I hear you bro, I couldn't feel my hands from about noon on. We found the fish but we had to share them with the BFL boys. There was three of us fishing the same pattern in the same 50 feet of bank. I think I had the best presentation because I caught a keeper on every pass. We had 14.24 and got sixth out of 22 boats. I had a 4 pounda on the LC but the bite was jigs on the bank. FUN FUN. A couple old codgers smoked the toads on wiggle warts 24lbs and some change hell of a sack. I didn't get out of bed until 10:00am. That may have been from the green beer though thats another story. Peace out Drew PS It will get better for you Jared hang in there.
UGH!
I have sat here for the past 30 minutes wondering if I should even post about yesterdays tournament because it was that bad for me.
Let me summarize the situation quickly. All week long we had temps on the mid 70s low 80s. Then friday comes and all day and night it rained, bitter and cold. Day of the tournament, the morning was 38 and the day warmed up to only 58. The wind was from the northwest and blasting in at 25 - 30 miles an hour with gusts that were quite higher than that even. The waters that were once 65+ degrees were now showing high 50s low 60s (atleast where we were) All week long reports had said that the bass had moved up and were on the bed in some areas.
My boater (not my partner because we arent a team we are competing against everyone in the club including each other) and I spent our entire day fishing in 2 1/2 feet of water where the bass WERE until the cold front. We saw several huge beds but not a fish in sight. The area we were in was called Hoot Eye Landing. Its about a 15 acre piece of, shallow grassy water. We shared it with a dozen boats easily. We even had a couple of idiots from out of state (Ohio) who came through it, within 15 feet of us with their big motors. They didnt pay us any mind. I cant stand disrespectful anglers. They definitely were not Bassholes.
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A View of Hoots Eye Landing before the wind really kicked into over drive. When conditions are right this place is HOT and catching big bass in this area is very common.
Anyway, we spent from about 7:30am till 2:30pm in this spot. I so wanted to leave it and go get in some deeper water. My feeling was that the fish definitely pulled back with the cold front and the bitter rain of the last 2 days. My boater, however, didnt want to go anywhere else because of the rough waters. I dont know about yall, but if I am in a spot that I feel is wrong for whatever reason, I will lose all confidence and even interest. I cant help it, maybe I am just too use to boating myself around. Anyway, thats what I did. I lost all confidence and coudlnt help but feel like i was wasting my time by sitting in that same area for hours on end. I could also tell that my boater didnt seem to use to having a guy in the back of his boat as many times I was left with no cast and even ducking cypress limbs as the front of boat was positioned for his cast.
Basically I just gave in to the fact that things werent going to get any better and I did some experimenting, tried my new rod with different baits and rigs to see how it handled them, tuned a few crankbaits and generally just had myself a nice ol' time. lol
When we got back to the landing, some of the guys in my club had some beautiful fish! Some anglers from other clubs also had some beautiful fish! I saw more 7 and 8lbrs than I could shake a stick at. The winner of our club had 3 fish that went 16 1/2lbs. Big fish for our club was almost 7 1/2 Guess what? They all came out of water 6, 7 even 8 - 10 feet deep. Most of teh anglers who caught big fish caught them on texas rigged worms in 6 foot plus deep water. A few of the big fish were caught on spinnerbaits in deep water too. Our clubs Big Fish was caught slow rolling a spinnerbait in an area called Deep Hole.
God I can NOT wait to get a big fibreglass boat so I can go where i want when I want.
This now makes two tournaments in a row that I have blanked. Oh well such is life. The worst part of all though is I never got to catch a fish on my new rod lol Thats ok though, i will DEFINITELY be doing that this week.
Tattered Thumbs n Bigguns, Jared
Let me summarize the situation quickly. All week long we had temps on the mid 70s low 80s. Then friday comes and all day and night it rained, bitter and cold. Day of the tournament, the morning was 38 and the day warmed up to only 58. The wind was from the northwest and blasting in at 25 - 30 miles an hour with gusts that were quite higher than that even. The waters that were once 65+ degrees were now showing high 50s low 60s (atleast where we were) All week long reports had said that the bass had moved up and were on the bed in some areas.
My boater (not my partner because we arent a team we are competing against everyone in the club including each other) and I spent our entire day fishing in 2 1/2 feet of water where the bass WERE until the cold front. We saw several huge beds but not a fish in sight. The area we were in was called Hoot Eye Landing. Its about a 15 acre piece of, shallow grassy water. We shared it with a dozen boats easily. We even had a couple of idiots from out of state (Ohio) who came through it, within 15 feet of us with their big motors. They didnt pay us any mind. I cant stand disrespectful anglers. They definitely were not Bassholes.
A View of Hoots Eye Landing before the wind really kicked into over drive. When conditions are right this place is HOT and catching big bass in this area is very common.
Anyway, we spent from about 7:30am till 2:30pm in this spot. I so wanted to leave it and go get in some deeper water. My feeling was that the fish definitely pulled back with the cold front and the bitter rain of the last 2 days. My boater, however, didnt want to go anywhere else because of the rough waters. I dont know about yall, but if I am in a spot that I feel is wrong for whatever reason, I will lose all confidence and even interest. I cant help it, maybe I am just too use to boating myself around. Anyway, thats what I did. I lost all confidence and coudlnt help but feel like i was wasting my time by sitting in that same area for hours on end. I could also tell that my boater didnt seem to use to having a guy in the back of his boat as many times I was left with no cast and even ducking cypress limbs as the front of boat was positioned for his cast.
Basically I just gave in to the fact that things werent going to get any better and I did some experimenting, tried my new rod with different baits and rigs to see how it handled them, tuned a few crankbaits and generally just had myself a nice ol' time. lol
When we got back to the landing, some of the guys in my club had some beautiful fish! Some anglers from other clubs also had some beautiful fish! I saw more 7 and 8lbrs than I could shake a stick at. The winner of our club had 3 fish that went 16 1/2lbs. Big fish for our club was almost 7 1/2 Guess what? They all came out of water 6, 7 even 8 - 10 feet deep. Most of teh anglers who caught big fish caught them on texas rigged worms in 6 foot plus deep water. A few of the big fish were caught on spinnerbaits in deep water too. Our clubs Big Fish was caught slow rolling a spinnerbait in an area called Deep Hole.
God I can NOT wait to get a big fibreglass boat so I can go where i want when I want.
This now makes two tournaments in a row that I have blanked. Oh well such is life. The worst part of all though is I never got to catch a fish on my new rod lol Thats ok though, i will DEFINITELY be doing that this week.
Tattered Thumbs n Bigguns, Jared
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I know one thing... Id have maybe done better if I wasnt so insistant on catchin a fish on my new rod LOL Because of that I fished a fluke on it for hours even when I knew the chances of getting bit were gonna be very slim lol On the bright side, the rod fishes it AWESOMELY!!
Oh I know that and I am definitely grateful that I was able to get on the water.bigdaddytowe said:
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