Well, I did get off work and get out on the water for a couple hours the evening before the tournament.  That may have been my biggest mistake.  I got there at 3:30pm and it was warm & sunny and the shallows were crawling with life and nice bass all the way around the lake.  I threw around some docks and pulled on a few fish and two of them hooked themselves.  One on a Baby Ring Fry and the other on a white wacky rigged Zoom Trick Worm .  I also spotted several nice fish in a tree that I saw nice fish hanging around last weekend when I was prefishing.  So my thinking was, I would start at that tree and then work shallow areas during the tournament, figuring that even though things may be slow during the morning, as the sun rose and everything warmed, things would pick up.  It would just be a waiting game of sorts.

Well John & started at the tree, fish around the perimeter and worked our way in making long casts, with no bites.  After 20 minutes we slowly trolled up to the tree and there they were, several quality 2-4lb bass just milling around.  Never could get them to bite.  So we decided we would revisit these fish again later.  We then hit a small weed flat with reaction type baits (chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits & lipless cranks) only 1 small bass.  We then started to hit pockets of shoreline & docks that I had success yesterday, but all we could manage was a handful of short bass.  It was pretty apparent that fish may have pulled back a bit and clouds straited to roll in and wind picked up.  So I decided to head for the far east end where there is a small shallow boat channel, the evening before I noticed several nice bass in there.  I decided to start on the docks just outside of the channel, figuring the fish may have pulled out on to that structure overnight.  We whacked the bass on those docks, on average 2-3 bas per dock, but the largest we landed was about 13 7/8″, and I broke off on one that felt like a quality fish.  We then moved into the channel itself while the sun was still shining, and there were no quality biting fish to be found.  We then continued to hit wood & docks the rest of the day, bouncing around, we managed one keeper fish each.  John got a nice fish on a green-pumpkin Jiggerbait (chatterbait knock-off found on eBay) around some submerged wood and I managed a small keeper off a dock with Fork Secret Lake Fork Baby Ring Fry , I also broke off 2 more times on docks.  We hit some wind swept points and cabbage, with no luck.

We then decided to hit that large tree one last time.  I made a long cast with a LFT Ring Fry and had a good pick-up and I reared back and the fish bit my worm in half.  So I quick re-rigged and tossed back in there, I lifted, felt good weight and broke off on 17lb Gamma.  I could not believe it, I had just retied about 10 casts ago.  This just was not my day.  I rigged up again, fished around the tree, had another good bite and somehow missed that one too.  John that got a nice 2.3lb fish  on a green pumpkin tube.  We only had a few minutes left so we eased up to the tree and sure enough there was still 2-3 nice fish swimming around that we could not get too bite.

It turns out that one guy got 3 keepers fishing a watermelon red flake Fluke on a drop-shot and John was the only other guy to have more than 1 keeper.  3 out of 12 guys came in with zilch.  Everyone caught a ton of fish from 1ft to 14ft, but very few keeper bites.  I really think if I had not been there the night before, I would have not got hung up on fishing shallow and probably would have finessed some baits though the deep cabbage and probably done a little better.  That being said, I believe I had the bites to win, I just did not convert.

On that note, Congrats to Peter T. on his Bassmasters Memorial Major victory and check back tomorrow to see how I got revenge on Wapogasset.

Rich
www.richlindgren.com
basstournament.blogspot.com

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After last weekends outing on Deer & Wapogasset, I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what to do for the staging pre-spawn fish.  My plan is to try to get out of work early and head over to Deer Lake to cruise around the shallows and get a feel for how far the fish have progressed since last weekend. 

Because we are fishing these two tournaments “No Cull”, it changes how I may go about things.  I feel pretty confident I could start out with Jerkbaits & lipless cranks and get a limit in the morning.  If I do that and females make themselves easy pickings in the afternoon, then I am hosed because I am stuck with a livewell full and I cannot cull them out.  So if the water looks right, I may just start the morning looking for bigger fish.

Although traditionally our May club tournaments are pretty stingy, so I may put the first few keepers in the box regardless of size.  I have been burned before by throwing keepers back.  I feel there is a pretty solid chance there will be some fish ready to spawn by tomorrow afternoon.  I think it got warm enough 2 weeks ago that they are itching to get’r done.  Plus I think the water actually may be a coulple feet down then our surface temp’s are telling us.

Check back early next week for results & details as I will not have internet to doing any Blogging this weekend.

Rich
www.richlindgren.com
basstournament.blogspot.com

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Well I had so much fun fishing on Saturday in the cold rain that my partner & I headed for Wapogasset.  We were on the lake a little earlier, probably around 7:30am.  Only 3 boats at the access, not much for company on the lake.  Once again, I was too lazy to study the map, we started off cruising around the lake. The water was 52-53 degrees in the morning.  The biggest difference from Deer Lake was the greater presence of cabbage and other submergent vegetation.

The first place we actually put the trolling motor down was in a little boat channel on the east side of the lake.  It was pretty shallow and actually colder than the main lake.  It was chock full of small bluegills, crappie, and fingerling bass.  Also there were a few pike and I did spot one loner keeper bass in there.  Not very promising, but could have some merit next weekend if the weather warms, i just wished it were a little deeper. 

We started covering more water with the outboard and headed for BearTrap Lake which is connected by a channel to Wappo.  On average the water was about 1 degree warmer in Bear Trap.  We hit a few docks with plastics and I fished a Perch colored Husky Jerk  between them and over the inside weed edge., not much luck just a few short bass on a Lake Fork Baby Ring Fry.  I then hit a shallow main lake shoal on the outside of a cove with a Husky Jerk &  Glass Shad Rap (Perch) but has no action.  We then stopped at some docks farther in the pocket, I saw one nice bass cruising and several empty beds.  Not sure if fish had moved up and then pulled off because of the cold snap or if some fish had already spawned.  I did not really notice any empty beds on Deer Lake.  In the back of the cove I picked a nice keeper on the Baby Ring Fry off a dock.  We had seen enough of Bear Trap so we went back to Wappogasset.

Rich
www.richlindgren.com
basstournament.blogspot.com

My partner & I braved the cold & rainy weather today so we would not be completely unprepared for our club tournament next weekend.  We arrived at Deer Lake at about 7:45am and were on the lake by 8am.  Unfortunately I did not put any map study time into this trip and never had been on Deer before.  So the first bit of agenda was to take a cruise around the lake and get the lay of the land.   Main lake water temps were about 51-52F, which dropped from the reported 55-57 last weekend.

So I cruised around the lake, map in hand, slowed down in a few places and circled a few areas that good looking depth changes and contours.  I did notice that there is not a lot of early weed growth on this lake.  So we started in area outside of a shallow spawning area that some good weed growth.  I caught a quick fish on a Rapala Glass Shad Rap (Perch) and then hat a few hits on my Husky Jerk .  My partner had several hits on a Rattlin Rogue but nothing hooked up.  We tried some chatterbaits, lipless cranks, shakey heads, mojo rigs, and Gambler Swim Blades in this area as well, no more fish.

I went up into the shallow area to look it over, banking that it will be warmer next weekend and figured the fish would be using it then.  We were surprised to see some nice bass relating to wood in very shallow water.  We then covered the weed flat with Swim Jigs & Chatterbaits, I caught a few small bass & a northern, while my partner lost his $10 Chatterbait to a 3ft Musky

We followed the weed edge out of the cove and I picked up a keeper fish on a XR-10 Rapala X-Rap in a clown color.  Though he only had the very rear hook, which leads me to believe he really did not want it that bad.  We then shifted in to fish some wood where I got a 12″ bass on a texas rigged green pumpkin Baby Brush Hog .  We continued the day fishing in & out in areas that looked to have the most potential for next weekend.  We picked up a fish here and there on soft plastics and X-raps, most of my bites came on a Pumpkin Melon Lake Fork Baby Ring Fry Side Note: the shallow boat canal on the far east end of the lake was loaded with nice crappie & gills.   People were getting nice 10-12″ crappies from there docks.  Tomorrow, my partner for Wapogasset will head over there to practice up for Sunday’s tournament.

Rich
www.richlindgren.com
basstournament.blogspot.com