Got back late at night from my Northern Regional Tournament, so I did not get out on Tonka until almost noon and I had to be off the lake by 5pm to make the registration. I practiced with John, who is in my bass club and fishes the weekend series as a non-boater. Spent most of that time in Grays & Libby, not much for fish or size, basically wrote that area off and that was pretty much the practice. Not real excited about the tournament after that. Went to the meeting and got a third flight boat position and drew a another buddy of mine John Egbert as a non-boater.
Sunday morning was warmer than I expected, but also windier. I ran up to a point in Wayzata which was my only deep spot I had confidence in. There was a boat sitting on the inside turn where I wanted to go, so we started out towards the end of the face and worked in. About 15 minutes in I whacked a really nice bass, turned out to be my big fish, (4-10) on a 1/2oz Tru-Tungsten Jig in Fall Craw with a Green Pumpkin Speed Craw as a trailer. John hung a nice fish on a MagWart but it came off, we worked that area for about an hour and the other boat left, so we worked down to the turn and back and forth a few times. 2 hours had passed and we had 1 nice fish. John suggested a few deep areas in Wayzata that we tried for about 45 minutes with no action. We made one more pass down my weedline, no takers.
We then headed down to St. Albans to fish some shallow cover. I started pitching my sunfish colored 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten jig around the pads, docks and wood that I had found fish on back in August. I caught a couple shorts and then missed a couple bites. I noticed the water had cleared a bit and the fish were biting funny, so I switched to a Green Pumpkin/Brown Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver 4.20 rigged texas with a 3/16oz Green Pumpkin Tru-Tungsten Sinker . I used a smart peg to keep the sinker in place for pitching and skipping and also added a small Blood Red Force Bead for noise. That change almost instantly produced 4 keeper bites and three of them were 2-3 lbs. It felt good to have 5 in the box, even though one was only 12-1/4″. We continued to work around and we came to some pads where the wind was blowing in, so I switched to my 1/2oz jig and caught a nice 3lb fish. Things were really starting to look good. I then jumped across the bay and continued to work the same structure, caught several fish, but none that would help. We then came up to a seawall, John & I both pitched in there and he came up with a giant on a 4″ Green Senko. Man did I wish I had caught that fish. We kept fishing and I circled back to the seawall again and I had one about 4lbs grab my Beaver and when I set he just ripped the tails off, OUCH!
I then went across the way to some more pads with wind, I got tied up by a nice fish and she got off and then I got another non-helping keeper. We bounced around a little more, tried some other seawalls, but could not muster any keepers. I ended up with 14-04 which was good for 9th out of 70 boaters, I felt really good about that, but I was around the fish for a win and had the bites for a Top 5. I slipped to 3rd in points at the guy that won was right behind me for the year. John Egbert only got the one fish, but it was a 5-03 and big fish for the tournament and he got a check for Big Fish and 11th place.
All in all, with limited practice because of other tournaments, I was happy with my 4th Top 10 finish. My non-boaters also cashed a check in every event as well. I just need to get a Top in Patoka at the end of October.
Rich
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