After weeks of preparation and years of fishing just for fun, I was finally able to compete in my first bass tournament. I fish for my high school team, and this was our first tournament of the year on Weiss Lake, Alabama.
At 5am, we registered then got names drawn for who our captains would be. After meeting my captain we started to make a game plan. At light, we planned on hitting them on topwater, me on a buzz bait and him with a spook. Later in the day, we planned on fishing points and docks with jigs and lipless cranks. Our day did not go as planned...
At safe light we launched and he took us to a point still on the main lake. We were only the 4th boat to launch so immediately I knew that waves would be terrible, and I was right. The spot he put us I could hardly even see/hear my buzz due to the waves. After an hour, we moved on with no fish in the live well.
Around 10 o'clock, still with no fish to account for we headed to the dam. As we pulled up, I felt good about it. First cast, I hit the point with a shaky head with a Strike King Elaztech worm in Easy Money Money and bam, fish on. I landed him and although he was not a monster, he somehow reached the 12 inch requirement. My captain then caught one on a texas rigged trick worm that measured, then one more that did not.
After finally hooking some mossy backs, we started attacking some docks, which I had wanted to do the whole day. I threw a quarter ounce swim jig with a paca chunk trailer for a few hours, with various colors. Surprisingly, we both came up short. We then fished various techniques for a couple more hours still with no luck.
Fast forward to the last hour and fifteen minutes of the tournament. We pull up on a dock extending out about 20 yards over the water. For almost 50 yards out, it was between 9 and 12 feet deep with small drop offs extending only a few feet, then rising back up again. I have a watermelon seed trick worm dipped in chartreuse JJ's magic tied on texas rigged with a 3/16 ounce tungsten weight. The bite is on. We each catch 4 just on the dock, however I only had 2 keepers. One of which was my biggest of the day at 2.7 pounds. We go into the creek next to the big dock and pull out a few more, one of them being a keeper.
It's time for weigh ins and after a long, slow day we end up with a 7.56 pound bag not placing in the top 3. First place was a 15 pounds and some change. Altogether I really enjoyed my first tournament, and cannot wait for more in the future.
