We did do our homework this time around and took the time to prefish both the past Sunday along with Wednesday as well. Thankfully, we eliminated a lot of water along with finding some fish that seemed as if they would hold for our tournament. There was only one major game plan, fish the shallow east side flats for the bigger largemouth bass!
Somehow once again, we ended up in the first flight. Not ideal considering the day was going to get pretty warm in the afternoon and we knew more fish would come up to make their beds in the shallows. No matter, we would be able to get to our water before the rest of the crowd and hopefully pull off a couple fish first thing in the morning on swimbaits.
I ended up pointing out the wrong spot to start but it was a great looking area so fished it anyway. It wasn’t too long into the fishing when Steve sets hook on his swimbait and promptly breaks off the fish. Dang! I throw in immediately after with my Trash Fish swimbait and also get railed but no hook up. Grrrr! I quickly tied on a fluke and get it in the same vicinity and half way to the boat a nice swirl. Oops! The fish has my bait! I reel up the slack, horse the fish to the boat and swing it inside, yes, our first of the day! Nothing else happened in this pocket of brush and trees.
We make the move to our original spot and it took a while to get our next fish. Steve is looking up front and spots a small male locked onto a bed. My Trash Fish comes out again and we only take 5 minutes to get #2 in the boat. Another bed fish 20+ minutes after #2 but #4 comes right after with Steve throwing his swimbait and #5 not long after. A small limit and we still have lots of time!
Our first cull fish of the day takes a long while to get in the boat as we had to patiently figure out what type of presentation to make to it but in the end pays off with a nice fish close to 3 lbs and turned out to be our 2nd biggest fish of the day. We end up getting 3 more fish from that same area (all on beds) but none cull our other fish.
Our largest fish of the day comes blind castings a Trash Fish once again right next to a brush. I get railed by the solid fish and immediately it goes straight into the brush! After a short tug of war, the fish pops out and Steve gets the fish in the net. 4.80 lbs which is by far my largest fish on Berryessa! Sweet!
Even though we have a solid limit of Berryessa fish we were figuring it would not be enough to cash a check on this beautiful day. 14.90 lbs was what we had and was pleasantly surprised to find out we cashed a check with an 11th place finish out of 71 boats! Awesome! Some much needed points and a little money to cover our entry.
On to the Delta!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
April 4 2011 - California Federation Delta #2
I had fished the second tournament of the California Federation delta circuit. Prior to the tournament, we had a week long of warm weather that peaked in the high 80’s. On tournament day it was in the mid 40’s prior to launching and we had 15-25 mph winds. Toward the end of the day we had temperatures in the high 50’s and we had high winds through out the entire day.
I had prefished 2 days prior to the tournament and had developed a simple plan for tournament. The plan was to fish a specific area that had clear and warmer water. I started out the morning fishing an entire strip of bank with a buzzbait and got nothing to strike the lure. Then I had noticed the opposite bank had white caps crashing on the banks. So I had crossed the slough and threw a blue gill pattern chatterbait. I got a bite after the 3rd cast and I had reeled in a 5lb fish. I continued to fish the entire bank and caught a limit within 2 hours. The easy part was done, the hard task was trying to cull out 2 small fish. At this point, I had 3 solid fish and 2 small fish that weighed 1 to 1.5lb each. The tide had bottomed out and the bite had turned off after 11am. 15 minutes before weighing in, I had caught my 4th solid fish and culled one of the small fish.
I had weighed in a 5 fish limit for 19.65 lbs with a 5.60 big fish. I was in the first flight and my weight looked pretty good in comparison to the field. Then the second flight came in and the bags looked pretty big. I had placed 4th for the tournament. The tournament was won with a 37lb bag with a 11lb big fish.
April 3, 2011 - Delta - White's Slough with the kickboaters
With a week of warming prior to our cloudy, overcast, and windy conditions on Saturday, my expectations were sky high for some big fish on the CA Delta’s White Slough! I would be fishing from my kickboat for the first time in months which both excited and frightened me (being out of shape!). The big fish would show but not at the end of my rod!
I had what I thought was a solid game plan going in. In the morning with a high tide (3.6), I would pound the bank I fished last year for my 23.01 lb limit. The fish should be moving up to feed throughout the day and I was hoping for that big bite. My afternoon low tide plan was to hit the island across from where we launched and hit the fish which had to be moving up to spawn.
The morning plan flopped. Although I ended up catching a 3+ lber and another keeper, no big ones came up and I ended up burning my legs out from going back and forth for four passes (about a ¼ mile stretch). The bluegill patterned 1/2 oz chatterbait produced the two keepers and another two short fish came on a craw colored chatterbait along with a dropshot.
Discouraged but not willing to give into the cramping in my legs, I started with my afternoon flipping plan. This went much better with my first spot producing 3 fish in 5 flips although only one fish was over the 13” minimum size. It still felt good to catch a few quickly!
It did slow down after this initial flurry but I still thought I could pull something good out with a couple hours to go. I believe I missed a couple light bites along with bringing a fish to the surface before even realizing I had something on (didn’t even set the hook on it!). Eventually with 45 minutes to go I found a nice pocket within the tulles with laid down tulles covering the water as well and I immediately got thumped! The fish rockets out of that pocket and surfaces with a great headshake and dang, why don’t I have a net! The fish ended up being hooked very solid and I was able to quickly grab her. 5.22 lbs was her final weight. Nice solid fish!
Unfortunately I was not able to muster any additional fish so was content to weigh in 4 fish for 10.69 lbs. A surprising 4th place out of 19 kickboaters! Mike Ayers was the man of the day bringing in an 11.60 lb beast to go along with a 25+ lb limit. Way to go Mike!
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