Tournament On A Lake I've Never Fished Before

[psuangler91]

I have a tournament this weekend on Kerr lake, NC which I've never fished before. Do you guys have any tips on how to maximize my fishing time other than research? I've done more research over the last two months than I thought was possible and found every article ever written about Kerr but that doesn't even come close to the experience gained from time on the water.

[NCbassmaster4Life]

You should've posted this in the Southern state thread, but anyhow, Kerr, just this year the lake has been comming back to life. Meaning they had a freashwater disease that affected the bass and most would die or never see adulthood,now in the early 90's bassmaster elite series did fish kerr and it produced a lot of really nice bass...to make a long story short, all the bass now are for the most part, healthy and better numbers of quality fish have been caught this year. My advice is get a topo map of this lake, there are two so depending on where you are putting in, would be great if I knew where you were putting in at, I know for a fact members on here from VA and NC know a lot about this lake and will be glad to help you out. Where are you putting in at?

[jkarol24]

I will see you there, im fishing for RIT. The launch is at netbush park in henderson (southeast end) and the entire west end is off limits.

[psuangler91]

Nice to see another college angler on here! I'm pretty sure I'm just psyching myself out and should probably just relax and fish like I've done a million times before.

[Bluebasser86]

When I'm on an unfamilar body of water I look for areas that look like the lakes I fish normally, I have more confidence in areas that feel familar. Other than that do what others have said and look for areas on a map that look like good areas and plan on fishing those. One of the biggest mistakes I always felt I made before a tournament was reading the fishing reports and trying to do what they said, it rarely worked out for me at all. It was better for me to go find my own fish and do my own thing versus doing what everyone else was doing and competing with them for fish.

[200racing]

last month i fished a lake that i had only a few hours a week before. the only fish i got were feeding on shad right below the dam while they were generating.

on tourn day they were going to start generating 1hr before weigh-in. (which kinda made me think i could CMA easily if my other plans fell apart.)

off to the web i went. fishing reports,maps,reports....... i gobbled them up and had all kinds of sure fire things to try...... or so i thought. i bounced all over the lake threw just everything in the boat once. at lunch i had a whoppin 14oz bass to show for it. headed for the dam. where i learned something important the bass dont start feeding instantly,it takes time. time i didnt have. i got in about 5 cast as the bass started feeding before my alarm on my phone let me know my time was up.

at weight-in i talked to my buddies who won. they just beating the bank with a lure i really like and use often.

all that to get to this.

if i had fished like "me" with "my" lures i very well could have been in the money. instead i fished like some strangers off the net with bunch of lures im not that confident in, in places i had little confidence in.

grab your favorite rods. tie on you favorite bait. find the stuff you like to fish them around on google maps and a topo map.

go have fun. thats what fishing is supposed to be.

[Nitrofreak]

I have a tournament this weekend on Kerr lake, NC which I've never fished before. Do you guys have any tips on how to maximize my fishing time other than research? I've done more research over the last two months than I thought was possible and found every article ever written about Kerr but that doesn't even come close to the experience gained from time on the water.

This is something we all have to put to good use, glad to hear you are doing your homework, if you have the chance, talk to the locals there, they are really good people.

The last time I visited there I fished the NC part of the lake and did not get the chance to fish the places I wished to fish.

I can tell you this, I found a fair amount of fish in the coves last July, the water was stained, and dark colored c-rigged lizards worked ok but the top water baits about 20 yards off shore, especially when there were rocky areas, really hauled them in, they would come up from depths around 15 ft when the water was calm or just slightly wind blown surfaces, brighter colors seemed to work better in the clearer parts of the lake when visability was around 6 ft, any less than that I used more natural colors around rocks and black worked pretty good on the bottom.

Not much more I can tell you, that was the first time I had ever been there, I know the bridge pilings offer some good fishing, and around the state park as well when I talked to the locals.

Best of luck to ya and be safe !!!

[J Francho]

You pretty much answered your question in the last sentence of your post. You're simply gonna have to prefish the lake. I prefish even when I know the lake.

[jkarol24]

The tourney ended up being pretty rough, and a few teams came in with nothing. I ended up in 24th out of 40 with one bass for 1 lb 13 oz, winner was at about 10 lbs. I cycled through 8 different spots and just couldnt get them going. I even fished some docks as a last resort and those didnt even produce. If the lake was up 5 ft, i would have been in shallow flipping paradise, but that was not the case. It was blowing pretty good but everything just seemed inactive...