Day 2 started with clear skies and a light SW wind.  I ended up fishing out of Dave’s boat, he had a lot more practice, so I figured it would not hurt.  I told him that I had about 1.5 hrs worth of stuff that I wanted to fish first.  A fairly important tournament for everyone, as it was there last chance to cement a spot for next year’s state team.  I also found myself pitted against Ryan in the final day of the Match Championship.

We started on a Reed and Canegrass point of mine and Dave caught a nice keeper immediately on a jig.  I then caught 3 keepers, only one being a quality fish.  They all came on a my 3/8oz Sunfish Colored Tru-Tungsten Jig, tipped with a Crawdad colored Yum Craw Papi.  We then quickly hopped to a small isolated Cattail patch that I got another small keeper on the jig.  That made it 4-1 over Dave.
Click Jig for Details
 
We then spent about an hour fishing a rice and bog island where I caught a really big fish in practice, but the only action we had was two swirls on Dave’s Black Zoom Horny Toad.  We decided that we should revisit the bog section of this island later.  It was time to check some of Dave’s spots.  We hit a small reed patch without a bite and then hit a large rice island.  I got one more small keeper on a jig, giving me a small limit.  Dave was frustrated, so I suggested with the high sun and light wind, we hit the docks across the bay.  We each got two keepers, giving Dave 3 fish and I got to cull twice, both fish came on a weightless Green Pumpkin Lake Fork Ring Fry.  Again I loosely pegged a couple Tru-Tungsten Force Beads for weight on the Ring Fry.  Right when we got to the point, there was one more dock mixed in between some reeds & rice, I almost decided not fish it, but we did.  I pitched the outside edges of it all over and then made one pitch in over the chain and sure enough a big one grabbed it.  I had it one for about 10 seconds before it fell off.  What a bummer!  It sucks losing fish in the 4lb class.

We then spent about 2 hours working over some of Dave’s reed beds, Dave lost one and I had one follow my jig.  Either the wind was not right or we needed some more cloud cover, but those fish just did not go.  We then went back to my starting reed point and I got  decent keeper to cull for the 3rd time, now I really only had one small fish left.  We then revisited the bog area and I got my big fish (3.2 lbs) on my sunfish jig, but now tipped with a Watermelon Red Flake Zoom Ultravibe Speed Craw.  I was feeling like that lost fish was going to kill me and I needed one more good bite to make up for it.  Sure enough, as we went back through the bog I got one more bite.  She must of just nipped the jig as I only had her for a split second before she was gone.

Time was running out, so we hit another windy reed area and then flipped the cover in the Kabekona narrows before time was out, no more bites.  I was last to weigh in and Ryan weighed 13.7 lbs for 5 fish.  I knew it would be close, I ended up with 13.2 which was good for 2nd place.  So Congrats to Ryan on his Match Championship Victory. I needed to convert one of those two good ones that I missed.  In the end, I ended up increasing my lead over 2nd place for the year and coasted to ‘Club Stick’.  Sounds like many of the good fish came off of docks, so it sounds like we should have stayed with that.

In review, I learned a ton about Leech this past weekend and makes me look forward to next years state tournament.  Well tonight I am off to Tonka after work to get some more early practice for the Weekend Series final event.

Rich
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