Tourney Tomorrow

[Craigums]

I've got a club tournament tomorrow on a metro lake. I've never been there and between previous summer plans never got a chance to pre fish. There is no money involved but I can't flop if I want to qualify for state. Which might be interesting because everyone else in the club has been to this lake multiple times. My question is Do you guys ALWAYS prefish your tourney or do you sometimes just 'go fishing'? Ive got a DNR map printed and the plan tomorrow is to hop from point to point tossing a grub, find some docks near deepwater to skip a senki, and work some vegetation near an inlet with a jig, anything else with just be on the fly. One good thing is I won't have any pre conceived notions of were the fish should be

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Im quite green when it comes to tournament fishing and as a result I havn't fished many of the lakes our tournaments are on. I do like to get out at least once on new waters. I find that even a few hours of fishing and scouting can make a big difference. The one tournament we fished blind this year we bombed pretty good and unfortunately it looks like Ill be fishing our TOC without my partner and having never seen the lake.

Just do as much "prefishing" as you can online. Try to find lure or colors that work, structure, or at the very least what the average winning bag is so you know when you run into fish if those fish can help you win or you need to move on.

[TonkaBass]

Sometimes it works to just go fishing. Sometimes it doesnt. Just remember that no matter how the day is going it can change in a big hurry! Good luck!

[FutbolGuru]

How'd you do Craigums?

[Craigums]

Well, got to Coon Lake at 6am turns out I had a non-boater which doesn't bother me but I usually find myself trying to get them good casting angles rather than myself. After not fishing for 2 weeks I was surprised to see water temps at 72-73*F (last time I was out it was in the 80's. To top it off it never really warmed up yesterday while we were on the water. With that in mind I though it would be a good choice to downsize and go finesse. A few hours in a hadn't even had a bite so I was starting to think I might zero. We came across some docks and got a few short fish using senkos. So that pretty much was our plan. I only ended up with 2 fish for 3lbs. My non-boater ended with 4 for 7.5lbs (anchored by a 3.75lber). Winning weight was only 11 so My nonboater took 3rd, I took 7th (out of 12). It was a really tough day for me, I coulnd't get anything going and started losing focus. Still not sure what we could have done differantly we tried everything

[bassfshin24]

oh boy...i have a tourney coming up on Coon next week. It's tough to keep your head into it when the bite is tough. It's hard not to get frustrated. That is one of the main reasons why I stay away from fishing a bunch of tournaments. Sometimes it just takes the fun out of fishing.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Dont sweat it, from the results of our tournament and seeing the results of some others, including yours, it seems Coon has been tough all year (maybe it always is Ive never fished it before). A fair amount of guys are struggling to get a limit. Prefishing may not have helped a ton. My partner and I prefished twice and couldnt get much of anything going, a few decent fish scattered but no pattern, and it took away a lot of our confidence going into the event.

[EBass]

Oh sure now all this talk about Coon. I went there yesterday as well just to try it as I've never been there. I got the big ol skunk while my buddy caught 2 bass and 2 pike. No idea a tourney was going on until the guy at the dock told me. Also heard they sprayed it for milfoil thus veg is floating everywhere. Tried fishing the outside weededge only to pull up dead alge. I won't be back anytime soon.

[FutbolGuru]

If I knew it was on Coon I wouldn't have asked lol, my bad. Turnupthefishing and I had our worst tourney day (worst day of fishing for that matter) this yr on Coon as well. The majority of boats in our group of 15 struggled to boat 5...

[Craigums]

I feel better now that I know im not the only one that has struggled out there:)

[mww24]

I've never done very well on coon just fun fishing it. I know it can take close to 20 to win sometimes. tough lake to find them in my opinion.

[IcePro]

There has been a lot of fishing pressure on this lake this year. Every week their has been some form of Bass Tournament on the lake. The main areas that I have seen people fishing are dock's and slop along with the channel. There has been hundreds of cast to my dock that I have seen.

This year the weeds are totally different than from the past. Where did the milfoil go? The last few years there where several huge patches of milfoil next to deep water and they are gone. There also is allot more curly leaf pond weed this year than the past.

This weekend I noticed another weed starting to take over the lake but not sure what it is called. There are long straggly runners coming to the surface with a whit bud. Anyone know what weed it is?

There is no question there are some big bass in the lake, you just need to find them. On Sunday there was a dead bass that was floating with the tail chewed of by the turtles and I know this fish would have been six pounds plus.

So in theory if there have been a lot of tournaments and they are all being held out of the Anoka County Beach shouldn't there be a lot of fish in that area? This leads to another frustrating part of the lake. The shore line by the beach is shallow than drops to 15' - 20' with no structure or and a poor weed line.

Anyone else have more input?

[mww24]

Maybe the fish are suspended and roaming over deep water due to weed changes. Is the curly leafed pond weed dead or dying. That will ddrive fish out of it in search of more oxygen rich water. Are the fish getting smarter to lures because of high pressure. Are they holed up deep in the reeds by the anoka county access making it hard for people to catch them. I've always stunk it up on that lake but those are a few thoughts based on your observations icepro.

[Gekhang]

coon is like a hit or miss type lake. fished a tournament there about two weeks ago and i skunked with only 5.4lbs while the top 4 pulled in 18-19lb bags!

[MN BassFisher]

Yeah, I've fished that lake quite a bit competitively. I've caught some nice fish out there but never really put it all together in one given day. It seems to be that each time I fish there a different method pulls top bag ex. spinners in shallow, plastics under docks, drop shotting, lipless off breaks, and slop fishing. It's tough on the confidence when ya can't find em on that lake.

[OLY]

That's wierd, my club always does really good out there. My partner and I had 5 for just under 18 to win last year, I wonder what the deal is?