It was another 7:00am launch, which limits the early bite and being that it was supposed to be a 100+ degrees out, it would have been nice to been off the lake by 2:00pm instead of 3:00pm.  It was very calm and sunny to start the morning.  It took about 25 minutes to our starting area.  Before I drew boat 50, I thought I may stop at the reeds that are near there and see if I could get some quality bites there early.  I was amazed to see that nobody else was there as I was going by, so we swung in quick.  We fished the outside edge quick, my non-boater (Dave) threw topwater and I pitched a Tru-Tungsten Jig.  Not a single bite, so after 15 minutes we were on the weedline that I was planning to start on.

There was another boat working the weedline and he was on the best area.  We started fishing down from him with soft plastics.  I threw a mojo rigged Ring Fry and Dave was wielding a Culprit on a jig worm.  We watched the other boat catch two small keepers as we approached and then we hopped around them and Dave got a keeper and I caught 2 shorts.  The other boat left, they had caught a handful of keepers.  We went through where they were and I missed a couple bites, I think they were small fish.  We then hit about 7 docks that were on the bank, no bites.

We then headed out onto Swedes Bar, we both limited out on that area.  I got most of my fish on a drop shot rig that consisted of a D.S. Creature tipped with a 3″ watermelon red  Fluke.  He got his on a Culprit Jig Worm (Black).  I had tried the same jig that I was getting all kinds of bites on in practice and only had one bite to this point.  We decided to hit a shallow area with a mix of pads and docks.  I fished the docks while Dave threw his Snag Proof Bobby’s Perfect Frog (tweety) over the pads.  He had two blowups and caught one keeper, I had only a few bluegill pick-ups on my weightless Ring Fry.

It was around noon, so I thought we would go target some coontail clumps on upper whitefish to find some bigger fish.  Dave caught about 4 keepers (Black Culprit)and culled his entire 3 fish limit and I caught 2 keepers to get rid my barely keepers.  It was about 1:30pm and I had lost all confidence in getting my bigger deep fish to bite.  I told my Dave that I felt the only way either one of us are going to get a check, is for me to head to the docks and hope to get a couple good bites.

We hit a calm set if docks near a weedline that I knew had good fish on it from time to time and I got one small keeper that I could not sue on a Ring Fry.  We then hopped down a ways to where the wind was starting to below and we had to skip several docks to people in the water around them.  I ended up catch 4 nice keepers of these docks, including my biggest, which was about 3lbs.  I got the big one with about 5 min before we had to start back to the weigh-area.  I got  all 4 keepers on Tru-Tungsten Jigs.  3 on a 3/8 Fall Craw with a Zoom Super Chunk (grn pumpkin) and 1 on a 1/2oz. Blk/Blue paired with a Black Sapphire Zoom Ultravibe Speed Craw.

We headed back and made good time across the lake despite all the recreational boat wakes.  Though the slow wake zone, I retied my jig.  We were about 15 minutes ahead of schedule.  I felt much better about the day and felt that last fish probably at least gave me a fighting chance to cash a check.  From what the fish were telling me, I knew it would tough for almost everyone.  I also thought to myself, if I could cull that last weedline fish, I would feel a lot better.  We came out of the channel and I started scanning the shore for some wind swept docks.  I spotted some straight across the lake, we buzzed ac cross and on the 2nd dock I picked up a nice 2lb fish on the jig.  We threw our life jackets on headed towards check in.
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As we idled up, we had 5 minutes left and I quick jumped up on the deck and on the 2nd dock I threw my blk/blu jig under there and got thumped.  I set, dragged the fish half way to the boat and he came unbuttoned.  From the quick glance I got, he looked smaller than my smallest bass in the livewell.

We both weighed our fish, my total was 11-09 and my partner had 3 fish for around 6lbs.  We both finished in 8th place.  I was very happy with my finish considering how terrible I was doing with 2hrs to go.  Looking back, I wish I would have went to the coontail clumps earlier and also started dock fishing earlier.  This finish on top of my 10th place in the first tournament put me in 5th place for the year with two tournaments to go!

Rich
www.richlindgren.com
basstournament.blogspot.com

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