Yesterday was my 2nd Bassmaster Weekend Series tournament, I was able to get two days of practice in for this event. It sure would be nice to get some more time so I could expand my water and areas, but there is only so much time. Based on my practice, I had one really strong area that I felt good about and a couple back up areas, plus some stuff that I had fished in that past that I felt could produce a few bites in a pinch.
I drew boat #15 and a heck of a nice co-angler named Sam. We arrived in my starting area and were the only boat there, I shut down a little short and used the trolling motor to get into position and as we approached I saw a surface swirl. All ready with my Yellow Magic Popper
in hand, I started firing casts towards the area the fish were boiling and they started biting pretty fast and furious. A mixture of smallies and largemouths were biting, as well as some white bass and a walleye. Once the topwater fizzled I switched to a Fork Craw on a mojo rig and caught my big fish of they day, 3.49lbs. I continued to flip the grass edge with a Game Hawg on a 3/16oz Tru-Tungsten weight and 3/0 Youvella OWG hook, boating a few small keeper largemouth.
Since things really slowed down and we made several passes through with no bites, we started running through my backup areas. The next couple spots we had a couple frog blow ups, but no fish. The 3rd area I started flipping my Game Hawg along an eel grass edge and quickly caught a nice chunky largemouth, as I dropped that fish in the livewell we drifted into a bunch of weeds, as I tried to trim the motor up I noticed was really slow and unresponsive, I knew that my starting battery must have been getting very low. Long story short, we lost almost 2 hours trying to get a jump and trying to revive the fish I had as they almost died with out the aerators running for that time. Big Thanks to Paul Strege for helping me get back in the game.
From that point, we made a pass back through my starting area with the motor running with no more fish. Next I hit up a wing dam and another main river rock spots, just got bit off by a northern on the latter. I decided to try an area that I caught some good fish flipping wood in the first tournament, it turned out to be a good decision, as I picked up a really nice keeper on 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten jig tipped with a rage chunk and a 3lb largemouth on a baby brush hog, as I used up all my Game Hawgs on some smaller fish prior. It was pretty much the end of the day at that point, so we strapped everything down and headed back to Alma for weigh-in.
Video of me weighing my fish, see my other videos to see interviews with top finishers!
One thing I have noticed is that I have been fishing extremely clean this year and I think a lot of it can be attributed to switching over to the new Youvella hooks for my soft plastic applications.
I was about the 10th angler to weigh and was the leader at the time with 14.21lbs, it did not last very long, but I held on for a solid 8th place finish. It was a nice little pay day with a 78 boat field and it boosted me from 12th to 3rd in the Angler of the Year points. End of July is the 3rd tournament down at Prairie Deu Chien, I have little experience down there, so I need to make some time to practice between now and then. I have a couple club tourneys in July, I may have to forgo practice for those and go fish PDC.
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