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Entries in Pre-Spawn (5)

Sunday

May022010

5-1 BFL on Lake of the Ozarks

Sunday, May 2, 2010 at 7:52PM

Monday, April 26th...I call FLW outdoors and find out I'm the 20th co-angler out of the tournament.
Tuesday, April 27th...6 more boaters register...I'm 14th out.
Wednesday, April 28th...2 more boaters register...I'm 12th out.
Thursday, April 29th...7 more entries...now sitting 5th out.
Friday, April 30th...6:30pm rolls around and there are 30 minutes until the registration deadline for Saturday's tournament.

I'm still up in the air as to whether or not I really want to drive from KC to the Ozarks, spend an hour or so rigging up rods, and fishing a tournament on zero practice in the morning. Out of boredom I decide to pack my truck thinking that I'll probably be unpacking it in a few minutes, but at 7:10pm I get a call from the FLW Tournament Director...I pick up the phone, say hello, and he replies by just saying, "C'mon. We'll see ya in the mornin' Pete." The meeting starts in 20 minutes and I have a 3 hour drive in front of me...anyone got a helicopter I can borrow?

After a little under 3hrs of non-stop driving in the rain I was sitting in my buddy's garage tying fresh fluorocarbon to backing, stressing about what I forgot to pack and left at home, and thinking about what time I needed to wake up in the morning. As a co-angler I usually have zero say as to where the boat goes or how we fish so you'd think there isn't a lot to be lost by not fishing tournament waters in the days leading up to a tournament. I feel like there is quite a bit you can miss out on by not practicing. How deep are most of the fish? Can I get bit with 10lb fluoro or do I need 8lb? 3/16oz or 1/4oz tungsten weight? In most tournaments I have these answers when I step foot onto the boat before the Saturday morning sunrise. This time around I didn't have that experience, but after talking to friends who had been fishing I rigged up 4 rods...the flippin' stick, a spinnerbait rod, a Carolina rig rod, and something I take with me in every tournament, my shaky head rod. It's May 1 and I hadn't caught a fish on my shaky head rod all year. I've owned this rod for about 3 years now and I've probably caught thousands of fish on it, but here we are with 4 months gone and I don't even think the spool had seen line.

My boater and I were #103 out of 105 and I couldn't have drawn a nicer guy. Jim was a true American Hero...19 years in the military, scars from a roadside bomb in Iraq, someone that deserves a thank you from each and every one of us. He picked up bass fishing about 5yrs ago after his Humvee hit a roadside bomb leaving him in a coma for 2 weeks. He said he bought his boat because, "They almost had to amputate my leg, but standing on the trolling motor makes for some pretty good physical therapy." For only having 5yrs of experience chasing bass, Jim knew what he was doing. If he hadn't told me I would have guessed he'd been fishing for 20 years or more. Jim had done a little recon and had located a handful of banks where he had caught and shook off the right kind of fish.

We pulled up on a point only about 5 minutes from PB2. He said the water in the Glaize was slightly stained, and after Friday's rain and wind I figured it would be somewhere around a foot of clarity. I was surprised to see that it was 2ft plus. There was a light breeze and I stuck a short fish on my third cast with the spinnerbait. About five minutes or so into the day, Jim caught a keeper on the inside edge of the point. It wasn't huge, but it was over 15". We worked around the flat, pea-gravel edge of the point and down the bank where it transitioned into ledge and chunk rock. The water was clear enough that I would have to move my spinnerbait faster than the fish wanted it, Jim had a good bite on the bottom, so I picked up the shaky head. My set-up is on the pricy side, but when it comes to finesse fishing I put a premium on having one of the most sensitive rods on the market...

- G.Loomis SHR822S Shaky Head Rod - Medium Action
- Shimano Symetre 2500 Spinning Reel
- 8lb Sunline Shooter Fluorocarbon (haven't used it long, but it's impressive)
- 3/16 Bass Team Tackle Co. Shaky Head - watermelon red
- Zoom Mag Finesse Worm

My first cast was right on the transition line...pea gravel on the left and basketball-sized chunk rock on the right. I was fishing one of Bass Team Tackle's 3/16oz ball-heads painted in Watermelon Red. When you get one of these in your hands you'll immediately notice that the hook and spring are a little larger than the smaller versions you'll find on other heads. Most shaky heads were designed with 4" straight-tail worms in mind. BTT's shaky heads were meant to handle the magnum baits we throw in Missouri...7" worms, creature baits, senkos, and fat finesse worms. Most shaky heads were designed with finesse components, but as the technique evolves, the smaller hooks and flimsy bait keepers don't handle the oversized plastics nearly as well. These heads will handle the larger baits right out of the package, and clipping off about half of the screw lock makes them workable with the smaller, more traditional shaky head baits. With a selection of powder coated head colors, a horizontal line tie, and a Mustad Ultra-Point hook they're the complete package. I'd show you the worm I was using, but I can't find the color online and by about 9:30am the fish had chewed up every last bit of the only pack I had. Any time there's good water clarity and a little bit of cloud cover, the green pumpkin version is tough to beat and it's similar to what I was throwing.

I caught a 2lb keeper on my first cast with the shaky head. A few minutes later I caught another, and another. I had 3 keepers in the boat, Jim had two, and they were all around 2-2.5lbs or a little less. It's 8:15am, I'm on my way to a limit. By the time we finished our first pass down the 200yd stretch of bank, I had added another keepers...4 in the livewell that probably weighed around 8lbs. Jim nosed his Ranger 520 around so we could make another pass. As I crawled the shaky head off a piece of ledge rock the rod tip got mushy. I reeled down and felt the line moving, swept the rod back and set the hook into what was probably my 15th or 16th fish of the morning. In the net, on the measuring board, just over 15" and I boxed him up. It was 9:15am and I had a 9.5 or 10lb limit. My limit fish had torn my worm in half, and I was now down to 2 of them. In the next 15 minutes I managed to wedge my bait between the rocks and I broke off the last one I had.

Hours and hours and hours went by without another bite...actually, it was almost the entire day. I tried other colors, thinner worms, lighter and heavier heads, but even the short fish weren't having it. Even though Jim was throwing a shaky plastic that was almost identical, I was getting about twice the bites that he was (until I ran out). I don't know if it was running out of the right worm, the sun coming up, or both, but after about 10am Jim and I both struggled to get bit. The occasional little guy would suck up the shaky head or the jig, but that soft, mushy, funny feeling bite we'd been getting from the keeper fish didn't resurface until later in the day. After checking several other spots that didn't produce we left ourselves about an hour and a half to fish the bank that had yielded 7 keepers in the morning. One pass down the bank was fruitless, but on our way back up I picked up my flippin' stick and a beaver and started whackin' fish again. The first 2 were barely under 15", but on a 10ft pitch right next to the boat a 3-pounder picked the bait up off of a ledge and almost all in one motion I swung, set the hook, and flipped the fish in the boat. Ordinarily I wouldn't take that risk when I have a capable net man in the boat, but when there isn't much 20lb line out, I've recently retied, and the fish is already at the boat I'd rather flip it in than wait. Even the fastest guy can't always have the net ready when you're fishing with a short line and playing the fish at the boat gives them a chance to spit the hook.

Another 45 minutes passed without a keeper bite and our day was over. We hit a few of the customary 5ft Lake of the Ozarks wakes on the way in to weigh our fish. Catching a limit as a co-angler isn't the easiest thing to do. In the 14 individual tournaments I've fished I'd never put 5 on the scale. I came close in my first BFL of 2010 with 4 fish, but this time I boxed it up early in the day. On top of that, this was the first time I had culled in an individual tournament. After seeing how much time I wasted (and how wet I got when the fish were splashing around in the livewell) part of my check is definitely getting spent on some culling tags. I might not always catch 5 or 6, but when I do I'll be able to get rid of the small fish and get my bait right back in the water. When ounces can win or lose you hundreds or thousands of dollars, you'd better be sure you're making the right call...just look at how tight some of these weights are...