March 10, 2009: It was a day of records and week of extremes. Well, at least in my boat.
March 7 was the second event of the 2009 BFL South Carolina Division and I was back at Santee Cooper, a set of lakes about midway between Charleston and Columbia. Shallow reservoirs filled with stumps, cypress trees and alligators, these two giant lakes are known for rough water that not only will break a boat in a heartbeat, but crush the dreams of any angler in the same amount of time.
My southern bass fishing learning curve has been long -- it's entering its fifth year -- but no where else has it stretched as far as at Santee Cooper. In the previous three events, out of a possible 30 bass that could have been weighed from my boat, only one bass has been brought to the scales. That's 3 percent. That's pretty bad. But it gets worse. That one fish was just 12 inches, barely making the legal length. It wasn't one of the 8-, 9- or 10-pounders the lake is known for producing.
So this time, when I swung my only tournament fish in the boat at about 11 a.m., I exclaimed that I was setting a record for my boat . My partner looked at me kind of funny, then I filled him in on my history of empty livewells. I didn't tell him about my past the night before at registration. There was no need crushing his dreams before we got on the water. In the end, he got one bass, too.
But this past week's real story was the weather. Sunday night, the southern piedmont of North Carolina was slammed with a snowstorm. In Gastonia, we got about 6 inches of snow. It brought life to a halt for about a day or two. Thankfully it melted quickly. Just six days later the temperature was in the 70s.
March 2, 2009:Snow one day, sun block the next.
So goes life in North Carolina. Sunday evening saw the biggest snow storm that I have witnessed since moving to the Tar Heel state. It looked like a lake-effect storm. We woke up to find about 6 inches of snow on the ground. But it wasn't meant to last. By my second cup of coffee this morning, it was melting and runoff was flowing. Tonight the temperature is forecasted to drop to 15 degrees, so we're expecting a skating rink in the morning.
The snow did mess up my plans to prepare for this week's Santee Cooper event. I planned to tow to Lake Wylie today and practice with some baits I want to use during the tournament. Then I wanted to spend some time cleaning the boat. But the snow pushed shoveling and work responsibilities up the to-do list. So now I will try and clean Wednesday and tomorrow I will pack and ready gear.
But the forecast isn't all bad news. It's supposed to be in the high 60s by tournament time. Let's just hope the wind decides to lay low.
Dec. 1, 2006:It's not down to the last minute yet, but gift-giving time is fast approaching. If you are wondering what to get that angler on your shopping list, here are five ideas for you to ponder:
1. GPS: Don't let those "top-secret spots" disappear
in the recesses of memory. Get the angler on your list a global
positioning system, or GPS. By simply adding a waypoint, this
device will let you return to close proximity of a spot again
and again and again ... you get the idea. They come in a hand-held
versions or ones that can be mounted right to the boat. Some of
the devices also offer road maps so they can be used in a vehicle
and interchangeable map chips which integrate navigation with
a topographic map.
2. Foul weather gear: Nothing is worse than being stuck in the middle of the lake, cold or wet. So keep the angler on your list happy and fishing with a new foul weather gear, including waterproof pants and jacket. Breathable material, like Gortex, can be worn comfortably year round.
3. Fishing trip log book: Becoming a better angler is all about understanding how conditions cause fish to react and then adapting your techniques to meet up with them. A trip book will allow an angler to record variables, such as wind, temperature, water conditions, and how they caught fish that day. By going back through entries and matching past situations with current ones, an angler can have a head start on an upcoming trip. These books are available in paper or computer program versions.
4. Guide trip: Know a bass angler who would like to try some salt water fishing? How about a crappie angler who wants to step up and go after some stripers? Guide trips offer a chance to try something new or get more experience, or another point of view, on how to chase the fish you love to fish for. Tackle shops and marinas can usually point the way to a quality guide, or do a simple search on the Internet.
5. Gift certificate: Not sure the difference between a plum and electric grape colored plastic worm? What about a medium diver crankbait versus a deep diver? What's a jig? If you find yourself asking yourself these questions, then it,s time to fall back on old reliable -- gift cards. Pick one up to your angler,s favorite tackle shop and give them a chance to pick out exactly what they want. They can also squirrel it away for "emergency" runs to the tackle shop when they run out of hot baits this coming season.
On tour
> Ben Matsubu of Hemphill, Texas, won the Bassmaster Elite Series Wildcard Qualifier in mid-November at Florida's Harris Chain of Lakes. The tournament was the last chance for anglers to qualify for the 2007 Bassmaster Elite Series, with the top 10 getting an invitation. Rounding out the qualifiers for the Elite series were: Jim Murray, Arabi, Ga.; Bryan Hudgins, Orange Park, Fla.; Marty Robinson, Landrum, S.C.; Matt Amedeo, Akron, Ohio; Mark Rogers, Naples, Fla.; Jimmy Mason, Rogersville, Ala; Ken Brodeur, Niantic, Conn.; James Kennedy, Lacombe, La.; and Brian Wilhoit, Oxon Hill, Md.
> At the Stren Series Championship on Alabama's Lake Wheeler Nov. 1-4, Arkansas angler Ricky D. Scott won, earning $75,000 and a new boat.
>At the FLW Series event Nov. 15-18 on Lewis Smith Lake in Alabama, Sam Hoernke of Texas won $100,000 after four days of competition with a total of 37 pounds, 7 ounces.
Oct. 26,2006: When the biggest bass tournament in the world rolled into town in the summer of 2004, little did most anglers know that a trend was just beginning.
The Bass Federation and FLW Outdoors recently announced they will host the 2007 TBF National Championship presented by the National Guard April 19-21. This will be the third major event in four years on the Catawba River impoundment, including the Bassmaster Classic in 2004 and the Bassmaster American this past summer.
Thirty-seven pros and 37 co-anglers have qualified through a series of club, state and divisional tournaments to compete in the championship, according to FLW Outdoors, which will also provide anglers boats during the tournament. The highest finishing boater and co-angler from each of the six TBF divisions after two days of competition will advance to day three. The pro with the heaviest cumulative weight from all three days of competition will be crowned TBF National Champion. The top six pros and co-anglers will also advance to the 2007 All-American, and the co-angler with the heaviest cumulative weight will advance to the 2007 Forrest Wood Cup.
Anglers will take off from Copperhead Island boat launch located at 15200 Soldier Road in Charlotte each morning and weigh in at the Charlotte Merchandise Mart each evening. In conjunction with the tournament, TBF and FLW Outdoors will host a three-day sports show and Family Fun Zone at the Charlotte Merchandise Mart.
Oct. 19, 2006: If you've been on area lakes over the past week or so, you probably noticed something -- water temperatures are dropping.
Fall is here and its associated cold temperatures have begun to affect fishing. A lot of the fish have already begun setting up home in typical fall locations.
Bass can be seen schooling in creeks and pockets and can also be caught on steep banks leading in and out creeks as they migrate from their deeper summer haunts. Areas around power plant discharges -- commonly called hot holes -- are also starting to hold more fish.
So don't let a little cool weather keep your rods and boat in the garage. Hit the lakes and enjoy some fun, fall fishing.
On the trail
Dion Hibdon made it a hometown affair when he won the FLW Series event on Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri and cashed $100,000 last week.
Hibdon, who grew up fishing the lake under the guidance of his legendary tournament angler father, Guido, brought 20 bass that weighed a combined 71 pounds, 8 ounces during the four-day event. He caught the majority of those fish deep with heavy jigs.
Lake Wylie, S.C., pro Todd Auten finished 11
BASS Elite pro Ish Monroe put $100,000 bookends on his 2006 season last week with a win in the BASS Busch Shootout on Grapevine Lake in Grapevine, Texas. The California angler also won the first BASS Elite Series event on Lake Amistand in March.
Monroe boated 7 pounds, 6 ounces in the final session to win the tournament that pitted the 13 anglers who caught the biggest limits in events throughout the 2006 season.th, one spot out of the cut for the final day, finishing with 15 bass weighing 41 pounds, 1 ounce and taking home $12,500. Gastonia pro Chris Baumgardner finished 29th with 15 bass weighing 34 pounds, 13 ounces and taking home $11,000.
Sept. 14, 2006: Poll bass anglers and chances are good that most would list power-fishing techniques as their favorite ways to fish. Whether it be topwater or spinnerbaits or dredging the bottom with big crankbaits, it's exciting to catch big fish on big baits.
But sometimes, no matter what you throw, or where you throw it, you can,t buy a bite on big tackle. Such was the situation earlier this week on Mountain Island Lake. This small lake, squeezed between lakes Norman and Wylie, has big fish swimming in it and is perfect for throwing jigs, spinnerbaits and topwater.
But the front that blew through the night before cooled the big bait bite. After more than an hour with no fish from proven late-summer spots, it was time to get desperate. That,s when I rigged up a 4-inch plastic worm. Three bass in the next hour proved that I made the right decision.
When conditions get tough, nothing can give your "luck" a boost like switching to smaller, finesse type baits. While you still have to determine the best areas for the time of year, a smaller profile lure offers something even a stubborn fish can,t refuse -- a small, easy meal.
Conditions will dictate when to make the switch to smaller baits. The tougher they are, the sooner you should make the change. Post-frontal conditions like the example before are classic times, but so are days when there is a lot of fishing pressure or when the water is cold.
The most used finesse bait is probably the 4-inch worm, rigged in a variety of ways including Texas style, drop shot or jig head. But don,t limit your choices. Tiny spinnerbaits and crankbaits can also meet the situation.
The final change you will want to make with finesse baits is to fish slower. The smaller baits will react better to a softer approach, plus it will give the fish more time to bite.
Sept. 14, 2006: The all-day downpour was welcomed, no doubt. Lawns drank it up, ground water tables grew and bodies of water were replenished. But if you were planning on fishing in the few days after, thoughts of chocolate milk were pouring through your mind.
All that runoff carried sediment into area lakes and turned clear or stained water to a brownish-red color and reduced visibility to not much shy of zero. Without a doubt, muddy water can change the bass, attitude and how willing they are to bite. But don't throw in the towel. There are always ways to catch fish. Here are five tips to deal with muddy water:
n Go big: Larger lures with brighter colors will help you, and the fish, overcome reduced visibility. Fish won,t be able to rely on their eyes as much to feed, so they will use their lateral line more to pick up on vibrations in the water. A larger bait will put off more of those needed vibrations by displacing more water as you retrieve it back to the boat.
n Shake, rattle, roll: Using a jig? Add a rattle. Same goes for crankbaits and worms. The extra noise will help fish hone in on your bait. And make that rattle work for you by leaving your bait in one place longer, shaking it all the while.
n This isn't horseshoes nor handgrenades: The more off-colored the water is, the closer the fish will relate to cover and structure, thus the closer you have to put your bait. Six inches from a laydown isn't close enough in muddy water. Make sure your bait is brushing the cover as it falls in the water and all the way back to the boat.
n Slow and slower: Reduce your retrieve speed and you,ll give the fish more time to find the bait.
n Turn tail and run: If all else fails, fire up the outboard and search for clearer water. Sometimes the change from the muddy water is so great it will shut off the bite. You can usually always find clearer water at lower end of the lakes by the dam. If it's a few days after the storm, clear water may start showing up at the back of the creeks, pushing the muddy water down lake.
Sept. 7, 2006: Want to make yourself dizzy? Start looking at the hook selection at your local tackle shop. Roundbend, off-set shank, widegap, circle, octopus, light-wire, flipping -- and endless combinations of the aforementioned -- fill the pegs. Do they all have a place? You bet, and here are five tips you can use when deciding which hook to use:
n Match the size of the hook to the soft-plastic bait you are using. Long, slender baits like worms demand a long-shanked hook to move the point back into the bait. Bulkier baits like tubes and creatures need a wider gap so there is room for the bait to move clear of the point when you set the hook.
n The wire diameter wire of the hook can have several effects. A thicker wire will stand up to short-line presentations like flipping where the hook set could cause a light-wire hook to bend. You can also switch to a heavier wire hook when using a floating worm if you need a little extra weigh to work it deeper.
n Like lures, hooks come in different colors including bronze, matte finish, red and even chartreuse. Do the different colors help? Some anglers swear by red hooks, for others, the jury is still out.
n Circle hooks are an interesting development for wacky rigging -- running the hook point through the center of a soft stick bait. The hooks do not require a traditional hook set, just some gentle pressure after you feel the strike. Most times, the hook will catch in the corner of the fish,s mouth, thus avoiding a gut hook, which can be a problem with this style of fishing.
n It's true you pay for what you get. The more expensive hooks are typically made from higher grade metals that resist breaking and distortion. Points on these hooks are also precision sharpened for a point that is not only "sticky" sharp to the touch, but also more durable.
Sept. 1, 2006: Take a little green, throw in a flash of gold and a strand or two of orange and viola! There sits a jig perfect for flipping around a lake where bass forage on yellow perch.
Most of the time, the process of pulling a new lure from the package, tying it on and firing it into your favorite spot is all you need to catch fish. Tackle manufacturers spend a lot of time and effort making sure their baits will produce right out of the package. But other times, tweaking them just a small amount -- in terms of color and flash -- will help you catch more fish.
Changing a bait,s appearance works for many reasons. The first and foremost reason is trying to get a better match of the prevalent forage in the lake you fish. Another reason can be to offer fish under a lot of angling pressure something new.
Take a recent event my brother fished on Lake Champlain in New England. The bass that swim there routinely eat yellow perch and one of the best lures to throw around the aquatic grass is a jig. By simply taking a few minutes to pull some different colored strands of skirt material, in proportions that matched the colors of a yellow perch, I assembled a few jigs that resembled the prevalent forage and that could not be found at your local tackle shop.
While these jigs were intended for one particular lake, the same process of matching the local forage can be done for any lake or river. The Internet or local wildlife agencies can provide you with information on what bass eat in your lake. Or you can take things into your own hands " literally. Next time you are fishing your favorite spot, downsize your lure " or bring along some live bait " and try to catch some of the forage for a close-up look.
Most baits can have their looks changed. Here's some suggestions:
n Spinnerbaits and jigs can take on a whole new look with a new skirt. Many tackle outlets sell strands of skirt material in just about every color under the sun. By mixing and matching colors -- and maybe adding some flash with Mylar -- you can match everything from chubs to shad. Stick with a darker color -- such as green, brown or black-- for your base color and add a few strands of contrasting lighter colors to get the desired effect. A few strands of lighter color will go a long way.
n Crankbaits and topwaters can be changed with a few swipes of a permanent marker. Add a black, red, green, yellow and brown marker to your tackle box and changes can be made on the water. Small additions like a yellow stripe down the side of a shad colored bait or a few red marks near the nose can make the difference.
n Soft plastics are the easiest to manipulate. You can cut off legs or tails with scissors " or add them with a little heat from a lighter. Dyes are commercially available to change colors. Another trick is to take some Mylar flash or strands of skirt material and thread them through a lizard or craw with a needle to add extra attention. The strands will move even if you are trying to keep the bait still.
Small additions like these can make big differences. Give them a try next time you are looking to get an edge.
August 24, 2006: You can feel it in the air -- fall is on the way. If you're a bass angler, that is a great thing.
Crisp autumn days will pull fish from summer haunts and put them on the feed as water temperatures cool. Traveling in packs, bass cruise shallow flats and points looking for baitfish. Topwater and spinnerbaits shine this time of year, but so do small crankbaits.
Many bass are on the move, following baitfish as they search for better conditions in the back of creeks and cuts. The bass will wait in cover and around structure to ambush the baitfish. Your job as an angler is to figure out where in this migration they are and what cover they are using the day you are on the lake.
Crankbaits that dive 5 to 7 feet are perfect for rooting around stumps, laydowns, piers and shallow ledges. Make sure you bang and bounce your crankbait all the way back to the boat. This erratic action will increase your chances for a strike.
Slow-action rods and light lines -- 8- or 10-pound test -- will give your crankbait the most action and keep lightly hooked fish on the line.
August 20, 2006: I returned from vacation about a week ago. It was nice to escape the heat, but I'm glad to be back and ready for fall fishing. God to see a "Yankee" -- Dave Wolak --win on Wylie at the All American. A big congrats goes out to the Acord brothers, who along with their father own Susquehanna Fishing Tackle in Lancaster, Pa. Mike had a top-5 finish on the co-angler side of the Elite series event on the Potomac River and the following week George had a top-5 finish on the boater side of the Stren event on the Potomac River.
July 26, 2006: About 50 pros are in town for the All-American Major event on Lake Wylie. The $250,000 to win, no entry fee event will take place Thursday through Sunday. I drove to two of the launches this morning to see if any of the pros trucks were there and I saw about a dozen of them, including Mike Wurm's vehicle that is seen below. I may try to make it to one of the launches this week, unfortunately previous plans and work will keep me from the weigh-ins.
July 23, 2006: Did you catch the BASS Elite Series events on Lake Champain and Oneida Lake in New York? Having grown up fishing those two "ponds," it was a little unreal seeing Kevin VanDam and Rick Clunn and all those guys fishing areas that I have fished in the past. I think if you proposed a major BASS event on Oneida five years ago, I would have told you that you were crazy. I guess I am the one who is crazy. In the end, it looks like all involved had a good time and a bunch of good fish were caught. This past week, it was announced that in 2007 BASS will hold a Major on Oneida. That is a huge step for the region. I think the last major BASS event in New York was a team event on Thousand Islands in the mid-1980s and of course the Classic in 1980.