This is for those who like thorough reports:
The Virginia Junior State Championship was held at Lake Anna this weekend. 17 in the youth division, and there were also 25 adults fishing the State Team Championship. As usual, conditions were great all week but took a turn for the worse come tournament day(s) . My partner and I really struggled on day one, we hadn't pre fished, so we were just trying to get a pattern locked in. We chose to fish away from the crowd, and ended up down lake in water ranging from 6-10' of visibility, super clear. We chose to target docks since the water was so clear (raptor effect?). We worked drop shots around the edges, and skipped senkos underneath them. We caught probably a dozen fish, most were around 12-13", this would have been fine, but the rules for the event were: 5 fish per team of two anglers, two over 12", and the other three have to be 14". We ended up with two fish for 1.95lbs, a rough day for sure. Things just weren't going our way at all, two that would have made the 14" mark came unbuttoned at the net, and I had a nice one bury me in a brush pile and break off, just a tough time overall. Top two youth finishers for day one were 16lbs and 11lbs, and a handful of 8-10lb limits were brought in.
Day two was completely different. We chose to stick with what we did, but to cover more water and hopefully be able to scratch out a few over the 14" mark for a limit. We started at the same cove as day one, and within 10 minutes had two small keepers and one about 2lbs in the livewell. One heck of a confidence boost! We idled to another cove and continued to pick away at the 12-13" fish, no culls yet. Just before 9am, in our third cove for the day, still working docks, I hooked something that didn't budge. She ran me all the way around the boat and finally we were able to put her in the net after a two minute battle on 6lb test, this would end up being the big fish of the day at 4.15lbs. Within 5 minutes I had another good one on the drop shot, this one was 3.8lbs. We stayed after it and continued hammering the 12-13"ers, waiting on a cull. I culled one more little guy with a 2lber, and then the bite slacked off around 10:30. Didn't get many more bites until about half an hour before the 1:30 weigh in when I put a 3lber in the boat for our final cull.
Bait of choice was a Zoom Z-Drop in purple smoke, on a #2 Gamakatsu drop shot hook. 6lb suffix 832 with an 8lb mono leader, didn't have any fluoro handy at the time. Our five fish weighed 14.73lbs, the biggest bag in the youth division for day two. Most anglers had a tough time on day two and despite falling flat on our faces on day one, we ended up in 5th place overall.
My partner needs some pointers on holding fish for photos
