As I waited with my partner in the Escanaba harbor, I had a good bit of excitement at the possibility of what I could catch and my chances to do well in this tournament.  The plan was to head all the way to the east side of Big Bay de Noc and work several of the key spots and areas that we had so much success on during Monday’s practice.

The first area, was an absolute ghost town, no fish or bait.  Probably wasted too much time there.  My next area was a large peninsula/point, there were 2 other boats working the area, I caught a nice keeper on a Quickstrike spinnerbait, then just a few shorts from there.  We hopped around to a few areas, finally I missed and then caught a nice 3lb plus smallmouth on a 6″ BassTrix swimbait.  I then went back through this area only to have a giant smallie climb all over the swimbait and somehow not get a hook.

The next area I caught another keeper on my spinnerbait, I then went to my bigger swimbait, 5″ Optimum Baby Line Thru and pretty quickly hooked and landed a 4lb smallmouth.  To make a long story short, I had about 3 more big smallies go after my swimbaits and not get hooked, very frustrating.  I ended up with 4 fish for 11lb and chance, middle of the pack after day 1 and about 5lbs out of the team lead.  That 5th fish could made a huge difference, but I was still in this thing with 2 days to go.  It was time to go big or go home on day 2, I was up to get revenge on Lake Michigan.

Rich
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