trip down, what a crazy drive! Its part of the Ozark Mountains and was a cool sight to see.

Practice Days 1, 2, and 3:
Basically me and my partner, Tyler, decided to break down this massive lake/river into three sections: lower, mid, and upper portions. On each practice day we fished one portion of the lake. At close to 55,000 acres we in no way were able to cover all of it, but we tried our best. The first two days of practice were brutally tough for us. We fished for both days with only catching 2 keepers. We caught some short fish, but even they were not that prevalent. On the third day of practice we decided to make a 30 minute run up to the spadra creek area of the lake. The third day presented us with overcast and rainy conditions for the first time since we had been there. Within the first half hour after making our run we were already noticing better results than the first two days of practice. We ended the day catching around 14lbs. We were mainly focusing on flats with stumps and also laydowns that were on bank closest to the creek channels that ran through these backwaters. Our main baits were spinnerbaits, jigs, beavers, and chatterbaits. Here are some pictures from practice.

Tournament Day 1:

On day one we put all our eggs in one basket and made the 30 minute run up to spadra. With sunny conditions and high skies we struggled to get a keeper in any of the spots that we caught the 14lbs in the day before. Eventually at about 12:30 Tyler hooked into a keeper fish on a jig off a laydown. That would be the only fish that we would catch that day.

Tournament Day 2:

On day two the forecasts were very similar to our third practice day which left us optimistic about our chances up in the spadra creek area. We got to our staring spot and within the first half hour I landed a keeper fish on a spinnerbait. I thought that it was going to be on after that fish. However, that would once again be the only fish that we would catch that day.

We ended the tournament only weighing 2 fish and that was good enough for 38th out of 57 boats(http://www.collegiatebasschampionship.com/uploads/2009%20ATU%20RESULTS_final2.pdf). Not great, but not terrible for only tow fish. It was tough on most of the Field, but as usual, a couple teams always figure them out. the winning team brought in solid limits each day and totaled 30+ pounds. They also were fishing up the river quite a ways.

One of the really cool things about this event is that a lot of the Elite Series guys attended the weigh-ins since they were going to be fishing the lake the week after us. Kevin Short was the MC for the weigh-in and it was cool being able to talk with him on stage. We also got the see guys such as Rick Morris, Pat Golden, Clark Rheem, Marty Stone, and even the zen master Rick Clunn. Following the Elite Tournament the next week on the same exact lake was even cooler. We were fishing very 5 minutes from where most of the top 12 guys were fishing; so close, yet so far. We also practiced in the same area that VanDam caught most of his fish on the 4th day of the Elite event, yet we didn't catch as many as he did (its amazing how good those guys are!)

All in all in was a fun event and a great way to spend my spring break. Stay tuned for more updates on my spring tournaments. I've had three already this year and I'll be writing about them throughout the week!

coming out of hibernation...

hey all, its been waaay too long since I last wrote in my fishing blog and this will soon change. I was debating whether or not to continue writing this year and have concluded that I will once again blog about my summer fishing adventures. Keep tabs on my blog as I will be updating it this week with some tournament entries from this spring! There should be some good stuff coming, so stay tuned!!