Wednesday, April 8, 2015

March 14 LBL BFL, March 21 Mountain BFL and March 28 ABA Team Trail

March got off to a slow start as one last Arctic blast made it's way through the area and dumped over a foot of snow around KY Lake.  Between snow and frozen marinas, most of the early March tournaments were rescheduled.  The March 14th LBL BFL was my first event of the year and I was hoping to be able to defend my title from last March and start the year off with a win.

I kept a close eye on water conditions and between snow melt and 5 inches of rain predicted to fall in in the Southeast the week of the tournament, I knew the fishing would change everyday leading up to the event so I chose not to practice and try to figure it out on the fly which worked out well for me in 2014.

I knew from looking at the results of tournaments the week before that New Johnsonville was the place to be if I was going to collide with a school of pre-spawn giants and make a run at the win.

LBL BFL MARCH 14: I was boat 151 out of 152 Saturday morning and we were greeted with a thick blanket of fog that had no intentions of going anywhere in a hurry.  As the fishing day grew shorter by the minute there was a lot of chatter among my competitors about not making the long runs they had planned on making which only made me want to make the run even more.  I knew that a couple hours on the southern part of the lake would be more valuable than a full day on the northern part of the lake, at least for me, and I had all intentions of making it to at least the Danville area even if I only had a few hours of fishing time.

Tournament director Daniel Fennel finally started releasing boats at 9:45am. I idled out of KY Dam Marina at 10:15 and had a check in time of 4:00.  I headed south and made it about two miles and the fog was so thick I could barely see my trolling motor on the front of my Triton.  I stopped on a place and threw an umbrella rig for about 30 minutes hoping the fog would lift a little more but it never happened.  The clock was ticking and it was killing me not to be on my way to Jville so I packed up and headed south.  I made it another couple miles and the fog seemed to be getting thicker.  I pulled over and told my co that I didn't feel safe running and a fishing tournament wasn't worth our safety.  As I idled into a pocket I looked back out at the lake and I could plainly see the secondary channel buoys so I thought if I could see the buoys then surely I could see other boats, so I headed south again for the third time that morning.  I didn't make if very far and I ran up on a boat that was fishing the bank and while it wasn't a close call, it did let me know how quick another boat could be on us without my knowing, especially if the other boat was running fast.  I pulled into a pocket and started fishing and had pretty much accepted the fact I was throwing in the towel for the day.

After a half hour trolling around a fishless pocket I told my co that I had to make at least one cast where I knew a fish lived even if I had to idle for 3 hours to get there safely.  We packed up, took off again and I finally aborted my mission to Jville just north of the Paris area at 1pm and the fog was still as thick as it had been at daylight.

I caught a couple of 3lbers pretty quickly on my first stop on a Redeye Shad and my co caught a keeper and a 5lber behind me.  This was a place I've fished many times and while I knew we could spend some time there and catch a few more fish, time was something I didn't have.  I knew if I were to beat the odds and win the tournament in two hours, I had to find a mother lode.  I made three more stops just south of Paris and the first two didn't produce.  My fourth stop I caught a 4lber on my first cast but never had another bite.  By the time I covered the area thoroughly, it was time to head back.

As I waited for my co angler to back my trailer in, I couldn't help but feel a little down about such a bad start to the year.  I wondered if I had just stayed close to the dam and had more time to fish if I could've at least maybe salvaged the day and gotten a check out of the deal.  I looked at my three captives and figured they weighed about 8lbs and I was seriously contemplating just pitching them back.  Just before I started releasing my fish another competitor idled by and told me that 12lbs was leading!  I decided I better hang onto my fish just in case everyone else had struggled.  I was the last person to weigh in and amazingly finished in 10th place with 9lbs, 12oz.

SUMMARY:  This was definitely not the way myself or anyone else wanted to start the year. I really can't even look at this as a true tournament as no one got to fish their best stuff and if they did they didn't get much time on it.  Either way, every tournament has a winner and this one was blown out of the water by Craig Hipsher who nearly lapped the field with over 24lbs!  Congrats to Craig on yet another BFL win.  To make matters worse I talked to Zach Parker on my way home and he informed me he had finished 2nd in a New Johsnonville tournament with 32.89lbs and it took 27lbs to get in the top 10!  Now that's catching them!  Unfortunately I never made it within 25 miles of the land of the giants that day but to be honest I was just glad to make it back safely.  To get a top 10 and a little Toyota Bucks was just a bonus.

DALE HOLLOW BFL PRACTICE: I decided to fish the Mountain division of the FLW BFL's this year in hopes of qualifying for the regional on KY Lake in October which will be worth about 75 grand to the winner and an All American berth for the top six finishers.

I've spent very little time on highland reservoirs with deep clear water but I had spent enough time to know I wasn't a big fan.  The last time I fished a deep clear lake was in 2005 in the Music City BFL on Center Hill Lake.  Back in those days if I was fishing deeper than 3ft. I thought I was too deep so I was hoping what I've learned about offshore structure fishing would pay off this time around.

A very loyal client and good friend of mine has logged some time on Dale Hollow in the early Spring and he assured me I could catch plenty of bass fishing jerk baits and umbrella rigs on offshore ledges just like I do on KY Lake.

It seemed too easy to be true, but once I got my two day practice session under way I quickly realized he had steered me in the right direction.  Any piece of offshore structure with milfoil present held some species of black bass and getting bites was easy. The catch was that Dale Hollow has a slot limit on Smallmouth and I could only keep one under 16" and one over 21".  By the end of practice it was apparent that the Smallmouth bites out numbered the Largemouth bites 5 to 1. I was having a blast catching 3 to 4.5lb smallmouth but I knew it was going to be very frustrating in the tournament having to release 4lb fish.

By the end of day two of practice I had figured out that the largemouth seemed to be relating to the points and humps that had steep drops on at least three sides.  If the point or hump had a slope on one or more sides, it was predominately brown fish.  I decided to spend my tournament fishing the steep sided structures I'd caught green fish on in practice and if I had time, explore similar looking places during the tournament.

MOUNTAIN BFL MARCH 21 DALE HOLLOW TOURNAMENT:  I headed out of Starpoint Marina boat 34 or 184 and I had two places close to the launch that had the perfect ingredients for largemouth only.  One of them was in a cut between an island and the shoreline but I knew with 150 boats taking off behind me a lot of guys would run that cut and it probably wouldn't be the best starting place.  I started on another hump close by that had a small finger that wasn't on the Navionics or Lowrance Insight maps that had produced a 4lber and a 3lber in practice.

I started short of the sweet spot so I wouldn't get on top of the fish as I still wasn't that familiar with the lay of the land.  My co-angler quickly boated a 3.5lb non keeping smallie on a jerkbait which frustrated me a little because  I was afraid the smallmouth had taken the place over.

As I eased up onto the sweet spot I caught a small keeper largemouth on my umbrella rig.  A few minutes later I added another and then another.  They definitely weren't the size I was hoping for but at least I had some valuable points already in the boat only 15 minutes into the morning.

I slowly worked the little grass patch back and forth and my co-angler hooked up with a nice 3.5lber. A few minutes later he boated another quality largemouth in the 3.75lb range.  I like to see my co-anglers do well but it was still hard to stomach as I knew how critical those 3.5+lb largemouth bites were going to be.

A few minutes went by and I finally hooked into a nice 3.5lber but then missed three bites in a row and had one fish pull off.  With each fish I dropped in the live-well I gained more and more confidence in my pattern and I had that old winning feeling building in my gut.

I told my co that I had a rule I lived by and that was if you make a pass on a stretch and get a bite, you can't leave.  The bites were slowing down but we were getting some sort of action on each pass. We eventually started to catch a few short fish and have some short strikes and my KY Lake, "the grass is greener on the other side" mindset began to take over the "play it safe and make sure I caught 'em all" mindset I probably need to have on lakes that don't have the bass population of KY and I broke my golden rule!  I put a solid 2.5lber in the boat which gave me my fifth keeper in the first hour of the tournament and I told my co we had to go!  I had so many places I wanted to fish I just had that gut feeling I needed to bail on that place even though we were still getting bites regularly. I was afraid I had made a terrible mistake when I went for the next two hours without catching a largemouth.  I finally hit a place and culled with a 3lber but it was the only largemouth we caught there.

I headed back up the lake to start my rotation over again and was feeling pretty good about the idea that my fish would have settled down and be grouped up ready to eat on my starting spot when I arrived for round two!

I spent about an hour fishing around trying to relocate the school but other than one bite that pulled off, I never hit 'em.

My buddies had told me about a place way up the river that was good to them last year but it didn't really match my pattern.  I had checked it in practice with no luck but after another hour running the grass pattern, I knew something had changed and I needed to change as well.  I thought that just maybe that little bit shallower deal up the river would be the type place the fish were moving too so I fired up and headed up the Wolf River.

When I got within sight of the point I wanted to fish there was a boat with three guys fishing down the bank towards it.  Even though they were obviously just out enjoying a beautiful day and not competitive fishermen, it would still have been a blatant cut-off if I had pulled in on my point.  I decided to fall in behind them and just wait them out but then I noticed one of my competitors coming around a bend in the bank and if I did that I would be cutting him off too.  I hated to run ten miles out of the way and not even get to fish but cutting people off, tournament fishermen or not, isn't my style.  I turned my boat around and just as I went to leave I turned and idled up to the gentlemen fun fishing and asked them if they minded if I fished the point in front of them and if they did I'd gladly leave.  They said they didn't mind at all and I was welcome to fish anywhere I wanted.  I idled around them and made a few casts and hooked up with a 4.5lber!  It was a pretty cool deal as the fun fishermen cheered me on as I drug it into the net and I gave them a big "THANKS!" as I held her up next to the 1.75lber that she culled.

I'd like to tell you the point was loaded with them 'ol bigguns and I whacked about 25lbs there but that's not the way it went down.  I never culled the rest of the day but was very happy to finish 19th with 15lbs 7oz on a lake I've never seen before fishing a way I love to fish.

SUMMARY:  I had an absolute blast on Dale Hollow the three days I was there.  I caught more smallmouth in the 4lb range than I have in 5 years combined on KY Lake.  Amazingly I never caught a keeper neither under 16" nor over 21".  Funny how they set those slots perfectly where keepers are impossible to catch!  I have to give a shout out to Greg Canada and Brian King for cluing me in on a solid pattern that I was very comfortable with before I got there.  I am very anti getting help for tournaments but a lot of good friends and mentors have told me that I need to keep my eyes on the big prize (KY Regional), swallow my pride and at least listen to what people had to say if they offered me some pointers on fishing these lakes in the Mountain division this year that I've never been to. There were a lot of different ways to catch fish that week and having a couple good trustworthy friends lead me in the right direction was a big help with only two days of practice.

I'd also like to thank the gentlemen who allowed me to move in front of them whoever they may be. That 4.5lber moved me up about 30 places in the standings. I'm in no way trying to pat myself on the back, but this was a prime example of what being considerate of other fisherman can do.  When I ran in there and shut down you could tell those guys had the "Oh great, another tournament guy is gonna wash us out and cut us off" look on their faces. When I approached them calmly and nicely asked them if I could fish, they were more than happy to oblige.  There's more than one way to skin a cat and washing someone up on the bank and cutting them off without even acknowledging they exist is never the best option.

ABA TEAM TRAIL PRACTICE: We were only allowed to practice one day for this one and I had seen conditions developing on a guide trip the previous week to ignite a RIDICULOUS umbrella rig bite.  There was one small catch, no umbrella rigs allowed in ABA competition!!!! I spent my practice day trying to figure out another way to catch these umbrella lovers and never did.  My old buddy and teammate David Gnewikow spent his practice day trying to find a pile of 6lbers in New Johnsonville, and never did.  We decided to spend the tournament running through as many places and patterns as possible and hopefully piece together a 30+ pound limit by the end of the day as we thought it would take at least that to get the win.

ABA TEAM TRAIL TOURNAMENT MARCH 28: I have several patterns and places to run those patterns in the Paris area that have been very good to me over the years.  Since we had a late boat draw we decided to just start there and work our way up the lake.  Long story short, at 10:30 we hadn't had a bite and I turned the show over to Dave.

He made a 15 mile run south and cranked up a small keeper on our first stop.  I had a place close by and he cranked up two more keepers there.  We ran that pattern for awhile and it went dry.  At 12:30 David put our 4th keeper in the boat on a Strike King Bottom Dweller spinnerbait off of a river ledge. We decided to run that pattern for a few minutes and while I'm the ultimate team player and will gladly net fish all day as long as they end up in the weigh bag, I was getting a little flustered at the fact I hadn't had a bite in 6 hours and we were both flustered that we only had four tiny keepers.

On our next stop I finally bowed up on what felt like a giant on a Redeye shad. I just knew that while I wasn't going to contribute many fish to our creel, I was definitely going to help our cause with the biggest!  As David readied the net I hated to even break the news to him but I realized whatever I'd hooked into wasn't alive.  As I reeled the finest piece of nylon trot line string with a rock on it a fellow can catch to the boat, I saw something I've never witnessed before.  David's head sank and I said, "are you giving up?"  He turned to me and replied, "I'm getting close!"

For those that don't know David he is the definition of mental toughness, confidence and positivity. No matter how tough the fishing is, he never cracks under pressure and we'd had a tough enough day that he was almost ready to throw in the towel!

We had a pretty good laugh about it and headed to our next stop and at 1:03pm, I hooked what felt like a good fish. David asked me if I needed the net or if it was a string and I said NET!  He scooped up a 4lber for me and we finally had a limit!  I told him the ice was broken and that nothing could stop me then and I made the decision to change patterns which ultimately resulted in two short fish.

 As we sit there contemplating on DQing ourselves and throwing an umbrella rig just so we could catch some biggun's, the light bulb finally went off.  I thought of a place where I'd wrecked them in December but since the current had been so strong since then they had abandoned it.  The current had slowed back down earlier in the week and I thought just maybe they'd shown back up.

As soon as we hit the sweet spot David bowed up on a big one but it pulled off.  A few cast later I caught a 3lber, then he caught a 4lber and then I hooked a 5lber!  In the blink of an eye David was wading through bass in the floor trying to cull as I was trying to keep the school hot.  I just knew we were about to put our 30lbs in the boat but with each fish the bites were coming closer and closer to the boat.  I knew we were pulling the school out and I was trying to back away from the fish and keep them biting but once they hit that deep water they vanished.  By that point we only had a half hour before check-in so we worked our way back to the ramp but never caught another fish.  We ended up salvaging the day on that last stop and weighed in 18.86lbs and finished in 15th place.

SUMMARY:  First off, I have to say that ABA and Triton have really put a great trail together.  We had 131 teams in this one and I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers go up. After all, first place guarantees a $20,000 Triton at every event plus a ton of contingency money from Triton, Mercury, Power Pole, Toyota, Odom's Blue and Gray Marine and more!  We pocketed $900 for a 15th place showing which is a pretty good pay day to be that far down in the standings.

It was also great to see a lot of old friends that came out and fished. Several of them I haven't seen in years. I've been hoping for a Trail that would be able to bring the best fishermen from Pickwick Dam to KY Dam together again and I think we may have found it.

Last but not least, it was great to be back in a Triton with my old buddy David G.  We don't see each other much over the winter as he hunts with the kids and I keep fishing.  We have a pretty big time together out there and as crazy as it sounds, the worse the day is going the more fun we seem to have. I've learned so much from him the past few years especially about the mental side of fishing and I really feel like the comic relief is what keeps our heads clear when it's tough and allows us to fish hard til the end, which can obviously pay off.