Had another tournament this past weekend on Saturday at a lake I hadn't fished in over 20 years. 4.5 hour drive to western Kansas was a little rough, but I carpooled with another member from our group (hauled his kayak on my trailer also), so we could split cost. Lake was really low, lots of timber and pretty clear water. First day we only had a few hours to fish. Drove around some of the nastiest dirt roads I've ever been on trying to find a ramp that was still in usable. Finally found one and decided to just fish and see what we could find.
Took me about a hour to get a bite on a plopper that came off, a sign of life at least. 10 minutes later, I caught one off a tree on a 10" worm that was shorter than the worm. Next pitch to the same trees with a jig, I caught another, next pitch I caught a nice one.
I found a high spot covered up with trees and buckbrush that was loaded with fish. Shook off a bunch of bites and we ended the night catching a bunch of dinks on ploppers out of the brush.
Next day we launched near the campsite. Started catching fish right away on a plopper and it never stopped. Caught well over 50 fish throughout the day but size was the issue. Tons of 14-16 inch fish, but the 17+ inch fish were tough to find. I sight fished a bunch of fish cruising the shallow buckbrush and pretty much caught fish at will, but only caught 3 over 17 all day, although one was a really nice one that caught my jig on the fall in some deeper trees.
I tried to fish a bunch of deeper trees and never could get any more big bites.
That night, storms rolled in, bringing torrential rain, 60-70mph winds, a tornado, crazy lightning, all the fun. My tent got battered and all my bedding got wet, had to brace my tent up with my cooler and a couple of gear totes.
Tournament morning, I went against what my gut told me and went back into the cove, away from where I had been fishing. Lost a really nice 18ish inch fish right away that hurt pretty bad. The weather was 30* cooler and very windy and the bite was noticeably tougher and the bites I was getting were much smaller. I caught a few small ones on a swim jig before finally catching a decent 15" fish on a swimjig.
At the very back of the cove, I was fishing a laydown in dirty water that was only 3' deep when it got smacked. Hammered a good fish on the hookset that was on the top thrashing right away. Of course it turned out to be a nearly 23" walleye??
I caught a small limit back in that cove before I kicked my way into the heavy wind and rolling waves and through this mess;
to get back to the better area I'd fished the day before. The bite was much tougher than I'd found the day before. There was one tree on a high spot that was laid down on a clean spot and out in front of it was covered up with milfoil. I'd caught a good one out of it in practice so I really wanted to fish it again. Caught a small one quickly and started picking it apart. Several flips in, right when my jig got to the end of the tree, the line slowly back towards the tree and I hit another heavy fish that immediately wrapped me in the tree. I could hear my line squeaking and sawing on the tree. I was fighting strong wind and positioned myself right above the fish, just about ready to jump into the 4' of water to try to retrieve the fish. Then it popped free from the snag and swam for deeper water, towing me with it, and I quickly realized it wasn't a bass ?
I was getting disheartened with the lost quality fish and my bigger bites being non-bass species. I started down the bank I'd caught the most fish from the day before and pitched my jig into one of the only standing trees and got a little tap. Hooked up with a fish and finally landed a better quality bass.
I kept moving down that bank with a swim jig in the buckbrush and caught another small cull. All my fish were over 15" at this point but still needed a lot of improvement and the day was running short.
I fished all the way to the end of the point, something I hadn't done the day before, and had another better fish engulf my swimjig.
I was slowly making an afternoon surge but needed more good bites. I fished the whole way back down that bank and returned to the laydown tree. It had reloaded and I caught 3 more small fish. After picking it apart for several minutes, I was about to move on when I got another bite, and had one of the worst hooksets I've ever had on a jig fish, but despite almost dropping my whole rod in the lake, managed to land another good cull.
Unfortunately, that would be my last cull of the day. That one that I lost in the morning would have made a huge difference in the end.
With 2 tournaments left in the season, I'm 4 points out of 1st place in the AOY. Didn't think I was having that good of a season, but we'll see if I can do okay the last 2 tournaments to keep it close at least.
