clarks hill 2 day tourney report

[Ca_Bass]

Finished up a two day tournament today.

It was a heart breaker!

Our day one total was 9lbs and some change which put us in 17 of I think 46 boats. We should have had 18.5lbs! I had a bass that was at least 7lbs break my line after a long fight that included three jumps, a few surges at the boat and 3 failed attempts with the net. I also lost a bass that was at least 4lbs a little bit before that. We had two fish that were about a pound...so we could have replaced 2lbs of fish with at least 11lbs we ended up in 17th place for day 1.

Day two went much better, we didn't lose any fish that would have affected our final weight of 15.53lbs. We had 3 really nice fish..a 5 and 4 and one that was close to 4. Then a 2lber and one that was maybe a pound. We had our 3 biggest fish in the first hour, which was REALLY NICE and allowed for use to fish slower and without as much "stress".

I wasn't able to practice fish for this tourney so I was just kinda guessing where the better fish would be, I got lucky and guessed right. Both the days the good bite had stopped at almost 9 on the dot. There are still some shad and herring spawing but not in huge numbers but the spawning bait was key. Typically by about 9am the bait fish move back to deeper water. At 930 each day we then focused on fishing the same areas but just backed off the bank a little bit. Also on both days by about 12 there seemed to be no fish left to be caught on our initial spot.

Day one we ran up the lake and re-applied our pattern from early. It payed off; we were able to cull a 1lb fish with one that was 2 or 2 1/4.

Day two we went straight to the spot where we lost the big fish and caught two quality fish on day one. Also helped knowing that we likely had the right presentation going into the day. Which was...a KVD 2.5 crank bait (didn't figure out that would be the way to go until about 830 on day one).

We were able to climb from 17th to 6th in the finals standing. 5th place was the last spot to pay out, which surprised me being there were 46 boats. Figured at least 8 spots would have cut a check. But they guaranteed 5k to first...which was won by.....no other than....a Bassmasters Elite series pro. He also won big fish and the raffle for the freaking TV and the direct TV tailegaiter dish. I guess it was just his weekend! Had we not lost those big fish day one we would have been sitting pretty in 2nd or 3rd. But life is full of shoulda woulda couldas and it just didn't happen for us this week. Oh well, we fished well just didn't capitalize on every opportunity. NEXT TIME! [/img]

[Basshead]

It appears to me that you made some key adjustments. Understanding bass behavior and the lakes layout dictated your applications, instead of "GUESSING". Making the right decisions will always score big. But it is heartbreaking to lose two quality fish that would have made a big difference in the outcome of the final standings. I can see a lot of positives in this tournament compared to the last one. It's something I know you will build on. And as for the Elite Pro, he probably was expected to win. But that is a huge boulder on his shoulder, being expected to win. Anyways, bottom line is you got on some good fish, made the proper choices, managed your areas well, stayed focused and its just a matter of time before you will bring in big bags of fish to the scales and walk away with a win. Good luck in your next tournament.

Three things to be successful on the water:
1) Preperations.
2) Applications.
3) Execution.

[Ca_Bass]

Even though i was disappointed in losing those two fish, I was pretty happy with my overall game plan and decisions making.

I do think the Elite Pro have a lot of pressure to do well also. This and lake Murray are his home lakes and he usually fishes them well. He was also paired up with one of the top local anglers on the lake.

Not sure why it was so clear to me this tournament, but I knew exactly when it was time to make a change in spots, or move on to another approach. I guess it's just coming a long with with experience on the water.

The hardest thing for me has been sticking to my game plan. This past tournament I did and it helped. These tournaments aren't won by catching the most fish, that's for sure. It all about getting the quality bites. I think a year ago in the same situation I may have picked up my dropshot rod after not getting bit for 30 minutes or an hour with a crankbait. But the dropshot can sometimes give me "false confidence" I know I can always get bit on a dropshot and usually fill my limit, but most of the tournaments, especially in the south just can't be won dropshotting alone. With that being said, late in the day, when the bite has shut down, the dropshot allows me to catch one or two fish that I probably wouldn't catch if I was throwing a fluke, jigs or a cranks the whole day. One of the parts in my game plan was to not pick up my dropshot rod until there was 2 hours left and I needed to, 1 finish off my limit or 2 upgrade smaller fish late in the day. In these tournaments that have no points involved it doesn't make sense to fish for a limit if you don't have any quality fish to begin with. I think it took a couple of tournaments to realize that. GO BIG OR GO HOME

I would like to be to be really good at just about every technique. My strengths have always been worm fishing, flipping, topwater and jerkbaits. The last year in Hawaii I gained a lot of experience with a jig. When I got to Texas(which fished really well to my strengths) I became really confident on my shallow crank bait fishing. Which I will continue to do this year. This summer I'm going to focus on offshore fishing and medium and deep diving cranks. But I will also fish to my strengths when the need arises.

The past few months I've really payed extra attention to reading contour maps. And I'm really starting to get the hang of it. Even found ways to manipulate my contours on my graph to show humps and other features other anglers may be missing/overlooking.

Another decision I've struggled with on this lake (due to its size) is making long runs to areas that usually have better fish and less pressure and sacrifice fishing time or fishing closer to the weigh site and fish areas I'm more familiar with and also have more fishing time. I wish I could pre fish for a week before every tournament because that choice would be much easier