Sorry.. this is long....
We had our last regular season club tournament of the year on Barren River Lake this weekend. The lake was off limits Mon-Thurs. Friday was the official practice day, and the tournament was Saturday.
I went the Saturday before the off-limits began to check out the lake. That was my first time ever seeing it. I fished from 2:00-7:00 in the evening and I only caught one keeper. It was tough.
I had also spent a lot of time on Google Earth marking transitions/points/humps and anything else I could find. I had tons of waypoints to check before ever seeing the lake.
On the Friday practice day, I never caught a keeper. However, I idled around and scanned a lot. I put right at 4.5 hours on the big motor Friday. I found 3 spots that had bass set up on a ledge. I marked all 3.
As we are all sitting around Friday night, everyone was talking about how tough it was. A couple people caught a big fish (one guy had one over 6, and two people had 5 pounders), but nobody had more than a few bites. It was sounding pretty bad.
I went directly to the spot in the screenshot above on Saturday morning. I caught a 3.32 and a 2.76 within the first 10 minutes. I fished it for another half hour and didn't get bit again.
I ran to my second spot and caught two more in the first two casts there. I had 4 for 11.53 (according to my scales) before 7am. At that point I knew I had a real shot of winning this thing.
At 7:05, I got my 5th bite. I set the hook and the fish didn't move. He just started swimming to deeper water. I started pulling, and he was just going wherever he wanted. I immediately though "catfish" and my heart sunk.
After fighting him for a minute he started swimming straight to the surface, and he jumps out of the water. It's a bass!
I got him to the side of the boat and was about to grab him.. I've got a really good look at him by now, and he's over 6lbs. It's the biggest one I've hooked in a couple of years. All of the sudden he caught a 2nd wind and shot directly under the boat about 100 mph. He snapped my line clean in two before I could even think about what happened.
Someone was on my 3rd spot, and I wound up not catching my 5th until about 1:00. I was never able to cull my smallest (2.1 lbs).
I weighed in 13.77, and that was good enough for second.
But what shocked everyone... is that someone had 17.60lbs. His biggest was only 4.06 - he had 5 really solid ones. He absolutely kicked our teeth in. If I had landed my big one.. and if it was exactly 6lbs, I might have still lost!
We had 38 guys there that morning.
3 of us weighed in 5-fish limit.
Nobody weighed in 4 fish.
5 people weighed in 3 fish.
6 people weighed in 2 fish.
5 people weighed in 1 fish.
My goal was to go grind out this tournament and make sure I finished in the top 10 for the year (out of 49 of us) to qualify for the Top 10 bonus tournament. I wound up finishing tied for 3rd in points. I also finished 3rd in total weight for the year. Out of guys that caught at least 20 bass this season, I had the highest average weight (2.9lbs).
This is my 4th year fishing this club. My goal for the year was to make Top 10 (I had never done it before). I accomplished that. Had a first and a second place. I struggled in between and had 3 tournaments where I didn't catch a limit. I've really got to learn to find ways to catch 5 on days when it's tough and the off shore bite that I like to chase isn't happening.
We had our last regular season club tournament of the year on Barren River Lake this weekend. The lake was off limits Mon-Thurs. Friday was the official practice day, and the tournament was Saturday.
I went the Saturday before the off-limits began to check out the lake. That was my first time ever seeing it. I fished from 2:00-7:00 in the evening and I only caught one keeper. It was tough.
I had also spent a lot of time on Google Earth marking transitions/points/humps and anything else I could find. I had tons of waypoints to check before ever seeing the lake.
On the Friday practice day, I never caught a keeper. However, I idled around and scanned a lot. I put right at 4.5 hours on the big motor Friday. I found 3 spots that had bass set up on a ledge. I marked all 3.
As we are all sitting around Friday night, everyone was talking about how tough it was. A couple people caught a big fish (one guy had one over 6, and two people had 5 pounders), but nobody had more than a few bites. It was sounding pretty bad.
I went directly to the spot in the screenshot above on Saturday morning. I caught a 3.32 and a 2.76 within the first 10 minutes. I fished it for another half hour and didn't get bit again.
I ran to my second spot and caught two more in the first two casts there. I had 4 for 11.53 (according to my scales) before 7am. At that point I knew I had a real shot of winning this thing.
At 7:05, I got my 5th bite. I set the hook and the fish didn't move. He just started swimming to deeper water. I started pulling, and he was just going wherever he wanted. I immediately though "catfish" and my heart sunk.
After fighting him for a minute he started swimming straight to the surface, and he jumps out of the water. It's a bass!
I got him to the side of the boat and was about to grab him.. I've got a really good look at him by now, and he's over 6lbs. It's the biggest one I've hooked in a couple of years. All of the sudden he caught a 2nd wind and shot directly under the boat about 100 mph. He snapped my line clean in two before I could even think about what happened.
Someone was on my 3rd spot, and I wound up not catching my 5th until about 1:00. I was never able to cull my smallest (2.1 lbs).
I weighed in 13.77, and that was good enough for second.
But what shocked everyone... is that someone had 17.60lbs. His biggest was only 4.06 - he had 5 really solid ones. He absolutely kicked our teeth in. If I had landed my big one.. and if it was exactly 6lbs, I might have still lost!
We had 38 guys there that morning.
3 of us weighed in 5-fish limit.
Nobody weighed in 4 fish.
5 people weighed in 3 fish.
6 people weighed in 2 fish.
5 people weighed in 1 fish.
My goal was to go grind out this tournament and make sure I finished in the top 10 for the year (out of 49 of us) to qualify for the Top 10 bonus tournament. I wound up finishing tied for 3rd in points. I also finished 3rd in total weight for the year. Out of guys that caught at least 20 bass this season, I had the highest average weight (2.9lbs).
This is my 4th year fishing this club. My goal for the year was to make Top 10 (I had never done it before). I accomplished that. Had a first and a second place. I struggled in between and had 3 tournaments where I didn't catch a limit. I've really got to learn to find ways to catch 5 on days when it's tough and the off shore bite that I like to chase isn't happening.
