Awesome Event

[RichF]

I'm always late posting stuff...

 

I had one heck of a fun weekend during the ABA division 4, two-day championship at the end of August.  Although I didn’t seal the deal with a win, I was more than happy with my 2^nd place finish given the tournament location and my lack of knowledge there.  

I always get a tad intimidated fishing events on Lake Ontario since I’m running a little Bass Tracker Pro Team 170.  It’s no secret what kind of smallmouth live in the main lake and knowing that my rig doesn’t allow me to take advantage of them is a tough pill to swallow right outta the gate.  The good thing is, we normally launch out of the smaller, protected bays which are all loaded with largemouth, so I get to fish comfortably in pretty productive waters.  The only downside is that there are very few 20+ pound bags of largemouth to be had which is what you’d need to compete with the anglers fishing the main lake for brown ones.  And of course, there are always a few guys that make Brandon Palaniuk-esque runs around the big lake to find’em.  This event was no different.  The winner made an 80 mile round trip run to hammer out 41.13 pounds of brownies for 1^st place.  My hat’s off to him for that commitment and execution!

So why am I ecstatic with a runner up finish?  Well, I actually made a competition out of it and gave him a scare…with largemouth!  Not to mention, it was at a place I had only fished once prior to this event.  What was even crazier is that I was actually around the fish to win had I executed 100%.  My two-day weight went 38.72lbs which included a 6 pounder that took lunker honors. 

Day 1:

                What I found in my single practice day a few weeks prior to the tournament had me confident I could catch 14 – 16lbs a day.  Great largemouth weights given our location but certainly not enough to compete against the main lake smallmouth.  It was ok though.  I knew I could have fun catching my favorite colored fish the way I like to catch them inside the bay.  I went to a small grass bed I found in practice and started flipping around with my heavy jig.  It didn’t take too long before the bites started coming.  Nothing big, but three 2.5 pounders in three consecutive casts is pretty cool.  In about an hour I had a limit weighing roughly 12 or 13lbs.  A decent start with plenty of time to hunt for a 4+ kicker.  I fished a few other spots without much luck, then I made the decision…I remember seeing two smaller bays on either side of the one we were in while checking out the old google maps before the tournament.  I told myself I should at least try one of them out because the main bay fished pretty small, even for 12 boats.  The problem though, was that the bays could only be accessed by running out into the main lake.  They weren’t far at all, maybe less land ¾ of a mile but that could still be iffy in my Tin Can.  The wind wasn’t blowing hard so I made the decision to get away from the crowd and check one out.  All I can say is that I was darn lucky to have a small boat.  The channel getting in was way more narrow that I thought it would be.  But I got in…and man what a spot.  The bay was completely different structurally (grass, clarity, etc) but it was home to a bunch of big ones.  In the next three hours I put just over 20lbs in the boat.  Needless to say, I knew where I was going on day 2.

Day 2:

                The wind shifted the next day which made the short ride over to the bay nice and easy.  Of course that meant it was pounding directly into my best area.  I didn’t think it would affect the bite but it definitely made fishing it so much more difficult.  I managed only 2 bites, both good ones, in my key area early in the morning.  I was thinking I may have caught too many the first day and that they didn’t replenish overnight.  I decided to try an adjacent bank that I didn’t touch the day before.  The fish were holding on the steep rocky ledges just off the bank and I began picking them off with a football jig.  It was another slugfest as I put 18.5 in the boat and jumped one off in the 4-5 pound range.  Over the two days of fishing I boated around 50 largemouth including three over 5 pounds! 

Gear and Techniques:

                I caught most of my fish flipping a ¾ oz and ½ oz jig on a 7’6 heavy action flipping stick, 7.3:1 gear reel, and 20lb fluorocarbon around grass and isolated wood.  I mixed in a heavy football jig to catch them off the rock ledges, throwing it on a 7’3 medium heavy rod, 6.4:1 gear reel, and 16lb fluorocarbon.  I also caught a couple fish on a frog and 4 inch finesse worm on a drop shot.  

Here's a few standouts.

 

[Chowderhead]

Very nice recap and sounds like a great experience.

[A-Jay]

Nice fish but I'll admit to being a little confused.

A-Jay

 

 

[RichF]

This was from the end of August.  My biggest Largemouth of 2016 was caught on day one of the two day tourney (6lb on the 3/4 oz jig).  I did the write up well after the event and just never posted.  The tourney timeout post was from a July 2016 event.  My recaps are always a little/lot late.  I need to work on that lol.       

[A-Jay]

5 minutes ago, RichF said:

This was from the end of August.  My biggest Largemouth of 2016 was caught on day one of the two day tourney (6lb on the 3/4 oz jig).  I did the write up well after the event and just never posted.  The tourney timeout post was from a July 2016 event.  My recaps are always a little/lot late.  I need to work on that lol.       

 

OK

A-Jay