ABA & TBF Recap - 5/20 & 5/21/17
It was a long weekend and full of a lot of sun; maybe a little too much for my skin. This blog will be a two part blog featuring both events. First part of this blog will be from my tournament this past Saturday at Highland Lake and the second part will be from my tournament the following day, Sunday, at the CT River. Enjoy!
5/20/17 - Highland Lake - ABA Division 6 Event
So I guess here we should start from the beginning when I arrived at the Lakeside Motel Friday night. Now I found this online. Life is good right now but I still have no desire to be staying in $100+ per night hotels when I won't even be in it for 12 hours. To me, that’s a waste of everyone's money. So I usually search out the medium class places for around $60-80 at most and usually never have any problems.
After a 2 ½ hour drive turned into a 6 hour drive due to good old NY traffic, I arrived at the Lakeside Motel. At first glance this motel looked straight out of the movie 8 Mile, and a crime scene waiting to happen. I was waiting for squad cars to pull up at any second and bash through a door for some big drug bust. Although that would have been extremely entertaining, thank god that didn’t happened. So I check in and they needed to charge me $7 extra for “electric use because the boat uses a lot to charge”. Now for a second I laughed but contained myself not to reply with a very passive aggressive remark. I was tired, and wasn’t about to go find another hotel so I said screw it.
Now this motel wasn’t very big and everyone knew everyone. I’m not one to judge but let's just say the people who were staying here, and I actually believed some lived there permanently, were not the most upscale citizens. However everyone was nice, nothing got stolen, and I wasn’t killed. So that’s always a good thing in my book. My room wasn’t terrible; at first. The lighting was terrible and you could only assume that many illegal things have happened on that bed. So this called for a night of sleeping in full clothes on top of the blankets sort of deal.
After spending a bit of time on preparing my gear for the next day, I finally make it inside to take a shower and go to bed. Everything is fine until I get out of the shower and out of the corner of my eye, I see something moving on the ceiling...There were huge spider webs in every corner of the shower with giant daddy long legs! Now I know they are harmless and can’t pierce human skin however that absolutely disgusting! Thank god I didn’t see this before I showered. Now freaked out, I take a good look at the room...There are webs in literally every corner of this entire room filled with giant daddy long legs! I whip on the light, grab a towel in one hand, and go to swatting away. A genocide took place in my room that night. Thousands of years of spider generations died that night. I think I maybe got 3 hours of sleep Friday night.
Now for tournament talk. Week prior I did good. Fish were just starting to pull up and water temp was 58. Tournament morning, water temp rose 10 degrees which was very surprising. The big ones were all done spawning for the most part. However I did catch all my fish on beds. Most were males or females already spawned out. It was a fun tournament overall. Just wish I could have found a big kicker as I know they are in there. Caught a giant trout too that I gave to some guys a little ways away from me who were targeting them. They were pumped and were taking pictures with it like it was their own haha. I had my limit within the first hour. I just didn’t come across any big ones. Ended up in 5th place which hey, i’ll take another top 5 and add it to the list for this year. I am still officially in first place in the AOY standings too which i’m stoked about! Baits and equipment used below:
Tube:
-
This was the hot ticket again this week. Just a 3” BPS Tender Tube in Watermelon Pepper with an ⅛ oz head custom poured by yours truly with a Trapper Tackle 30° hook. These suckers weren’t coming off.
-
Equipment - 7’ M Micro Guide Big Bear Rod, Lew’s Mach II Speed Spool, Hi-Seas 20lb Braid with an 8lb Hi-Seas Fluorocarbon leader (about 7-8ft in length).
Side Note - This season I decided to try the braid with fluorocarbon leader on my spinning setups. I must say i’ve been very impressed thus far. I have a lot more feel of my bait under the water and it’s much easier to just change out as leader then re-spooling a whole reel. Highland is gin clear, you can see 10ft down in spots and didn’t spook one fish with the braid. Very happy about this.
5/21/17 - CT River - CT TBF Event
Luckily for this event I found a regular hotel that was actually clean and very nice. So no crazy story here. I also pre-fished this river the weekend before in that horrible weather we were having with my good friend Rich and we did well. I happened across a really good main lake marina that was very small, secluded, and had a rock jetty that came out at the beginning of it. On outgoing tide, this rock jetty produced a ton of current ripping through these rocks and I was able to get a couple on the outside with a Picasso Spinnerbait. Once you moved onto the other side of the jetty where the marina started, this jetty created an awesome eddy area that held a ton of fish. I haven’t been one to ever catch Smallmouth on the river but all I caught during practice was Smallmouth. Big ones too. Water temp week prior was 53° so it was very pre-spawn. I checked my usual marinas and spawning areas and knew the fish weren’t in there yet. Found some other main river spots but told myself this marina I found would be the deal. I was just hoping the fish would be there during tournament time.
Tournament day came and the river temp rose to about 64-65°; a huge jump from the week prior. I knew this would be a spawning event or at least what most were gonna be doing. I committed myself to this marina and told my co-angler that we were going for Smallmouth. Major fog delay in the morning so for the first 20 mins or so we were only able to go 10mph max. As soon as that fog cleared, it was guns blazing and everyone was taking off like mad men. Luckily this marina I found, I had all to myself. Not a single other boat entered or left this area all day. Within in the first hour, I had 4 fish. A couple good ones too. I was so pumped these fish were still in there. It made me feel like I really knew what I was doing. It was very specific fishing though. The depth inside this marina was 6-8ft. So it had good water on it all the way around, even on low tide. The first two dock slips were the deal as they were closest to the rock jetty which created the eddy. But inside the marina I caught a nice Smallmouth off a tree. The tournament was incoming until about 9:30 am then outgoing the rest of the day. Practice was about the same thing.
I couldn’t finish out my limit there so I decided to leave and go run south to another marina which normally holds some good fish. I really had no desire to bed fish as I knew that’s what everyone was doing but I said screw it. I ended up seeing two 6-7lb Largemouth on beds but they were VERY skittish. They were not locked on the bed at all. Every time I would throw to them, they would swim off and come back. I put my bait right in front of their face and they still wouldn’t bite. After an hour or so messing with these fish, I said forget this, I need to go back to this original marina and fill out my limit. There has to be one more fish there. It’s very hard to drive away from two winning fish though but I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch them. I hit a few areas on the way back but nothing was happening. I was starting to stress a bit about not having a limit as i’m here for the points race and looking to qualify for the state team. So I needed to fill my limit.
Low and behold, I went back to the original marina I found, put my head down, and caught my 5th Smallmouth to fill my limit with about an hour to go. I was so pumped! I worked so hard for that 5th fish. I didn't think it was going to be that difficult. Right before this fish, I hooked something big on the Picasso Spinnerbait. I was PRAYING it was a bass. Unfortunately, it was like a 7lb catfish. I was pretty disappointed but man what a fight! Between practice and the tournament, I caught about every species in this marina besides a striper. But i’m sure somewhere on the outskirts in deeper water one was there. I ended this event in 4th and cashed a check so that 5th fish really paid off! I was also the only angler to come in with a bag of all Smallmouth which is pretty unheard for the river, especially launching from Haddam Meadows State Park which is south and not known as much for Smallmouth. Baits and equipment used below:
Picasso ⅜ oz Spinnerbait:
-
Chartreuse/White skirt and I chose to use their Thunder Willow Blades. This gives a lot of thump in the water and is really good in dirty water as well as in rivers.
-
Equipment - 7’3” ¾ MH Micro Guide Big Bear Rod, Lew’s Tournament Pro G Speed Spool (6.8:1), 12lb Hi-Seas Fluorocarbon
Tube:
-
This was the hot ticket again this tournament. Just a 3” BPS Tender Tube in Watermelon Pepper with an ⅛ oz head custom poured by yours truly with a Trapper Tackle 30° hook. Letting it drift through the current and dock pilings was key.
-
Equipment - 7’ M Micro Guide Big Bear Rod, Lew’s Mach II Speed Spool, Hi-Seas 20lb Braid with a 8lb Hi-Seas Fluorocarbon leader (about 7-8ft in length).
This was the first back to back event I’ve fished in a long time. My back certainly felt it after this weekend that’s for sure. Feels so good though to be back out here doing what I love. I’ve been fishing the way I want to fish and it’s been paying off with my lowest finish this year being 5th place. Gotta keep the momentum rolling!! Thanks for reading and until next time, Tight lines!!
