I started the tournament in the bottom of Fleming Creek through the bridge.  I worked the area over with white spinnerbait, black buzzbait, crankbait and Zoom Speed Craw on a Tungsten texas rig.  No bites, I did notice that the water was a couple degrees cooler then on the other side of the bridge, I think that was a bad sign.  We worked back out on the lake side and onto a week flat, the area looked good but several boats had been through there.

We than ran up to the dam where I started cranking a deep weed point with a Spatter Back Lucky Craft Flat Mini DR Crankbait, it was not long before I caught a 12″ bass and my partner spooked some shad with his spinnerbait on the other side of the point, I threw back in there and caught a 14″ bass.  We worked this area for several hours and all at once I caught a fish that was right at 15″ and one over 17″ on the crankbait.  I ended up letting the one go, because I thought he may be short.  Hopped around the rest of they day, caught a 13″ bass on my Secret Weapon Lure Spinnerbait near the weigh-in.  After day 1, I was in 40th place with 1 fish for 2lbs-13oz, if I had weighed that other fish, I would have been right on the cut bubble with just under 5lbs.  Overall it was my best day on the water with 2 keepers and 4 short fish.

Day 2, I started near the dam where I caught two keepers and two shorts the day before.  We worked it with all kinds of lures and I only got one really short fish.  We hopped around the rest of the day, running areas that I thought had good potential and new banks throwing swim jigs, cranks, spinnerbaits, chatterbaits and never got another fish.  Tough, tough day for our boat.  Not weighing a fish dropped me to 64th, the fish that I almost weigh became irrelevant.  I was very disappointed in my performance.

I never really found the fish in 3 days of practice, I largely attribute that to being very unprepared for the tournament.  I did not do nearly enough map study and preparation before we got there.  I also believe I had the wrong mind set going in when it came to seasonal patterns, I think I was trying to find a later fall pattern then what most of the quality fish were in.  It was good for me to get knocked around by this lake, it will help me to focus and prepare better in the future.  Congrats to the 5 guys from MN that are going to Nationals at Lake Guntersville: Bradley Leifermann, Dean Capra, Thomas Borkowski, John Schlee & Brian Brown!    

Rich
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I fished Patoka for 3 full days of practice, plus 1.5 hours one morning and another hour 1 evening.  In total, I caught 2 keepers and 4 short bass.  My two keepers both came of rip rap banks with weeds.  One on a white Secret Weapon Spinnerbait and one on a Lucky Craft Flat Mini DR Crankbait in a Spatter Back pattern. 

I tried a bunch of different things and did not find much to go on.  I fished deep weeds, channel drops, channel banks, bluff walls, wood, backs of coves, the list goes on.  My plan for day 1 of the tournament was to hit all the areas that were similar to the ones where I caught my two keepers.  I figured two keepers a day would be pretty good in this tournament.  I felt pretty confident if I grinded it out in these areas I could get the bites I needed.

At the meeting I got boat number 130 out of 134, which was fine because I really did not have any really good area to start on anyways.  Its been awhile since I fished a tournament that I had practiced for and had so little to go on.

Rich
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Working remotely today and had a chance to put together a quick update.  Fishing has been brutally tough.  Fished a fairly full day on Saturday and a long day on Sunday and managed to boat one keeper bass on a SWL Spinnerbait.  Also had one fish that would have been close to a keeper up to the boat on a drop shot.  Any my practice partners have only managed to get one very short fish up to the boat. 

We have tried a bunch of different locations, types of structure and baits.  1ft – 19ft in depths, fished bluffs, bridges, grass clumps, weedlines, timber, channel banks, creek ledges and combinations of the for mentioned.  Baits that we have tried, drop shots, spinnerbaits, shakey heads, jig worms, texas rig, jigs, topwater, crankbaits, carolina rig and the list goes on.  We had a severe drop in temperature, with lows in the 30’s and day time highs are about 20F lower than average.  Fishing has been tough on the local tournaments as well.  Two tournaments that I was aware of, 75 total teams for two days, only 6 limits :0

I hope to get out for about an hour this evening after my last phone call for work, temps have stabilized and it will slowly get warmer through the rest of the week, its not going to get warm, but at least the weather has stabilized.  I got one full day of practice to put together my game plan.  On a positive note, I think I have located some good areas and see a lot of the lake, so if I find a pattern, I think I will be able to duplicate it and run it during the tournament.

Rich
RichLindgren.com 
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