Reel Team Bass

6/02/12

Lake Ida

40-Boat Field

8-fish limit

We are boat number 16

 

 

The first day of pre-fishing found the water temperatures in the high 50’s from all the cold weather we had this past week. Both Mike and I started this day by running the shallow spawning bays checking for bedding green fish. It became apparent that the largemouth spawn was done for the most part and that the smallmouth spawn was almost done. We did locate a few smallies still on beds, on various mid-lake rock bars. But because we had drawn boat number 16 out, there was very little chance   of us being able to get the first crack at some of the larger smallies still on beds, so we did not plan on fishing those fish.

 

We spent the remainder of the day checking pencil reed beds and did locate good numbers of fish. But nothing over that 16-inch mark. I did weigh a couple of the chunky16-inch fish and got weights of 2.4-pounds to 2.10-pounds. Pitching a ½-ounce Blue/Black, Bitsy Bug with a Rage Craw trailer produced the most fish.

 

Day two pre-fishing saw the water temperatures start to climb back into the low 60’s. I decided to check out deep-water weedlines and Mike decided to go shallow again.

 

The deep weeds only produced small bass and northerns. Mike did much better tossing frogs and black senko’s in ultra-shallow water. At day’s end Mike had 5-fish over 17-inches and one that was over the 18-inch mark. It was pretty much a no-brainer to fish that pattern the day of the tournament.

 

Tournament Day

 

We got to our starting spot and had no company for a couple of hours. To reach our starting spot we had to pass by a couple of the rock bars, which had been holding bedding smallies. It looked like all 15-boats that launched before us were starting on those to small bars. It was pretty crowded.

Now it gets ugly. We had been on the starting spot for 5 or 6-minutes when Mike stuck a big bass: two jumps later it came off. So it seemed that the big fish where still in the area… wrong again. After two plus hours of hard fishing we had an 8-fish limit made up of all 14-inch fish.

 

The senko bite stayed strong, but the frog bite that had produced quality fish for Mike during pre-fishing had gone south. 

 

The remainder of the tournament day was spent fishing pencil reeds and checking back on our starting spot to see if the frog bite would start up as the sun got higher and the water warmed up some.

 

We managed to cull all the 14-inch fish and replaced them with 15.5-inch fish, which is still a small bag. All those fish came on a blue/black Bitsy Bug and Rage Craw trailer.

 

So the first tournament is on the books, we finished 30th with 15.22-pounds. The Le Homme Dieu chain is next, which Mike and I won last year. Let’s hope for a repeat.