Lanier hang over
Monday, April 4, 2011 at 11:48AM Not sure where to start. I sit here reading the Bassfan PAA tournament wrap up and I am beside myself. At one point I ran what would turn out to be the winning pattern, but like so many things in fishing-I over looked it. Figured the fish would be setting up to spawn and that pattern wouldn't hold up. Thought I would have to catch them "staging" to spawn and not out over open water. But due to the weather the fish stayed back and the boys who opted to fish that pattern would prevail in the long run....... Below are all the details of the week for both myself and good friend Troy Morrow. Troy stayed with me all week so we opted to try and work together(share info) for our benefit.
I headed for Lake Lanier for the first PAA event of the year with high hopes. As many of you know I moved to Lanier last year to learn the lake in preparation of the FLW Forrest Wood Cup. After spending the better part of a year living on and fishing Lake Lanier I truly believed this first PAA event aligned very well for me. Wow-I could not have been more wrong. Lanier is a lake loaded with magnum spots and has the potential to kick out some dandy largemouth, they are just few and far between. My thoughts as I headed for GA over a week ago were to spend my practice period pursuing spots and getting a good pattern developed. I knew that some bed fish would be up but my fishing experience on Lanier told me I needed to stay committed to spots to have a chance to win this tourney. I felt like the bed fish would not last and I was not confident enough to chase the few big largemouth bites.
As it turns out I arrived to Lanier on the front end of a huge cold front. The weather had been in the mid 70's if not almost 80 for a week leading up to official practice and the water had warmed to the mid 60's. That had me rethinking the bed fish..... Although in my mind I was still committed to chasing spots on Monday when practice started. The entire weekend before practice started it rained and was cold and that continued into the start of practice on Monday. When I got on the water at day break Monday the water temps had fallen into the low 50's and that was where it all started.
Pulling up onto what I thought would be my best "stuff" first thing Monday morning I picked up a jerkbait and caught a 3 plus pound spot on my 4th cast. It was encouraging to see, this fish came off a point leading into a spawning flat. I had a prenotion I would be able to catch them throwing a Megabass vision 110 jerkbait and was happy to see this fish jump on it early on my first area. Figured it was a clue into what the future would be-fish secondary points leading into spawning "areas" with a jerkbait and get a reaction strike. Things seemed like they were going just the way I wanted and had expected......and that was the start of things taking a turn for the worst.
The next thing I did was pick up my crank'n rod with a Spro Lil John MD on it and proceed down the ditch adjacent to the point to see if any fish were using it. I didn't make it 50 yards down the ditch and I was hooked up with a nice 2lber. So now I knew that not only were the fish on the secondary points they were using the shallow (12-14ft) ditches close to the spawning flats to feed. I caught one more crank'n and then was able to catch one more keeper in the area on a wake bait when the fish came up schooling. Needless to say I was confident that my #1 area coming to Lanier had some fish using it and would be a good place to fish come tournament time. I fished for another 9 hours that first day or practice and did not catch another keeper on any of the other stuff I fished. I ran as many areas I could think of that were anything like the area I had found them in-but to no avail. Left me puzzled at the end of the first day.....
The morning of the 2nd day of practice brought similar conditions....rainy, cold, and major overcast skies. My roommate for the week Troy Morrow and I decided that we would split up the lake on the 2nd day of practice and try to work together to develop a good "program". We needed to get these fish dialed in. After a short time in the morning I had a few keepers in the boat but nothing great. Troy called and notified me had caught a 3.5lber throwing a jerkbait over deep brush. Figured this may be the way to get quality bites and just may be the winning pattern(turned out to be). So I opted to bail on what I was doing and run some deep brush(20-30 foot).
The very first pile I threw a LC XD jerkbait in chart shad over produced a nice 2.5 lb keeper. Immediately called Troy and notified him that I had stuck a nice keeper on the jerkbait over brush pattern and was going to run another 6-10 piles and see if I couldn't duplicate it.....3 hours later, I had not had another bite. Starting thinking this fish was just a loner fluke out chasing some bait and I just happened to throw the jerkbait past his nose. After speaking with Troy and him notifying me that he ran another 10 or so piles to no avail as well I was convinced I needed to abandon the pattern-which would turn out to be the winning pattern. With only a little over a day left of practice I thought I better get back to trying to find more points and ditches the fish were using. I spent the rest of that day and all of the next day(final day of practice) trying to find more; again to no avail. The weather conditions had continued to deteriorate and the fishing was going down hill just as fast. I could not believe how affected the spotted bass were to a massive cold front.
The night before the start of the tourney Troy and I sat and discussed our "game plan". Since I really only had one area I was confident in I was opting to start there and see what it could produce. From there I was gonna just go fishing and run tons of points with the jerkbait and try to pick a few off. Troy had a similar practice so was also opting to just go fishing and let something develop through out the day on the water.
As the day wrapped I was sitting at weigh-in with one small keeper(out of my starting area) and Troy managed 4 keepers. But they didn't come easy. At 1 o'clock he had 1 keeper and made a long run up to a marina and was able to pick up 3 more keepers out of a marina he had found a few in during practice. Those fish were sitting on a small shelf and fell victim to a Zoom worm on a shaky head. Troy's 4 were enough for 8+lbs and had him sitting in 28th. I was sitting 60th and was beside myself. I was not alone with the struggles though. Many of the anglers were struggling and some said they just got lucky and pulled into an area where they caught 2 or 3 real quick and that was all they had. Knowing the bite was tough, I thought I could change some things up for day 2 and make a big move on the leader board. That night Troy and discussed what we needed to do different to catch some fish and make a move on the leader board. I explained to Troy I was going to make a huge change and go catch a big bag of largemouth, because I was not confident in any of my spotted bass stuff. That meant I would be making a 45 mile run up the Chattahoochee River into the muddy water to catch a few of the giant largemouth that lived up there. Originally, I didn't think this was a good idea because I didn't wanna spend all that time driving when I could be fishing for spots on the south end with-in 5 miles of take off. Knowing I needed close to 20 lbs on day two I figured my only chance was with some big largemouth, so why not roll the dice with nothing to lose.
The 2nd morning of the tournament brought similar conditions. It was a chilly 38 degrees at 7 a.m. as we prepared for blast off. This is where it gets good. I had a creek on the south end I was planning on fishing for largemouth and had discussed with Troy about it. He had explained he figured I could get a big bite or two if I went for it. Moments before take off Troy looks at me at the dock and asks if I am going to start in this particular creek arm. I stated to him I would not be starting there, rather was going to start up the river, and then finish my day off in there. I notified him that he was more then welcome to go in there and see what he could scratch out. Heck he had a better chance of making the cut then me anyways, so I encouraged him to do it. The river is a much smaller area to fish then the lake, and when I arrived up there, I was not alone. I counted as many as 3 or 4 other boats in the same few pockets I was looking to fish. These guys also knew where to catch some big largies. After 2 hours without a bite in what seemed a crowded river bite I headed back down lake. The wind had started to blow and figured that may get the spots up on the points to feed. After about 15 wind blown points and lots of gas through the Ranger Z520 I opted to abandon that and run to the bank to fish some "blow downs" with my Spro Lil John MD. Only made it 30 yards down the first bank and I caught a keeper. It was just shy of 2 lbs and would turn out to be my only keeper of day 2. I threw that crank bait at every piece of wood I could find and just never got another bite.
Troy had a much different day. When I arrived to my south end area of largemouth Troy was in the creek so I pulled up on him and asked if he "had" them and he grinned and said, "yes sr"! He looked ultra confident. I had to ask-"how good?"! He walked to the livewell of his boat and hoisted what would be an 8.14 largemouth from his livewell and explained he had 3 more to go with that one. I was dumb founded. Here the whole time the big largemouth were with-in 5 miles of take off and I never went to them until it was too late. Since I knew Troy had a chance I told him to stay in there and grind out one more bite and I would get out of his way. I was sitting with one keeper and with only an hour to fish knew I didn't have the time to do damage in an area he had pretty well beaten up and if he were to get one more bite he could possibly be leading the tourney if his fish were as big as he said. He did not manage to get his 5th fish but still had 4 giants. One of the keys to Troy's success was his ability to control his boat on the key areas in the back of the creek thanks to his power poles. Troy mentioned to me that he opted to anchor his boat out from the bushes a little ways where he had found some stumps and a bit of a flat and fan cast the entire thing and it produced his 2nd biggest fish of the day (about a 6lber). He could sit in one place and pick apart the flat and hit every stump and he said one of the times he bumped his crankbait off a stump the big girl about tried to pull the rod out of his hand.
Troy's 4 bass would settle on the scales at 20.13 and be enough to move from 28th to 4th and give him the big bass honors and the big bag of the event. All he could think, was what if I would have been able to scratch out a 5th bite.... It was haunting him all evening as he prepared for the 3rd and final day of the event. He knew he would need another big bag on the final day in order to take the top honor. The local Paul Marks was leading and was ultra consistent. Troy was about albs behind Marks and figured Marks would weigh around the 14lb mark again like he had the first 2 days.
Troy's pattern on day 2 involved throwing a Xtreme Lure Creations custom painted herring Lucky Craft Slender Pointer, XLC bluegill painted Fat Lil John, and a Stan Sloan short arm aggravator spinnerbait. He was throwing all these baits to either bushes, willows, or other shallow cover in the back of a muddy creek. He opted to start day 3 running the same stuff that had produced his huge bag on day 2. You can see in this picture the herring colored pointer that produced his 8.14(pic courtesy of PAA).
Unfortunately day 3 would not be as kind to Troy as day 2. When he arrived in the magical creek there was 2 local boats(day 3 was a Saturday) in there and being that it is not a very big area he knew that they would probably cause him problems. After a few hours of working his area without a bite he opted to leave that area and choose to go run a few docks and main lake stuff where he figured he could pick up a few keepers. At 3 o'clock he checked in with no fish in his livewell. He was never able to get anything going and was going to the scales on the final day with a zero. It just shows how tough this sport can be and also how humbling it is. The minute you think you have them figured out they throw you a curveball that you just aren't able to hit. Troy would end up falling from 4th place to 14th-which is still a very good finish and a good start to the PAA tour season. He is sitting good in points and has given himself a good chance to make the Toyota Texas Bass Classic later this summer.
Troy at the dock rigging up his custom painted bluegill crankbait "slayer" before take off on the final day of the PAA.
Me on the other hand, I have given myself a big hill to climb. I ended up finishing 64th and was very disappointed. The old cliche applies here-That's fishing! If it was catching it would be easy for everyone. It felt great to get back in the boat and get on water that was not frozen. I can't let one bad event get me down but this one definitely stings pretty bad. I will shake this one off and get even with the feesh and the competition soon enough. Congrats to Troy on his adjustment and great finish. If you are curious of any other specific details please contact me. Until next time Fish On!
Lake Waconia
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