I still managed to do pretty well though. Caught a few decent bass on a spinnerbait and was starting to feel a little better, until Kelton told me he had caught two really nice tucs. Again I thought...I should have came here first. A few minutes after I passed Kelton, he shouts, "Hey Alec!"...and he was holding a NiCE bass about 4lbs. I knew that spot he was on was the hot spot within the hot spot because, during the husband wife fish off I was slaying em there. I stayed in my "hot" area for the rest of the day, probably caught about 20+ fish. Only got a few decent fish, biggest was 2lbs1oz. The rest of the limit was about 1 3/4lbs per fish most were a little on the skinny side, but not sick looking. Caught fish on all sorts of different lures, softplastics were the best. Even got about a 1.5lb tuc on a tiki craw....he had me wrapped up down deep and I thought I had a hog, finally came unwrapped and he still felt good then I saw it was a small tuc...he fought like a 3lb or 4lb bass. Needless to say I was a little dissapointented. Luckily for me kelton moved on and I got to fish the "Super Hot" spot, at one point I think I had caught 4 or 5 on consecutive casts. My co-angler and I were catching them left and right.
I think Kelton had 3 fish for over 10lbs! I didn't see his tucs (wish I could have) but I guess he had a 5.5lb tuc plus the bass just under 4lbs I only saw the from a far, but that bass looked REALLY fat and healthy (why is it when fish are fat they are healthy but when people are fat they are unhealthy
..not like most of the 4lbers I've caught that are long and skinny. I ended up with 3 bass for 5.6lbs 2nd place...couldn't get a kicker. At least I didn't lose any big fish today that really kills me during tournaments. Even busted out a 10 inch curlytail "ring" worm..still only dinks. I caught my keepers on spinnerbaits and full size senkos texas rigged. The fish were hitting pretty much anything. I was trying to a lot of defferent baits, in hopes of finding what the bigger fish wanted, should haave used the 5inch mattlures tilapia swimbait. I did better on pumkinseed and bright greenish/yellow softplastics. Even though I had a bad start it turned out to be a really good day. Myself and my partner both caught lots of fish. He's really starting to get the hang of plastic worm fishing.
I find it really helpful to recap my day on this forum, it helps me think back at what I did well and what I should have done differently.
My lessons today(from a tournament standpoint):
- If you have a "hot" spot...start there first. Even if it's farther away and might be a little less time efficient.
- Get a new type of jig...boo jigs are horrible for fishing thick wood I'm down to 4 or 5 left from the 15 or 20 I ordered(I have only spent about 4 hours fishing these jigs. They
are also cheaply made, the rattles fall off after you catch a fish or sometimes when you are just putting on your trailer. I do really like the skirts on the boo jigs though, they have a nice look and action and also have plenty of strands..if I want less the strands I cut them off. (I have a few strikeking jigs with no skirts, the boojig skirts are going on them) The booyah pigskin jigs on the other hand are great, if anyone wants to start fishing jigs at wilson get a few of the 1/4 booyah pigskin jigs in ozarkcraw. They work really well and don't get snagged much. Use a single or double tail grub as a trailer try to match the color a little bit, but sometimes having a contrasting trailer can help get more strikes.
- Don't be lazy - sometimes I try to take shortcuts when I'm re-rigging or changing baits..the 2/0 hook I was using for a 6" worm is not going to be very effective on a 10" worm or 8" senko and I know this when I'm doing it. The extra minute it takes to change to the right hook is worth it.
- Stick to your plan- I knew after I had my limit it was time to look for bigger bites, bigger bites are not going to happen all day, I spent too much time going back to smaller fish baits because I just wanted to catch fish.
- Bioedge liquid potions is the best attractant I've ever used. I didn't write down any stats, but this stuff really increased strikes for myself and my co-angler. Was even putting it on my spinnerbait and it had a noticble effect. I threw another spinnerbait that was very similar, with no bioedge and didn't get hit once. I'm now going to use it on ALL of my lures, hard or soft, floating or sinking, topwaters to deepdivers or anything else that I didn't cover. I was using the shad flavor but I'm definitely going to order some crawfish scent now as well.
One thing I've been doing for awhile that is really important is taking a mental note of everything when I catch a fish and try to replicate it. But I have to keep it in reason, if I caught a fish in 8ft of water off the shady side of a log and my lure was going with the current or the wind, it doesn't mean every fish will be stationed the same thing. So I don't stop fishing the sunny sides When I'm trying to put a "pattern" together I usually am trying to look at more broad things first like depth, speed of retieve and type of cover. When I do notice things like the fish holding to the shady side of the log looking up current or wind, I just try to fish those spots more thoroughly, slow down a little, make a few extra casts. And maybe use a couple of different lures as well.
but they seem kinda cheap. I highy recomend the booyah spinnerbaits though, the ones with the thinner willow and colorado blades, I don't remember exactly what model, I think the ones I like are vibra flex or pond magic or something, I tried looking online but I can't tell without seeing them in person. All I know is they have really flexible wire and the blades are thinner than most spinnerbaits, kind of a finesse spinnerbait. I've caught probably 30 to 40 fish on the one booyah spinnerbait and its still running strong..only has some paint chipping off the head and some of the skirt strands have been ripped off, but that seems reasonable with 30-40 fish on one bait I've been working them really slow and deep, since the blades are narrower, they don't rise super fast and its easier to keep them down. I also think the thinner blades look more like the small shad at wilson. Most of the bass I've caught lately on the blades have been slow rolled, minus a few fiesty guys that smash them right at the boat when I'm realing up for the next cast.