101 BASS TEAM TOURNAMENT MAY 12, 2012
This tournament marks the last regular season 101 Bass open team tournament of the year. This was 101 Bass's inaugural season. They averaged 30 boats in each of the 7 regular season tournaments. The all in entry was $250.00 for each team and the payout was $3,000.00 for first place. Not bad for a local team tournament circuit. There is a no-entry championship that will pay out over $12,000.00 in money and prizes for the qualifiers.
My daughter, Kenna and I missed the first tournament of the year as I was fishing the WON Bass Western Classic. This is the Pro Am final where I finished 5th on the Pro side. Kenna and I fished the next six tournaments and cashed a check in three of them. A first place in January at Nacimiento, a second place at Lopez and in this last tournament we finished fourth place with 11.15 pounds. May fishing on Nacimiento Lake is very different than in January so we had to change our presentations a little but mostly the areas we concentrated on. I caught our largest spotted bass of the day early in the morning on a Heddon Super Spook Jr. I was fishing it over a flat with scattered rocks on it. This is a likely feeding area early in the morning especially when the water is in the mid 70's and the days are long. It went 2.70 pounds and exploded on the spook the first time but didn't get the bait in it's mouth. I was lucky enough to not set the hook at the strike but just continued to work the bait in a normal walking fashion. The bait went another 15 feet and the big spot hit the spook again and this time inhaled the bait. I was able to get this bass to the waiting net Kenna was holding and into the boat.
Any reading of the earlier stories below you will find that this has been the year of the YUM Dinger. This tournament was no different. The big fish on the Super Spook Jr. was the only fish caught on anything other than the Dinger. Kenna has become a master working the Dinger and getting bass to bite. We caught over 30 keepers and plenty of short fish to stay busy all day. Most of the fish came out of 15 to 20 feet of water on steeper rock banks. One key to our success was to watch the screen of our Lowrance HDS 10. I have the Generation 2 unit on my boat with an LSS-2 HD connected to the HDS unit. As we fished we would watch the Structure Map overlay feature on the map and we were able to find some key underwater points at the appropriate depths that held some of the 2 pound spotted bass that made up our limit. The HDS sonar is so clear and the ability to watch your bait as you drop it to those suspended bass adds to your catch. The only problem is you have to catch the bass to be able to tell how big it is. Every once in a while you are pleasantly surprised with 2 or 2 1/2 pound spotted bass which are larger than average in this lake.
As the sun got high in the sky the banks facing north were more productive. Shade became the key "structure" to look for and with about an hour to go my YUM Dinger and my Dobyns 743 spinning rod subdued a 2.40 pound spotted bass and we were able to cull a 1.79 bass to get to 11.15 pounds. It's always a little unnerving to have a good sack of fish and not have any idea what the fishing was like for everyone else. Someone always catches them and on this day it took over 15 pounds to win. 4 and 5 pound bass usually get the win here at Nacimiento.
This is a lake right now that would be a perfect fit for a fun fishing trip to catch a bunch of bass. There was a Kid's tournament at Oak Shores the same day and everyone caught fish. If you are looking for somewhere to take your kids come to Lake Nacimiento and go to Jim's Pro Bass Tackle on Riverside in Paso Robles to get the latest tackle to have a day you won't soon forget. I would like to thank Jim Slusher, owner of Jim's Pro Bass Tackle for all the help this season and in the season's to come! Jim is also the inventor, producer and marketer of his own Comfortroll. Click on the link to learn more about an aftermarket recessed trolling motor foot pedal made of superior quality aluminum and powder coated in special colors. I have one in black installed in my boat!
My daughter, Kenna and I missed the first tournament of the year as I was fishing the WON Bass Western Classic. This is the Pro Am final where I finished 5th on the Pro side. Kenna and I fished the next six tournaments and cashed a check in three of them. A first place in January at Nacimiento, a second place at Lopez and in this last tournament we finished fourth place with 11.15 pounds. May fishing on Nacimiento Lake is very different than in January so we had to change our presentations a little but mostly the areas we concentrated on. I caught our largest spotted bass of the day early in the morning on a Heddon Super Spook Jr. I was fishing it over a flat with scattered rocks on it. This is a likely feeding area early in the morning especially when the water is in the mid 70's and the days are long. It went 2.70 pounds and exploded on the spook the first time but didn't get the bait in it's mouth. I was lucky enough to not set the hook at the strike but just continued to work the bait in a normal walking fashion. The bait went another 15 feet and the big spot hit the spook again and this time inhaled the bait. I was able to get this bass to the waiting net Kenna was holding and into the boat.
Any reading of the earlier stories below you will find that this has been the year of the YUM Dinger. This tournament was no different. The big fish on the Super Spook Jr. was the only fish caught on anything other than the Dinger. Kenna has become a master working the Dinger and getting bass to bite. We caught over 30 keepers and plenty of short fish to stay busy all day. Most of the fish came out of 15 to 20 feet of water on steeper rock banks. One key to our success was to watch the screen of our Lowrance HDS 10. I have the Generation 2 unit on my boat with an LSS-2 HD connected to the HDS unit. As we fished we would watch the Structure Map overlay feature on the map and we were able to find some key underwater points at the appropriate depths that held some of the 2 pound spotted bass that made up our limit. The HDS sonar is so clear and the ability to watch your bait as you drop it to those suspended bass adds to your catch. The only problem is you have to catch the bass to be able to tell how big it is. Every once in a while you are pleasantly surprised with 2 or 2 1/2 pound spotted bass which are larger than average in this lake.
As the sun got high in the sky the banks facing north were more productive. Shade became the key "structure" to look for and with about an hour to go my YUM Dinger and my Dobyns 743 spinning rod subdued a 2.40 pound spotted bass and we were able to cull a 1.79 bass to get to 11.15 pounds. It's always a little unnerving to have a good sack of fish and not have any idea what the fishing was like for everyone else. Someone always catches them and on this day it took over 15 pounds to win. 4 and 5 pound bass usually get the win here at Nacimiento.
This is a lake right now that would be a perfect fit for a fun fishing trip to catch a bunch of bass. There was a Kid's tournament at Oak Shores the same day and everyone caught fish. If you are looking for somewhere to take your kids come to Lake Nacimiento and go to Jim's Pro Bass Tackle on Riverside in Paso Robles to get the latest tackle to have a day you won't soon forget. I would like to thank Jim Slusher, owner of Jim's Pro Bass Tackle for all the help this season and in the season's to come! Jim is also the inventor, producer and marketer of his own Comfortroll. Click on the link to learn more about an aftermarket recessed trolling motor foot pedal made of superior quality aluminum and powder coated in special colors. I have one in black installed in my boat!
AMERICAN BASS TEAM TOURNAMENT APRIL 14, 2012
This tournament marked the end of the 2011/2012 tram tournament season. Jim Slusher and I fished together as a team this year. The final team tournament was held on Santa Margarita Lake. Two different April storms hit central California the week before this last tournament of the regular season. This pushed the bass off the beds and fit right into the way I like to fish. Mostly cloudy skies, air temps in the high 50's and water temps in the high 50's too. This was at least a 5 degree cool down from last weekend.
Jim and I threw YUM Dingers all day. We rig them wacky and throw them everywhere. We caught about 10 keepers and culled our smallest fish two different times. Jim had an issue with his spinning reel so I loaned him one of my rods to use, a Dobyns 742 SF. Jim caught our three largest fish and I contributed the final two to complete our tournament limit. The fish were on steeper rocky banks in 5 to 15 feet of water. The finesse presentation of the YUM Dinger was perfect for the conditions. When we weighed in, the tournament scales stopped at 24.52 pounds. This was about 2 or 3 pounds more than we thought we had caught. A pleasant surprise to say the least.
As I was walking back to the boat, Jared Litner approached me and asked what my weight was. I said 24.52 pounds and showed him my weigh slip. He showed me his weigh slip and it read 24.52 pounds too! The tournament director approached us and explained how a tie is broken according to the ABA rule book. When there is a tie whom ever has the largest bass in the bag is above the other team. In this case Jared Litner and Nick Salvucci had a 6.2 big bass and Jim and I had a 5.5 big bass. This meant we tied for first place but ended up in 2nd place officially because of the big bass tie breaker.
One thing I noticed was that all the bass we weighed in were pre spawn females. There were no red rub marks, cut tails or bleeding bellies indicating the fish are actively spawning. These bass were the next wave of females that will go to the bank during the next full moon phase which is in a couple weeks. The combination of the stormy weather and the timing of the tournament between spawning cycles created the perfect day to be throwing a YUM Dinger.
Jim and I threw YUM Dingers all day. We rig them wacky and throw them everywhere. We caught about 10 keepers and culled our smallest fish two different times. Jim had an issue with his spinning reel so I loaned him one of my rods to use, a Dobyns 742 SF. Jim caught our three largest fish and I contributed the final two to complete our tournament limit. The fish were on steeper rocky banks in 5 to 15 feet of water. The finesse presentation of the YUM Dinger was perfect for the conditions. When we weighed in, the tournament scales stopped at 24.52 pounds. This was about 2 or 3 pounds more than we thought we had caught. A pleasant surprise to say the least.
As I was walking back to the boat, Jared Litner approached me and asked what my weight was. I said 24.52 pounds and showed him my weigh slip. He showed me his weigh slip and it read 24.52 pounds too! The tournament director approached us and explained how a tie is broken according to the ABA rule book. When there is a tie whom ever has the largest bass in the bag is above the other team. In this case Jared Litner and Nick Salvucci had a 6.2 big bass and Jim and I had a 5.5 big bass. This meant we tied for first place but ended up in 2nd place officially because of the big bass tie breaker.
One thing I noticed was that all the bass we weighed in were pre spawn females. There were no red rub marks, cut tails or bleeding bellies indicating the fish are actively spawning. These bass were the next wave of females that will go to the bank during the next full moon phase which is in a couple weeks. The combination of the stormy weather and the timing of the tournament between spawning cycles created the perfect day to be throwing a YUM Dinger.
101 BASS TEAM TOURNAMENT LOPEZ LAKE MARCH 31, 2012
Four fish from our limit. This picture shows how bad the weather got towards the end of the day.
This was my fourth tournament I fished with my daughter, Kenna. This was our first tournament together at Lopez Lake just east of Arroyo Grande, California. At this time of the year there is a high expectation of spawning bass. The weather forecast for this Saturday was for a cloudy morning with afternoon rain. With the AM clouds it was very difficult to see any bass on beds so it was one of those days when you just go fishing.
I practiced each of the two previous Saturdays for this tournament but found the bite to be real slow. I could only catch 9 or 10 pounds for a five fish tournament limit during practice. So the plan was to just go fishing and let the fish tell us what they wanted on this day. There were 32 boats entered in the field and when the number was drawn to find out when we would take off, we found that we were almost the last boat out. When our number came up I really didn't have any idea where to go so I idled out and picked the first point I could find that didn't have a boat already on it.
This point happened to be just inside a small cove as you start to go into the Wittenberg arm of Lopez. There were boats on each side of the cove so we started on the point and fished around to the right side. We caught a couple two pounders before we ran into the boat to our right so we picked up and went back toward our starting point and the boat to the left of us was on it so we went around him and fished where he had just come from. In this small cove I could watch the other boats to see if they caught fish but they only caught on small keeper that I could see. I had noticed they were fishing a crankbait and later I saw another boat fishing the umbrella rig down the side of the cove that we were heading to. I caught one of our first keepers on a Smithwick Rattlin Rouge ripbait and the other flipping into the shallow brush cover with a YUM Mighty Bug. Since the other boats had already fished the cove with reaction baits I decided to have Kenna throw the YUM Dinger and see if this bait would produce bites that the reaction baits the other boats were using didn't. I continued with the Rouge but after a little while I felt like this just wasn't the right bait to be throwing so I changed to the YUM Dinger like Kenna.
As we approached a small point that the other two boats had fished I felt a fish start swimming off with my Dinger so I naturally set the hook. This was a powerful fish digging out to deep water. My Dobyns 743s spinning rod handled the fish perfectly and soon this bass was coming toward the boat. Kenna dipped it gracefully up out of the water into the boat. I put the fish on my scale and we had our first 5 pound bass in the livewell. Kenna and I pounded fists and got right back to work. I re-rigged my Dinger and made another cast. Before my bait sunk to the bottom my line started moving out to deep water. A YUM Dinger doesn't swim sideways out to deep water all by itself. This was a fish for sure. I set the hook and another powerful bass battle was on. This fish dug hard to the bottom on two different runs but it too was soon headed to the boat and again Kenna got that fish in the net. I put this bass on the scale and we had our second 5 pound bass in the livewell with the other one. Now Kenna and I really celebrated because in our practice we never caught a fish over 3 pounds and we had two big fish in our livewell. We got back to work and fished around the point. I was about 10 minutes later I got another bite in about 10 feet of water so I again set the hook and up jumps another big bass. There was some brush around but I was lucky to get this bass to the boat and into Kenna's net. This fish was just under 5 pounds but close enough to call it our third 5 pounder. This was getting hard to believe but we did the only thing we could do, we kept fishing. On Kenna's next cast she hooked a big bass and fought it for a minute or so before it got the line around one of those bushes that my fish avoided. Unfortunately this fish wouldn't make it to the net. It was able to break the line and Kenna lost our next big bass. That's just one of those fishing things that you just can't help, she did nothing wrong except she hooked a "smart" fish.
We had three 5 pounders and two 2 pounders. The scale read 19 pounds and it was only 8:30 in the morning! We continued to fish of course but no more bites came from this small point. We actually caught the fish on each side of the point, all on YUM Dingers. While analyzing the area where we caught the fish I thought of another place on the lake where similar terrain existed. I was trying to "listen" to the fish. We moved down the lake to another cove and started fishing again with the YUM Dingers since the big fish were eating the slow presentation real good. After about 30 minutes Kenna set the hook on a bass and after landing it we found that it culled one of the two pounders and helped us move up another pound and a half. Kenna re-rigged her Dinger and cast again working the bait as well as any of the guys I've fished with. Within 5 minutes she set the hook, put another 3 1/2 pounder in our limit and culled the small two pounder I had caught earlier.
The weather was really setting in with heavy grey clouds overhead. We made a couple more moves with no success. The weather change had changed our fish too and the bite just died. My scale said we had 21 pounds which was way better than any of our practice days weights so we were very excited with our day no matter what the other contestants produced. One exciting note I would like to make is in the last two hours of the day the wind came up with gusts to 40 MPH and heavy rain stinging the side of our faces. Twice I was almost blown off balance into the water. Kenna and I fished these conditions with our life vests on for safety purposes. If you ever find yourself fishing in these types of conditions please wear your life vests too!
At the weighin since we were almost last out we were almost last to weighin. The official tournament scales put our weight at 22.16 pounds that was good enough to put us in 2nd place for the day. The winners had over 25 pounds and a big fish of 9.09 pounds caught very early on a buzzbait. Just for the record, we never threw a buzzbait on this day! I would be remiss here if I didn't mention my new Yamaha SHO 4 Stroke outboard. This is the most dependable motor I have ever used. It is quiet and has so much torque it just drives my boat out of the hole with ease. I would also like to thank Jim's Pro Bass Tackle located in Paso Robles for all their help. Jim Slusher is the owner of Jim's Pro Bass Tackle and the owner of 101 Bass. I would like to thank Jim for putting on this great local team tournament circuit for us to fish and compete in.
I practiced each of the two previous Saturdays for this tournament but found the bite to be real slow. I could only catch 9 or 10 pounds for a five fish tournament limit during practice. So the plan was to just go fishing and let the fish tell us what they wanted on this day. There were 32 boats entered in the field and when the number was drawn to find out when we would take off, we found that we were almost the last boat out. When our number came up I really didn't have any idea where to go so I idled out and picked the first point I could find that didn't have a boat already on it.
This point happened to be just inside a small cove as you start to go into the Wittenberg arm of Lopez. There were boats on each side of the cove so we started on the point and fished around to the right side. We caught a couple two pounders before we ran into the boat to our right so we picked up and went back toward our starting point and the boat to the left of us was on it so we went around him and fished where he had just come from. In this small cove I could watch the other boats to see if they caught fish but they only caught on small keeper that I could see. I had noticed they were fishing a crankbait and later I saw another boat fishing the umbrella rig down the side of the cove that we were heading to. I caught one of our first keepers on a Smithwick Rattlin Rouge ripbait and the other flipping into the shallow brush cover with a YUM Mighty Bug. Since the other boats had already fished the cove with reaction baits I decided to have Kenna throw the YUM Dinger and see if this bait would produce bites that the reaction baits the other boats were using didn't. I continued with the Rouge but after a little while I felt like this just wasn't the right bait to be throwing so I changed to the YUM Dinger like Kenna.
As we approached a small point that the other two boats had fished I felt a fish start swimming off with my Dinger so I naturally set the hook. This was a powerful fish digging out to deep water. My Dobyns 743s spinning rod handled the fish perfectly and soon this bass was coming toward the boat. Kenna dipped it gracefully up out of the water into the boat. I put the fish on my scale and we had our first 5 pound bass in the livewell. Kenna and I pounded fists and got right back to work. I re-rigged my Dinger and made another cast. Before my bait sunk to the bottom my line started moving out to deep water. A YUM Dinger doesn't swim sideways out to deep water all by itself. This was a fish for sure. I set the hook and another powerful bass battle was on. This fish dug hard to the bottom on two different runs but it too was soon headed to the boat and again Kenna got that fish in the net. I put this bass on the scale and we had our second 5 pound bass in the livewell with the other one. Now Kenna and I really celebrated because in our practice we never caught a fish over 3 pounds and we had two big fish in our livewell. We got back to work and fished around the point. I was about 10 minutes later I got another bite in about 10 feet of water so I again set the hook and up jumps another big bass. There was some brush around but I was lucky to get this bass to the boat and into Kenna's net. This fish was just under 5 pounds but close enough to call it our third 5 pounder. This was getting hard to believe but we did the only thing we could do, we kept fishing. On Kenna's next cast she hooked a big bass and fought it for a minute or so before it got the line around one of those bushes that my fish avoided. Unfortunately this fish wouldn't make it to the net. It was able to break the line and Kenna lost our next big bass. That's just one of those fishing things that you just can't help, she did nothing wrong except she hooked a "smart" fish.
We had three 5 pounders and two 2 pounders. The scale read 19 pounds and it was only 8:30 in the morning! We continued to fish of course but no more bites came from this small point. We actually caught the fish on each side of the point, all on YUM Dingers. While analyzing the area where we caught the fish I thought of another place on the lake where similar terrain existed. I was trying to "listen" to the fish. We moved down the lake to another cove and started fishing again with the YUM Dingers since the big fish were eating the slow presentation real good. After about 30 minutes Kenna set the hook on a bass and after landing it we found that it culled one of the two pounders and helped us move up another pound and a half. Kenna re-rigged her Dinger and cast again working the bait as well as any of the guys I've fished with. Within 5 minutes she set the hook, put another 3 1/2 pounder in our limit and culled the small two pounder I had caught earlier.
The weather was really setting in with heavy grey clouds overhead. We made a couple more moves with no success. The weather change had changed our fish too and the bite just died. My scale said we had 21 pounds which was way better than any of our practice days weights so we were very excited with our day no matter what the other contestants produced. One exciting note I would like to make is in the last two hours of the day the wind came up with gusts to 40 MPH and heavy rain stinging the side of our faces. Twice I was almost blown off balance into the water. Kenna and I fished these conditions with our life vests on for safety purposes. If you ever find yourself fishing in these types of conditions please wear your life vests too!
At the weighin since we were almost last out we were almost last to weighin. The official tournament scales put our weight at 22.16 pounds that was good enough to put us in 2nd place for the day. The winners had over 25 pounds and a big fish of 9.09 pounds caught very early on a buzzbait. Just for the record, we never threw a buzzbait on this day! I would be remiss here if I didn't mention my new Yamaha SHO 4 Stroke outboard. This is the most dependable motor I have ever used. It is quiet and has so much torque it just drives my boat out of the hole with ease. I would also like to thank Jim's Pro Bass Tackle located in Paso Robles for all their help. Jim Slusher is the owner of Jim's Pro Bass Tackle and the owner of 101 Bass. I would like to thank Jim for putting on this great local team tournament circuit for us to fish and compete in.
American Bass Team Tournament March 10, 2012 San Antonio Lake
Fifth tournament of the 2012 season here on the Central Coast was at San Antonio Lake. The second tournament of the season was at Cachuma Lake and I couldn't make it so my partner, Jim Slusher, had to fish alone. This time Jim had to be out of town so I fished this tournament alone so, like Jim did, we could keep up in the points to qualify for the TOC at Clear Lake this fall.
I had a tournament last Saturday, worked at the Fred Hall show Wednesday through Friday, had to race home to get 4 hours of sleep to get to the tournament, alone. All my mentors in this tournament fishing thing have told me " don't enter any tournament unless you get into all the options" so I entered this one the same way, I got into all the options. Good thing I did because I was blessed to catch my new personal best at San Antonio, an 8 pound 10 ounce largemouth, had 5 fish for 17 pounds even and won the tournament getting maximum points for our team.
I'll give you a description of my day.
At blast of I had decided to fish in the Harris Creek arm of the lake since I know it well and we should be in prespawn with a few small bucks starting beds. 25 boats in the tournament and I'm like the 20th boat out. When my number is called I head to Harris and most of the field ahead of me turns right into Harris and I don't really want to take leftovers so I continue on to Bee Rock cove. Brad and Clark get there first and head to the inside so I start on the outside. Starting on the north side of the cove I throw crankbaits, swimbaits, spinnerbaits and jigs with no bites. Time to go across the cove to the steeper side looking for where any females staging might set up. Going down the bank again with the same arsenal, no bites. I had my Lowrance Structure Scan on and I notice on the right scan I see a tree underwater. I looked to the right and no tree coming out of the water so this might be one that people have missed. It looked like a good place to throw my YUM Dinger rigged wacky so I pitched it to where the tree should be. One note here for those of you who don't have Structure Scan on your boat, if you hit the arrow keys the cursor comes up. Use those arrow keys to move the cursor to the object and it will give you the distance from the boat. This tree was about 12 feet to the side so that is about where my pitch landed. I was fishing with my Dobyns 743s Extreme spinning rod so it was easy to let the Dinger fall straight to the bottom. It only took a few seconds and I could feel the weight of a subtle bite. I set the hook and was impressed with the hard pull of this fish. Like most big fish it came right to the top and did the normal head shake/jump of a big bass. Fishing alone I found it difficult to get the net since the fish came up so fast. By the time I got my hand on it the fish took me all the way to the bottom, around in a couple circles, another long run and when I finally got it to the surface again it slid uneventful into the net and I lifted it into the boat. There was no boat shrinkage with this fish. It looked big in the water but on my deck it was huge. I got out my scale and it was a little over 8 pounds. Into the livewell and on with my fishing feeling real good and thanking God for something like this to happen in a tournament.
I went across the cove to the north side again and fished a slightly steep point and caught a 1 pound largemouth, cast again and got a 2 pound smallmouth, this made three. I went back to the place I started and still fishing the Dinger I caught another 2 pound smallmouth, 4 fish now. Going out to the main lake I fished a few points looking for any bites to tell me something. I saw a smallmouth on a bed and caught it to complete my limit. It was about 10:00 now so I ventured into Harris Creek and most everyone was gone now. Working all the way to the back with no bites I knew why no one was left. I picked up a Smithwick Rouge to cover some water and caught a smallmouth that culled that small largemouth I had in my limit. First cull.
This finally "told" me something so I left and went to the north shore toward the river and fished a few points with the Rouge. On the third point I caught another smallmouth that culled the smallest fish again, second cull. I fished back into a cove to look around and I saw 20 beds with no fish on them. I later found out that most of the guys left Harris Creek to come up here as soon as the sun got high enough to see the beds and caught all the males off the beds.
With only about an hour left I went to a small cove across the lake and threw the ripbait. On the point I caught a 2 1/2 pound smallmouth and culled a 1.93 out. Third cull. Feeling pretty good about this I continued into the cove and caught another smallmouth over 2 pounds again. Fourth cull. At this time I was wishing I had tried the ripbait earlier because there are lots of 3 pound smallmouth in this lake and I figured I would need more weight. An earlier tournament in the year it took over 18 pounds to win and I knew I didn't have that. I caught 9 keepers this day and ended up with 17 pounds and the biggest fish of my life out of this lake. I would take that kind of day in any tournament.
I had a tournament last Saturday, worked at the Fred Hall show Wednesday through Friday, had to race home to get 4 hours of sleep to get to the tournament, alone. All my mentors in this tournament fishing thing have told me " don't enter any tournament unless you get into all the options" so I entered this one the same way, I got into all the options. Good thing I did because I was blessed to catch my new personal best at San Antonio, an 8 pound 10 ounce largemouth, had 5 fish for 17 pounds even and won the tournament getting maximum points for our team.
I'll give you a description of my day.
At blast of I had decided to fish in the Harris Creek arm of the lake since I know it well and we should be in prespawn with a few small bucks starting beds. 25 boats in the tournament and I'm like the 20th boat out. When my number is called I head to Harris and most of the field ahead of me turns right into Harris and I don't really want to take leftovers so I continue on to Bee Rock cove. Brad and Clark get there first and head to the inside so I start on the outside. Starting on the north side of the cove I throw crankbaits, swimbaits, spinnerbaits and jigs with no bites. Time to go across the cove to the steeper side looking for where any females staging might set up. Going down the bank again with the same arsenal, no bites. I had my Lowrance Structure Scan on and I notice on the right scan I see a tree underwater. I looked to the right and no tree coming out of the water so this might be one that people have missed. It looked like a good place to throw my YUM Dinger rigged wacky so I pitched it to where the tree should be. One note here for those of you who don't have Structure Scan on your boat, if you hit the arrow keys the cursor comes up. Use those arrow keys to move the cursor to the object and it will give you the distance from the boat. This tree was about 12 feet to the side so that is about where my pitch landed. I was fishing with my Dobyns 743s Extreme spinning rod so it was easy to let the Dinger fall straight to the bottom. It only took a few seconds and I could feel the weight of a subtle bite. I set the hook and was impressed with the hard pull of this fish. Like most big fish it came right to the top and did the normal head shake/jump of a big bass. Fishing alone I found it difficult to get the net since the fish came up so fast. By the time I got my hand on it the fish took me all the way to the bottom, around in a couple circles, another long run and when I finally got it to the surface again it slid uneventful into the net and I lifted it into the boat. There was no boat shrinkage with this fish. It looked big in the water but on my deck it was huge. I got out my scale and it was a little over 8 pounds. Into the livewell and on with my fishing feeling real good and thanking God for something like this to happen in a tournament.
I went across the cove to the north side again and fished a slightly steep point and caught a 1 pound largemouth, cast again and got a 2 pound smallmouth, this made three. I went back to the place I started and still fishing the Dinger I caught another 2 pound smallmouth, 4 fish now. Going out to the main lake I fished a few points looking for any bites to tell me something. I saw a smallmouth on a bed and caught it to complete my limit. It was about 10:00 now so I ventured into Harris Creek and most everyone was gone now. Working all the way to the back with no bites I knew why no one was left. I picked up a Smithwick Rouge to cover some water and caught a smallmouth that culled that small largemouth I had in my limit. First cull.
This finally "told" me something so I left and went to the north shore toward the river and fished a few points with the Rouge. On the third point I caught another smallmouth that culled the smallest fish again, second cull. I fished back into a cove to look around and I saw 20 beds with no fish on them. I later found out that most of the guys left Harris Creek to come up here as soon as the sun got high enough to see the beds and caught all the males off the beds.
With only about an hour left I went to a small cove across the lake and threw the ripbait. On the point I caught a 2 1/2 pound smallmouth and culled a 1.93 out. Third cull. Feeling pretty good about this I continued into the cove and caught another smallmouth over 2 pounds again. Fourth cull. At this time I was wishing I had tried the ripbait earlier because there are lots of 3 pound smallmouth in this lake and I figured I would need more weight. An earlier tournament in the year it took over 18 pounds to win and I knew I didn't have that. I caught 9 keepers this day and ended up with 17 pounds and the biggest fish of my life out of this lake. I would take that kind of day in any tournament.
101 BASS TEAM TOURNAMENT JANUARY 14, 2012
My daughter, Kenna and I decided to fish the 101 Bass team tournaments this year. This is an open series for anyone to fish, professional and novice alike. Kenna has won kid's tournaments before but this was her first serious open team tournament. I have been fishing here at Nacimiento Lake since the WON Bass team championship was held here the first week of November, 2011. The fishing has been improving on Naci since early fall. With air temps in the low 20's the water temperature has been steadily dropping too. On this morning it was 48 degrees, down 4 degrees in the past week.
Last week in the ABA team tournament, Jim Slusher and I placed 4th with 9.63 pounds. We caught 16 to 18 keepers and continued to cull all day long. Our big fish was 2.46 pounds and the second fish in that limit was 1.99 lbs. What a difference a week can make. The surface water temp dropped from 52 degrees on January 7th to 48 degrees on January 14th. With the off limits period of Monday through Thursday that 101 Bass has put in place I hadn't been on the water since the last Saturday. Colder water, clear weather freezing air temps and a week without fishing lead me to fish this day like a practice day. So I went to my Lowrance HDS 8 and checked waypoints I had set in the last 6 or 7 years. These helped me decide to fish a completely different area of the lake for this tournament relying on past experience with spotted bass on Nacimiento when the water gets cold. I find small pods of larger than average fish in creek arms this time of the year. I'm not the only one to find them but a little luck being able to catch them when it counts does help. "Thank you Lord!"
I decided to go up the Nacimiento River arm of the lake and with my new Yamaha SHO 4 Stroke I passed a couple guys on my way there. Having a late blast off I still had to followed three other boats to the area I wanted to fish and had to take the "leftovers" as far as where to start. On Kenna's second cast of the day with her Dobyns 703SF Champion series spinning rod she hooked up with a fish that was pulling pretty good. She was calm and controlled until the fish jumped and she saw just how big it was. The excitement was electric in the air as the last 15 feet of the fight was a furious combination of the reel's drag screaming, Kenna talking real fast with obvious excitement and me trying to net the fish. With my first try I lifted the net when the fish tail first so it just swam out of the net and took some more drag. This was a rookie mistake that I had coached Kenna earlier "not to do" and then I did it myself. On the next time by I waited to get the fish head first and it slid right into the net. As soon as I lifted the fish and slack went into Kenna's line the hook fell right out. How many times has this happend to us all? This fish went 3.35 pounds on my scale, good start since one 2 pound plus fish has been a kicker in my recent limits. About 10 minutes later on the same bank I hooked and landed a 2.25 pound spot caught out of 35 feet of water. This made two fish on our first stop and both of them are my usual kickers in a limit. Needless to say even I was excited.
We moved to another area down the lake and we had just started fishing, maybe 2 or 3 minutes after starting on the second stop, I set the hook and landed a 3.01 spotted bass in about 20 feet of water. In tournaments and practice since November I had only caught two fish over three pounds. Now we had two over three pounds the same day in a tournament with a two pounder now our third biggest fish. This was hard to imagine that on Kenna's first tournament we had this kind of start to our day. We have this thing that when we catch a fish we look up to heaven and thank Jesus for the blessing and believe me, we were very thankful!
We continued down the bank and about 10 minutes after I caught the second 3 pounder, Kenna hooks a fish. She looks at me and nods her head indicating that this was one of those fish that have heavy head shakes is pulling hard and steady in the opposite direction compared to a small fish. They that have that fast tail kick and come to the boat fairly quickly. There is a definite difference in the feel of the pull between a big spot and an average size spot. The water was pretty clear and you could see about 12 feet down and as Kenna brought the fish in we got a glimpse of the fish and Kenna gets excited all over again. Just about the same senario as the first fish about an hour earlier except I got the fish in the net the first time and the hook was set securely in the jaw. I got out my scale again and entered the fish in the scale. The digital reading said 3.88 pounds for our fourth fish. This time I told Kenna that we didn't have to look to heaven to thank Jesus this time because the way this day was going he was in the boat with us!
I don't hit the total weight on the cul m rite until I have a limit of five fish on the scale. It took about an hour before I caught our fifth fish, a small keeper and hit the total, 13.61 pounds, my heaviest weight here since January 14, 2006, exactly 6 years to the day, when Bryan Grier and I won here at Naci with a total weight of 14.35 pounds. We continued to cull that fifth fish throughout the day and with about 15 minutes to go Kenna caught a 1.85 that stayed in the limit. At weighin the official scale read 14.46 pounds for the win. This is my largest tournament weight at Lake Nacimiento and my first team tournament with my daughter, Kenna. This is a lifetime memory that will never fade.
BTW, the 3.35 was a personal best spotted bass for Kenna and an hour later she broke it with the 3.88 pound spotted bass. I throw YUM plastics from the Twin Tail trailers for my jigs to Mightee Worms to Dingers to Money Minnows. These were the baits of choice for the bass on this day. We took home $2,990.00 for the 14.46 pound limit of spotted bass. Kenna said her half of the prize money was more money than she makes in a month working, and she did it fishing with her Dad!
THE HIGHLIGHTED WORDS ARE LINKS!
Last week in the ABA team tournament, Jim Slusher and I placed 4th with 9.63 pounds. We caught 16 to 18 keepers and continued to cull all day long. Our big fish was 2.46 pounds and the second fish in that limit was 1.99 lbs. What a difference a week can make. The surface water temp dropped from 52 degrees on January 7th to 48 degrees on January 14th. With the off limits period of Monday through Thursday that 101 Bass has put in place I hadn't been on the water since the last Saturday. Colder water, clear weather freezing air temps and a week without fishing lead me to fish this day like a practice day. So I went to my Lowrance HDS 8 and checked waypoints I had set in the last 6 or 7 years. These helped me decide to fish a completely different area of the lake for this tournament relying on past experience with spotted bass on Nacimiento when the water gets cold. I find small pods of larger than average fish in creek arms this time of the year. I'm not the only one to find them but a little luck being able to catch them when it counts does help. "Thank you Lord!"
I decided to go up the Nacimiento River arm of the lake and with my new Yamaha SHO 4 Stroke I passed a couple guys on my way there. Having a late blast off I still had to followed three other boats to the area I wanted to fish and had to take the "leftovers" as far as where to start. On Kenna's second cast of the day with her Dobyns 703SF Champion series spinning rod she hooked up with a fish that was pulling pretty good. She was calm and controlled until the fish jumped and she saw just how big it was. The excitement was electric in the air as the last 15 feet of the fight was a furious combination of the reel's drag screaming, Kenna talking real fast with obvious excitement and me trying to net the fish. With my first try I lifted the net when the fish tail first so it just swam out of the net and took some more drag. This was a rookie mistake that I had coached Kenna earlier "not to do" and then I did it myself. On the next time by I waited to get the fish head first and it slid right into the net. As soon as I lifted the fish and slack went into Kenna's line the hook fell right out. How many times has this happend to us all? This fish went 3.35 pounds on my scale, good start since one 2 pound plus fish has been a kicker in my recent limits. About 10 minutes later on the same bank I hooked and landed a 2.25 pound spot caught out of 35 feet of water. This made two fish on our first stop and both of them are my usual kickers in a limit. Needless to say even I was excited.
We moved to another area down the lake and we had just started fishing, maybe 2 or 3 minutes after starting on the second stop, I set the hook and landed a 3.01 spotted bass in about 20 feet of water. In tournaments and practice since November I had only caught two fish over three pounds. Now we had two over three pounds the same day in a tournament with a two pounder now our third biggest fish. This was hard to imagine that on Kenna's first tournament we had this kind of start to our day. We have this thing that when we catch a fish we look up to heaven and thank Jesus for the blessing and believe me, we were very thankful!
We continued down the bank and about 10 minutes after I caught the second 3 pounder, Kenna hooks a fish. She looks at me and nods her head indicating that this was one of those fish that have heavy head shakes is pulling hard and steady in the opposite direction compared to a small fish. They that have that fast tail kick and come to the boat fairly quickly. There is a definite difference in the feel of the pull between a big spot and an average size spot. The water was pretty clear and you could see about 12 feet down and as Kenna brought the fish in we got a glimpse of the fish and Kenna gets excited all over again. Just about the same senario as the first fish about an hour earlier except I got the fish in the net the first time and the hook was set securely in the jaw. I got out my scale again and entered the fish in the scale. The digital reading said 3.88 pounds for our fourth fish. This time I told Kenna that we didn't have to look to heaven to thank Jesus this time because the way this day was going he was in the boat with us!
I don't hit the total weight on the cul m rite until I have a limit of five fish on the scale. It took about an hour before I caught our fifth fish, a small keeper and hit the total, 13.61 pounds, my heaviest weight here since January 14, 2006, exactly 6 years to the day, when Bryan Grier and I won here at Naci with a total weight of 14.35 pounds. We continued to cull that fifth fish throughout the day and with about 15 minutes to go Kenna caught a 1.85 that stayed in the limit. At weighin the official scale read 14.46 pounds for the win. This is my largest tournament weight at Lake Nacimiento and my first team tournament with my daughter, Kenna. This is a lifetime memory that will never fade.
BTW, the 3.35 was a personal best spotted bass for Kenna and an hour later she broke it with the 3.88 pound spotted bass. I throw YUM plastics from the Twin Tail trailers for my jigs to Mightee Worms to Dingers to Money Minnows. These were the baits of choice for the bass on this day. We took home $2,990.00 for the 14.46 pound limit of spotted bass. Kenna said her half of the prize money was more money than she makes in a month working, and she did it fishing with her Dad!
THE HIGHLIGHTED WORDS ARE LINKS!
WON BASS WESTERN CLASSIC 2011 DECEMBER 3 & 4, 2011
Tom and I with our limit that secured second place after the first day.
The Western Outdoor News Bass year end Championship is named the "Western Classic" and is a two day tournament. In 2011 they decided to have the tournament on two different lakes, San Antonio Lake the first day and Nacimiento Lake the second day located in Central California. This is the culmination of a year long battle of Pro's and AAA's and each have a qualifying competition throughout the year to determine who earns the invitation to the Western Classic.
The bite is tough on both lakes in early December when they are in the cooling transition from late fall into the stable cold days of winter. As I was practicing for this tournament, I spent two full days on San Antonio Lake and two afternoon's on Lake Nacimiento. Luckily I live about 1/2 hour from each lake so I know the layout of the lakes pretty well. This was an advantage since I had to work during the week before the tournament. I had used up all my vacation time earlier in the year during the regular season qualifying for this championship. I practiced at San Antonio Lake which was the venue for the first day of the tournament the weekend before and while searching the lake I found an offshore ledge on the second day of practice in the upper end of the lake. This ledge was at the end of a long point which is better described as an underwater flat with a square point at the end of the flat where the depth fell from 14 feet to about 30 feet deep. This flat protruded about 200 yards out into the lake and while I was staring at my Lowrance HDS 8, I had a fish pick up my YUM Dinger. I didn't set the hook but let the fish swim around until it dropped the bait. I was finding the bites very few and far between so I didn't want to hook any fish that might be willing to bite on tournament day. This area was promising so I maneuvered around the end of the flat and used my Lowrance HDS 8 to place a waypoint on each corner of that underwater point.
On the first day of the tournament there was a cold east wind blowing which is a little unusual and the fish normally aren't very active under these conditions. I started the tournament on a steep bank that dropped rapidly into 45 feet of water. During practice I had three bites here and caught one small keeper largemouth that just wouldn't drop the bait and hooked itself. After about an hour with no bites casting shallow and working the YUM Dinger out to the boat I backed off and worked deeper and deeper until I finally got my first bite. I set the hook and dragged up a 3.07 pound largemouth from just over 40 feet deep. This fish didn't take the rapid exit from the depths very well. I deflated the air bladder but to no avail. We continued to fish the steep bank and caught our second fish about 2 hours later, a 1 1/2 pound largemouth joined the first fish in the livewell. This one also succumbed to a 5 inch green pumpkin YUM Dinger fished on 8 pound test Silver Thread. The Dinger had to be worked so slow and with the fish just lightly picking up the bait, my Dobyns 743 spinning rod transmitted even that subtle tug into my palm for me to set the hook. Then even with only 8 pound test line the rod would work the fish into submission quickly ending with a satisfying trip into the livewell.
With no more bites in the next hour I decided to rotate through the other 4 areas that I had bites on in practice. The next couple hours produced only two small fish that didn't measure the 13 inch minimum length needed to make the trip to the scales. I went back to the original spot for a couple hours with no bites and therefore no more fish to add to the two in the livewell. It was 1:00 PM now with a 3:00 PM weigh in so I went to that ledge I told you about with the waypoints on it and since it set up for an afternoon bite I wanted to spend the last two hours there. While checking out the area with my Lowrance Structure Scan I found there were some scattered round river rocks on the drop off which gave this spot even more potential to attract and hold bass. This underwater point was about 14 feet deep on top and dropped sharply into 30 feet of water. I would go across the outside of the point casting into the 14 foot water and working my Dinger out to 30 feet. Then I would go up into the 14 foot water and cast out to the 30 foot water and work uphill to the boat. It took about a 1/2 hour and my partner hooked and lost a 3 pound smallmouth. I caught two largemouth in the next half hour giving us 4 fish. Then with about 30 minutes until we had to stop fishing and go to the weighin my partner caught a 2 pound largemouth filling out our tournament limit. We had just over 12 pounds for the day good enough for 2nd place.
This tournament format is a Pro/AM draw with a shared weight so I had a different partner the second day on Lake Nacimiento which is primarily spotted bass with a few largemouth mixed in. I went to the river arm of the lake to start where in practice I caught a 2.25 pound spotted bass which is a very good fish right now on that lake. Again the YUM Dinger proved to be a good bait during practice but this would not be the case in the tournament. I caught a 1.70 spot right away on the Dinger. My partner, Ron, was throwing a YUM Gonzo Grub and within 45 minutes he had hooked a big spotted bass and after a few drag screaming runs he slid the spot up and into the net. This fish turned out to be 3.13 pounds and Ron got a check for $400 for the fourth largest fish for the Ams for the tournament. We filled our limit in the river with three more pound and a quarter spots that I hoped to cull out on the main lake. We did cull those fish with the Gonzo Grubs but these were too small to hold my first day 2nd place position. I ended up with 9.18 lbs the second day and when combined with my first day weight from San Antonio my total for the tournament was 21.24 pounds. With this total I dropped to 5th place overall for the championship.
The highlights of the Championship weekend were in these tough conditions the YUM Dinger and Gonzo Grubs really came through with the bites to get my first top 5 finish in a Pro final. But my most valuable tools in my boat were my Dobyns Rods. Even with that cold wind the first day and the 25 degree temperature the second day I could feel those bites, set the hook and rely on those great rods to work those fish into the net. Balance and sensitivity are the attributes of these great rods that earn me money in tournaments and they will perform for you too whether you fish for the fun of it on weekends or you get serious like me and compete in the various levels of tournaments available for everyone.
In shared weight tournaments the final weight for the day is credited to both the Pro and the Am. The Pro's compete against the Pro's and the Am's compete against the other Am's. My Am from the first day on San Antonio Lake won the co-angler side of the tournament and the first place prize which was a brand new bass boat.
The bite is tough on both lakes in early December when they are in the cooling transition from late fall into the stable cold days of winter. As I was practicing for this tournament, I spent two full days on San Antonio Lake and two afternoon's on Lake Nacimiento. Luckily I live about 1/2 hour from each lake so I know the layout of the lakes pretty well. This was an advantage since I had to work during the week before the tournament. I had used up all my vacation time earlier in the year during the regular season qualifying for this championship. I practiced at San Antonio Lake which was the venue for the first day of the tournament the weekend before and while searching the lake I found an offshore ledge on the second day of practice in the upper end of the lake. This ledge was at the end of a long point which is better described as an underwater flat with a square point at the end of the flat where the depth fell from 14 feet to about 30 feet deep. This flat protruded about 200 yards out into the lake and while I was staring at my Lowrance HDS 8, I had a fish pick up my YUM Dinger. I didn't set the hook but let the fish swim around until it dropped the bait. I was finding the bites very few and far between so I didn't want to hook any fish that might be willing to bite on tournament day. This area was promising so I maneuvered around the end of the flat and used my Lowrance HDS 8 to place a waypoint on each corner of that underwater point.
On the first day of the tournament there was a cold east wind blowing which is a little unusual and the fish normally aren't very active under these conditions. I started the tournament on a steep bank that dropped rapidly into 45 feet of water. During practice I had three bites here and caught one small keeper largemouth that just wouldn't drop the bait and hooked itself. After about an hour with no bites casting shallow and working the YUM Dinger out to the boat I backed off and worked deeper and deeper until I finally got my first bite. I set the hook and dragged up a 3.07 pound largemouth from just over 40 feet deep. This fish didn't take the rapid exit from the depths very well. I deflated the air bladder but to no avail. We continued to fish the steep bank and caught our second fish about 2 hours later, a 1 1/2 pound largemouth joined the first fish in the livewell. This one also succumbed to a 5 inch green pumpkin YUM Dinger fished on 8 pound test Silver Thread. The Dinger had to be worked so slow and with the fish just lightly picking up the bait, my Dobyns 743 spinning rod transmitted even that subtle tug into my palm for me to set the hook. Then even with only 8 pound test line the rod would work the fish into submission quickly ending with a satisfying trip into the livewell.
With no more bites in the next hour I decided to rotate through the other 4 areas that I had bites on in practice. The next couple hours produced only two small fish that didn't measure the 13 inch minimum length needed to make the trip to the scales. I went back to the original spot for a couple hours with no bites and therefore no more fish to add to the two in the livewell. It was 1:00 PM now with a 3:00 PM weigh in so I went to that ledge I told you about with the waypoints on it and since it set up for an afternoon bite I wanted to spend the last two hours there. While checking out the area with my Lowrance Structure Scan I found there were some scattered round river rocks on the drop off which gave this spot even more potential to attract and hold bass. This underwater point was about 14 feet deep on top and dropped sharply into 30 feet of water. I would go across the outside of the point casting into the 14 foot water and working my Dinger out to 30 feet. Then I would go up into the 14 foot water and cast out to the 30 foot water and work uphill to the boat. It took about a 1/2 hour and my partner hooked and lost a 3 pound smallmouth. I caught two largemouth in the next half hour giving us 4 fish. Then with about 30 minutes until we had to stop fishing and go to the weighin my partner caught a 2 pound largemouth filling out our tournament limit. We had just over 12 pounds for the day good enough for 2nd place.
This tournament format is a Pro/AM draw with a shared weight so I had a different partner the second day on Lake Nacimiento which is primarily spotted bass with a few largemouth mixed in. I went to the river arm of the lake to start where in practice I caught a 2.25 pound spotted bass which is a very good fish right now on that lake. Again the YUM Dinger proved to be a good bait during practice but this would not be the case in the tournament. I caught a 1.70 spot right away on the Dinger. My partner, Ron, was throwing a YUM Gonzo Grub and within 45 minutes he had hooked a big spotted bass and after a few drag screaming runs he slid the spot up and into the net. This fish turned out to be 3.13 pounds and Ron got a check for $400 for the fourth largest fish for the Ams for the tournament. We filled our limit in the river with three more pound and a quarter spots that I hoped to cull out on the main lake. We did cull those fish with the Gonzo Grubs but these were too small to hold my first day 2nd place position. I ended up with 9.18 lbs the second day and when combined with my first day weight from San Antonio my total for the tournament was 21.24 pounds. With this total I dropped to 5th place overall for the championship.
The highlights of the Championship weekend were in these tough conditions the YUM Dinger and Gonzo Grubs really came through with the bites to get my first top 5 finish in a Pro final. But my most valuable tools in my boat were my Dobyns Rods. Even with that cold wind the first day and the 25 degree temperature the second day I could feel those bites, set the hook and rely on those great rods to work those fish into the net. Balance and sensitivity are the attributes of these great rods that earn me money in tournaments and they will perform for you too whether you fish for the fun of it on weekends or you get serious like me and compete in the various levels of tournaments available for everyone.
In shared weight tournaments the final weight for the day is credited to both the Pro and the Am. The Pro's compete against the Pro's and the Am's compete against the other Am's. My Am from the first day on San Antonio Lake won the co-angler side of the tournament and the first place prize which was a brand new bass boat.