Well, this one will be short and sweet. Had my first experience out at the Cal-Sag reservoir and to my surprise I didn't do too bad. For those of you who haven't been there before, its actually a pretty cool place. The water is a little sketch to say the least...but it was an interesting place to fish. Basically all of competitors could fish two areas, the river or Lake Calumet. The river is predominantly largemouth bass and Lake Calumet was mostly smallmouth. From the previous tournament there that I didn't compete in...the key seemed to be finding as many largemouth as possible. Unfortunately there were no limits to be had, and the field was lucky to walk away with what little fish that were caught. Below is a picture of the lock we had to go through in order to make it between the river and Lake Calumet...first time I have ever done that!
Over the course of the 8 hour tournament I only managed a few bites, but luckily I made all but one of them count. The first being a small 12" smallmouth I snagged on a crankbait earlier in the morning, and the last was a 2.1 lb largemouth caught on a frog in the last hour of the tournament. I tried dropshotting quite a bit and flipping a jig...but fish were few and far between. My first boater got into a huge drum which was fun to watch him battle. The fish weighed over 10 lbs!
Unfortunately for the third time in a row this year, my boater had boat problems. I am starting to think that I bring bad luck to my boaters...so if you see me at any ABA's in the future...pray you don't draw me. lol. So we ended up calling the tournament director and he allowed me to hop on another boat and we found Mike Pena, who I have fished with before, in one of the cuts on Lake Calumet. I hopped on with him and we fished together the remainder of the day.
I was one of few that weighed in 2 fish and my 3.02 lbs worth of fish was enough to get me 6th place. They only paid out to 5th place this time, so I was just out of the money this time. That didn't matter though, because I was more concerned about making up lost ground in my club and I ended up in 4th place out of all of our club members. After getting the overall tournament point totals a few days ago, I am currently in 7th place in our bass club. Luckily we can drop one bad tournament out of our point totals so if I take that into account I barely squeak by into 6th place. The top 6 anglers of the club qualify for the 6 man team for the state tournament next year. So if I can keep this good streak going I might have a chance to make the cut. I have alot of good anglers though to beat before that happens, but I am really happy that I have shown what I can do so far this year. Alot of the credit though goes to my boaters and having them help me along the way. If there's one thing that I can really stress about joining a bass club...you learn a ton in a really short amount of time from others. That alone has been worth the experience!
Until next time guys, I hope to continue sending you guys good news! For those that have followed my blog and are still thinking about joining a bass club next year...do it!
Tight Lines,
Fluke
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