Crystal Lake ended being a great club tournament, both for numbers and quality of fish.  It started out a little slow for me, there were two local boats on the most prominent spot on the lake, they launched at 5am and 5:30am respectively.  3 of our 8 boats planned to start there; Crystal is only a 250 acre lake.  There was boat on each of the two prime spot on the spot areas.  We sat between them and watched both boats catch several nice fish.  I only managed one 35” musky on my bluegill Reaction Innovations Vixen topwater, but my partner did catch two quality keepers on a watermelon red flake Baby Brush Hog.  I talked to one guy and he estimated between the two boats they landed 15-20 bass before we got there.

So I went on the end of the underwater point and started cranking a Parrot DT6, finally a nice keeper in the boat, probably just under 4lbs.  My partner tried his pink Husky Jerk but got no bites.  As we followed the point around I switched back and forth between the Parrot DT6 and a Hot Mustard DT6.  As I hit the inside turn I got another nice fish over 3lb on the Hot Mustard.

There was so much pressure on that point that I decided to try some docks.  The first stretch of docks produced nothing as I alternated between a weightless Watermelon Candy Ring Fry and a 3/8oz Lake Fork Mega-Weight Jig (Brown/Blk).  So we hopped across the lake and I got one around 4lbs on the LFT Ring Fry.  We fished this stretch for a long ways, I missed on a Jig that pulled my skirt down and my trailer off and somehow I did not hook it.  I saw the fish afterwards as my boat drifted by, it was probably 2-3lbs.  I tried to circle back, but the bass would not cooperate.  A few docks later one stole my ring fry, but again would not bite on the follow-up casts.  We started entering to an area that had both pads and docks.  This is where I caught a 4.5lb fish on my Bronzeye in practice.  I caught one about 13.5” on the Bronzeye Frog and he absolutely engulfed it.  This fish was kind of small, but it made 4 bass in the well.  3 docks later I got a 3.5lb fish on a Fork Secret Ring Fry which rounded out my limit.

After getting no more action on this bank, we made out way back out onto the hard bottom point and I caught two more on a Carolina Rigged Watermelon Candy Baby Brush Hog.  The first fish was about 2lb and culled out my small fish and then the next one was over 3lbs and got rid of the 2lb fish.  We stayed out there for quite awhile hoping that we each would pick up some more fish.  After about 45 minutes without a bite, we headed back to a small boat channel that produced well in practice.

My partner John ran the boat back in this area, so he would have the best opportunity to finish out his limit.  We got nothing all the way around on the docks.  We finally got to the “Magic Tree” and John got his 3^rd keeper on his Baby Brush Hog.  I threw back in there with my Jig and had one take off with and somehow I missed it as it pulled down the skirt and trailer.  I went back to holding the boat and letting John cast into the tree.  After about 5 minutes he broke off both of his worm rigs, so I casted in there while he was retying and got one around 4lbs on my Ring Fry.  We both continued to cast and I got two more nice fish that I could not use to cull and time ran out as we only had time to make a few casts into the pads by the landing.

I ended up with 17.7 lbs for 5 fish and that was good enough for first place.  The next closest guy had 17.2 lbs and he camped out on the end of the deep point all day.  3^rd place was 16.8 lbs, he caught all his fish on a weightless ring fry in the pads and he anchored is bag with a 5.1 lb bass that was big fish.  All in all, it was a good day.  I only missed a couple bites, but I do not feel they hurt my weight.  I cut the lead to first place down to a single pound going into Sunday’s tournament on Marion which is just down the road.

See full standings.
Rich
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Well after this weekend, we will be half way through the club season and our seeding for the Match Tournament will be finalized.  I feel pretty good about these lakes, I have been on both many times before, so I feel once I get a feel for what the fish are doing I can react accordingly.  I will be starting on deeper spots on both lakes in the morning.  I may try a topwater, but probably will start out with a crankbait or carolina rig if the topwater does not get any action within 5 minutes.  I think the winning weight will be 12-13lbs if tough bite or if the bite is on at all it may take 17+ lbs on either or both Crystal & Marion.  These are big fish lakes!  I will be somewhat disappointed if I do not crack 15lbs on these two lakes, but hey that is why we fish the tournaments. 

Crystal I am likely to do a little more run & gun approach, especially if I can get some solid 3 lbs fish in the boat early, I have a lot of small areas that have potential for kicker fish.  It will probably a mixture of deep & shallow structure and cover.  The Bronzeye Frog could be a solid way to get a kicker fish on Crystal.  If the guys in club see me running around on Marion, I am either really struggling (junk fishing to fill a limit) or really slaying them (hunting for a kicker).  I may just sneak out on Marion for a couple hours this evening to check a couple deep spots that I did not get to on my one prefishing day.  I may get a blog in tonight, if there is any breaking news from my mini-practice session.

Check back Monday for Results!

Rich
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My partner Dave and I arrived at the landing at 6am and fished until about 1:30pm.  It was a mostly overcast day with little breeze.  The wind did pick up right before we left and the sun started to shine.  We started on a small inside weed turn on the main lake, I lost a northern on a DT6 Parrot, no bites on jig worms or mojo rigs.  There was a lot of surface activity up on the flat so I tied on a Baby Bass Sammy and moved up on top.  I did not get any takers but Dave caught a nice 2.75lb bass on a Bluegill Gambler Swim Blade.  We went back out to the edge and had a few sunfish taps, but that was about it. 

We then went out to my favorite hard bottom spot.  I got one close to 4lbs on a Carolina Rigged Green Pumpkin Baby Ring Fry on my 2nd or 3rd cast.  I pulled on another one that felt like a solid fish a few casts later and Dave doubled his rod over using a mojo rigged Ring Fry, but the fish dogged him in a coontail clump.  We each picked up one more fish on jig worms and then I had a good fish on a DT6, but it dogged me in some coontail as well.  We decided to get out of there and check some other areas.

We tried a few weed turns and points, we each caught a few fish, but it was slow.  After that we went over to the shallower side if the lake.  We caught several small bass on a brown/purple Swim Jig, Bronzeye Frog, & 1 on my Sammy.  I then decided to go under the bridge to the west side of 35W.  I had never been over there in all the times on the lake.  I was actually deeper in areas and goes back farther then I thought it did.  I believe there are fish that live back there all summer long.  We idled around back there and fished a couple stretches of slop.  On the 2nd stop, I caught a 4.5lb beauty on my Natural Red Bronzeye Frog and then about 10 casts later I had one in the same size class roll over the top of it, but miss it.  That was about it for the action back there and it was time to head home for a fish fry at my parents.

Tight Lines,
Rich
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My partner John & I fished from 6am – noon.  It was a cloudy and windy morning, air temps were in the low 60’s.  Since I have a pretty solid knowledge of the shallow cover in the lake, we decided to focus on deep water.  Although I had just bought a new frog rod from Fleet Farm and some new Bronzeyes from Sportsman’s Warehouse, so I wanted to go play with that before we left

We started on a hard bottom point area and I quickly caught a 2lb fish on the inside turn where it connects with the main weedline in about 8ft of water.  That fish came on a mojo rigged green pumpkin Baby Ring Fry.  Shortly after that I had a very nice fish on, that I brought to the surface and he shook free, no need to catch them during practice.  So since the fish were there I tried to keep the boat moving, but I wanted to fish some more of the point to see where the fish were positioned and what kind of rocks and weeds were there.  John caught one and lost one on a pink backed Rapala Husky Jerk .  I then caught 3 fish over 3lbs and lost 1 on a Parrot DT6, only fish really ate the bait, the other two were hooked on the outside of the mouth.  That leaves me to believe my color selection is probably a little off.  I tried a Grn Olive Shiner color and did not catch anything on that, but I was switching back to the Parrot and not catch them anymore either.  We hopped around a few other new areas that I had not previously fished and John caught one on Senko and brought a 2lb to the surface on a SWL Spinnerbait(Chart/white double willow). 

We then decided to probe the shallows a bit.  I had a little 12″ bass try to pull down my Natural Red Bronzeye Frog.  I then started tossing in under some docks and on my 3rd dock a 4+ lb bass crushed it and swiftly landed him with my new 7’10” rod that I had bought, spooled with Power Pro Braided Line.  About 5 casts later I had a blow up that I pulled away from, a little rusty on my frog fishing.  I threw back in there with a Fork Special Ring Fry and pulled the fish up where I could see it, minimum 3lb, I decided not to set and just pull it away from the fish.  I caught one more small keeper out of the pads on the frog and another 2.5lb under a dock, i just could not help from setting, too much fun.  It is amazing the leverage you get with a almost 8ft rod on a long hook set

Then it was time to hit some graduation parties   All in all, I would have had a solid 16-17lbs without beating on any spots.  My partner managed 2 or 3 nice fish and lost a couple more that we saw.  Hopefully the bite will be decent next Saturday, this lake can shutdown sometimes.

Tight Lines,
Rich
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Well, the launch went smooth and it was slightly overcast with a mild wind.  The wind was blowing into my reeds, so I had to go check to see if bigger fish had moved up to feed.  I started there and caught a few dinks real quick and moved around to some adjacent patches and I managed 3 small keepers on a weightless LFT Watermelon Candy Ring Fry and my partner got a nice keeper on a Yum Buzz Frog .

After wasting almost an hour in the reeds we went out to my deep spot, which is a deep edge off a flat on Le Homme Deu.  My partner each caught a few on crankbaits, I caught them on a DT6 Parrot and my partner was throwing a white SPRO crankbait of sorts.  It then slowed and I switched to a mojo rigged Fork Secret Baby Ring Fry and I caught my big fish of the tournament (2-12).  The flat was 6-8ft and broke to 12-18ft in the area I was fishing.  I caught one more keeper on the mojo rig to cull a reed fish.  I tried a 8″ LFT Worm on a jig worm and got zero bites.  I then tried my chartreuse craw 1/2oz Rat-L-Trap and had one on but it came off.   Reluctantly, I finally pulled my drop shot out, which consisted of a 3″ Watermelon Red Flake Fluke rigged on a Reaction Innovations D.S. Creature.  On my 3rd cast I put a keeper in the boat that culled a fish. I probably caught a bass on 20 of my next 50 casts on the drop shot, and my partner probably caught 2 or 3 fish.  I absolutely crushed them on the drop shot, but I did not get any real big bites, but I did cull several times.  My partner did round out his limit on a texas-rigged watermelon Berkley Gulp Turtle Back Worm .  The bite finally slowed so we moved to another weedline.  I caught several fish on the drop-shot, but did not improve and I tried the reeds one more time, hit a stretch of docks and a weed flat near the weigh in with a Swim Jig and only caught one more small keeper that did not help my limit.

I kept feeling I needed one more good keeper, I just never got the bite.  I felt that I wasted my time in the reeds as I am pretty positive I culled all three of those runts out.  THe other thing that bugs me was that the fish were really on when I first pulled up on the first weedline and another boat was culling shortly after I got there.  I believe if I went to start on that weedline, I would have had about 11-12lbs or more instead of 10-05.   Well it turns out 10-05 was good enough for 10th place.  Not too bad, not real great.  Dean Capra won it with 15lbs.  My dad got his money back on the non-boater side, so it was a good start to the season and we are both in good shape for points for staying close on AOY and making the regional on Patoka Lake in October.

Got a couple local club tournaments in Lakeville and then the Pan-O-Prog tournament on Marion.  Then the 2nd weekend series tourney on Whitefish Chain.  See Full Tournament Schedule

Tight Lines,
Rich
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My dad & I fished the chain on Friday from about 6:30am until 5pm and looked at Le Homme Deu, Darling & Geneva.  We spent most of the day shallow looking at reeds, docks and shallow cabbage lines.  We caught tons of fish, but just small keepers.  Reeds and cabbage held plenty of fish, but I did not even manage one keeper of a dock.  The best baits seem to be LFT Ring Frys in natural colors, Swim Jig (brown/purple), and other natural plastics.  We also caught fish on RC1.5 crank (chart/blue), devils horse, DT6 (parrot) and other lures.  Towards the end of day we started sampling some deeper weedlines in 10-14ft where we catch our summer fish.  We started to find better fish.  At this time it seemed my thought of junk fishing shallow was not going to work out.

Day 2 Ryan from our bass club joined us on the lake and we checked some reeds in the morning and then headed deep to expand upon yesterday afternoons finds.  We caught tons of fish on all the weedlines that produced last September where I took 2nd at the MNBF TOC.  The best baits were, Jig Worms , DT6 (Parrot), Lucky Craft Flat CB DR (chart – light blue), drop shot, and a Baby Ring Frys  on a mojo rig.  Fish also caught on Swim Jigs, chart/white Cyclone Lightning Blade , XCalibur xr50 Rattle Bait  and a chart/white Spinnerbait,.  I felt pretty good as I had several spots where we found better than average keeper fish, but no kicker fish.  We checked more spots on Le Homme Deu and Geneva and then poked around Victoria and Jessie, but I did not see anything much that peeked my interest, but I did try out my new Spro Bronzeye Frog in Jessie’s pads, very nice!  We were off the lake by 3pm to get ready for the tournament and our meeting.

At the pairings meeting, I drew boat #20 out of 66 (2nd flight) and my partner was a local guy (Kevin) who had never fished a tournament before.  I told him we should catch plenty of fish, just a matter of catching some bigger ones.  So my game plan for the tournament was to check my best reed patch early hoping to that some better fish had moved in and then head to my #1 deep spot and work it over with several baits.  Because Ryan & my father had such good luck on a drop shot, I bought some 8lb Vanish to spool up a spinning rod for a drop shot rig.   As I was digging for a drop shot hook, I came across a Reaction Innovation D.S. Creature (D.S. = Drop Shot) that I had bought at Sportsman’s Warehouse in San Antonio, so I decided I would use that for my drop shot rig.  The key thing here, is that I have probably only caught about 4-5 fish on a drop shot ever and do not have much confidence in the system, so that rod started the day in my rod box.  All there was left to do was to get some sleep.

Check back for tournament story tomorrow….
Rich
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I spent all last night prepping rods, tackle, and stringing on new line, so I would have more time to practice one I got up to Alexandria.  I am trying to get everything together so I can get out the door soon, its already almost 7pm.  Yikes.  Well I will have two full days to prefish with my dad who is fishing as a non-boater.  Sounds like the water temps are in the low 70’s and the spawn is pretty much done, although there could be a few stragglers sneaking up this weekend with the moon phase, but I would not bank on sight fishing.  I will have a rod ready in case I stumble on one or two.  I expect the fish to be scattered in a post-spawn, probably a bit of a tough bite.  I will most likely concentrate on mid-shallow water.  Flats, docks, reeds and inside weedlines.  Probably junk fishing, just keep moving trying different areas and picking up fish here and there.  I do not expect it to be difficult to get a limit, finding the quality fish will be the trick.  Well I am pretty PSYCHED to fish this tournament, its a lake I like a lot and I like this time of year.  I also bought  some Lake Fork Tackle Flippers today that I anxious to test.  Look for results to be blogged early next week along with a practice reports

Tight Lines,
Rich
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After stewing about my disappointing finish at Deer Lake, I was fired up to get revenge on the fish and the rest of the club.  I knew from prefishing that Wapogasset would be a few degrees warmer and a little farther along in the seasonal pattern.  I had a plan to start fishing staging fish in some cabbage that was 3-8ft deep that was just outside of some spawning flats, but in the back of my mind I thought shallow fish could still play a big role.  The previous Sunday we caught several keepers on lipless cranks and spinnerbaits in this cabbage area.

Chong & I arrived first in this area only to have another boat shut down just a little ways down the cabbage line.  I started out with a Rayburn Red Xcalibur Xr50 Lipless Crankbait and Chong with his lucky chartreuse spinnerbait.  We had no luck, so I tried a Husky Jerk , Spinnerbait, & a Parrot DT4 with no luck.  The other boat had no action either and they even tried bouncing plastics on the bottom.  So I started easing up into the shallow flat and noticed several male bass cruising and actually positioned on beds.  I tried fishing them for a little while with a Baby Ring Fry , but only had one small pick-up and I do not think many of these fish would make the 14″ minimum.  So I decided to head to the north end of the lake where there is a bit more color to the water and the water is a little warmer.

We fished the cabbage line into the cove and only picked up one 12″ bass on a spinnerbait.  We started poking around the docks and the inside cabbage line with soft plastics.  I was throwing a weightless green-pumpkin Lake Fork Baby Ring Fry with a spinning rod with 10# Gamma Edge Flourocarbon and Chong has 4″ Black Senko .  I quickly spotted a few bass on beds and caught 1 keeper and a short, after the previous day I put that 14.25″ keeper right in the livewell.  We continued through these docks and sandy inside areas and I got two more keepers and we each missed a nice keeper that we had on.  As we fished down the docks, we met another club boat and he had one fish, so we turned around and fished back and I got a 15″ fish that I put in the livewell.  At this time I decided to switch to the full size Lake Fork Ring Fry on a baitcaster to try to get a bigger bite, because I only could keep one more fish and it was a no cull tournament.

I then caught a 15.75″ keeper that I reluctantly threw back at 11:10am, cause I had visions of getting a kicker at some point.  Shortly after that, I caught and threw back another 14″ and Chong got a nice keeper under a dock.  We decided to let this area rest and return in the afternoon.  We hit a set of docks across the way where I had nice fish that I missed because I did not realize the slack I had in my line as the fish swam through the weeds, probably around 3lbs.  I though I had missed my kicker opportunity.  We then hit other docks on the east side of the lake, things had slowed and we each caught a few short fish.

Finally we started coming up the docks that we had met the other boat on and I hooked a nice fish under a pontoon that was on a lift with a tail weighted Ring Fry, it was 4.5lbs and that finished out my limit.  I spent the rest of the time driving Chong around the docks and shallows trying to get him fish.  I spotted a few keepers on beds that he hooked, but they managed to get off.  Final weight was 11.4lbs, 1st place & big fish, could have been better if not for no cull rule as I threw back a nice fish to get the 4.5 and I stopped fishing 1.5 hrs early.  Only one other limit was brought to the scales, but nobody was skunked.  Unfortunately the other limit came from my father who took first on Deer.  So I sit in 2nd by about 3.2 after 2 tournaments with 6 to go, very manageable.

Now I need to concentrate on Le Homme Deu for the first Bassmasters Weekend Series Tournament…..
Rich
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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
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