Sunday was my 3rd Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament of this year.  In general river fishing suits my fishing strengths well, so even though I had not fished this strech of river in about 10 years, i still felt I could compete down there.  I ended up getting 3 full practice days inn.  Fishing both pools 9 and 10, based on that, I really felt I had two areas in Pool 9 that could produce a potentail winning bag.

I am not sure what happened, we got a lot of rain and most things got muddied, but my area remained in great shape, but the fish seemed to have vanished.  Long story short, I was back at the lock around 11am and neither myself or partner had a fish in the livewell.  We hit a rock point just below the lock, nothing happening there.  At that time, I pushed the panic button and went to the area I was most confident that I could get a keeper bite and put at least one in the well.  It was a shallow flat backwater area with just a little wood, but for some reason there was some bait in the area.  Turns out I caught 4 keepers pretty quickly pitching a Sweet Beaver on a 1/4oz Tru-Tungsten sinker.  My partner lost one that seemed to be good as well.  It was now decision time, should I stay and try to catch another small keeper?

I decided that the decision was no, I must go find bigger fish.  With 4 fish in the well, I knew I had a decent points finish, the smart decision was to shift gears and try for a check.  It did not work out, but I am still happy with the decision, it is the right mentatility to have to do well in the long run.

Sorry no pictures, 4 fish for 7.5lbs and a 41st place finish is hardly picture worthy.  I am still hanging in at 7th in the points, well in the position to fish the regional if I choose to do so.  I am not fishing the La Crosse event, to much going on with the Norther Divisional event in Escanaba, MI.

Til next time!
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