July 19,2006: Tonight I fished a CATT Division 11 tournament at Lake of the Woods. I was fishing without my wife tonight because she was out of town. I decided to cover a lot of water tonight and power fish the entire shoreline. With my trolling motor on high I buzzed around the lake tossing a senko, jerkbait and popper. I ended up catching four bass shallow and a ton of small guys. With a half hour left I decided to dropshot a deep-water point. On my fifth cast a caught my fifth keeper. At this point I thought I had the tournament in the bag. I brought my fish to the scales first and they weighed 9.31 lbs. I knew three other boats had limits, I just hoped mine were bigger. Well, they weren't! I ended up getting 3rd place and a tackle pack for my hard work. Chuck Nearpass and Scott Davis took first place with about 10 lbs and Nelson/Wilfert won big bass with a 2.61 lb lunker.
July 18, 2006: Rich and I got up early this morning and headed for Austin Lake. It took about an hour to get there because I missed the exit. We started fishing at 6:30 am and we thought the we could get a few bass to explode on a topwater bait. After we fished a flat for about an hour with no bite we started skipping docks. Rich caught our first keeper that weighed 2.4 lbs and shortly after I caught our second keeper that weighed 3.4 lbs. We decided that we would both keep track of are own weight on our X-Tools. The heaviest 5 bass would win. We alternated who got the first skip on the rest of the docks. There was a ton of action, almost every dock had a couple bass underneath them. Rich ended up with 4 keepers weighing 9 lbs 4 oz and I took home bragging rights with 12 lbs 5 oz. Austin Lake is one of the best lakes to catch shallow bass.
July 17, 2006: Rich Charleston and I fished Paw Paw Lake
tonight from 6:00-9:30 pm. It was unbelievably hot and
humid. The water temperature was a bubbling 84 degrees. We
started the afternoon skipping docks with tubes and senkos. We
didn't have much luck but we did catch a few small fish. We
decided to move to deep water and throw crankbaits. I marked a
lot of bait fish along the weed edge but we couldn't get any bass to
take our cranks'. We tried a drop shot rigs next and we
immediately started catching quality bass. We caught three nice 3
lb bass in about 20 ft of water. There's nothing like fighting a
chunky bass on light tackle. The sun was beginning to go down so
we changed gears and began throwing topwater baits. It was a
perfect night for a good topwater bite but we couldn't get any takers.
July 12, 2006: Tonight the CATT Tournament Trail stopped at Magician Lake for a tough three and a half hour tourney. Kelly and I were very optimistic before the tournament started. We hoped that the warm temperature and blazing sun would move the bass under docks. We fished docks for at least 2 hours without one stinking keeper. We had to adjust and do what I hate most, FISH DEEP! I caught our first keeper on a dropshot rig right away. I thought I was on to something but I didn't get another quality bite all night. Kelly chose to throw a crankbait and she had a blast! Kelly was catching 13 1/2 inch bass left and right. Finally, at 9:00 pm she hooked into a very nice bass. It ended up being our second and last keeper. We ended up in 4th place with around 4.25 lbs. Our directors Brad Baker and Dan Posey won a tough tournament tonight with 7.95 lbs. Nice Job!!!
July 5, 2006: Kelly and I teamed up and fished a Wednesday
night CATT tournament at Pipestone Lake tonight. The weather was
beautiful but a small front had recently pushed through. Kelly
and I started catching bass right away. I caught a nice 2.72 lber
on my first cast. A few minutes later I landed my second bass
that was a little over 14 inches. I thought we were one the road
to victory. Well, 3 hours and 10 minutes passed without another
bite. I still can't believe it! Congrats to John Gipson Jr.
and his partner on a great catch of 13.5 lbs to take home first place.
July 3, 2006: The last day of our trip to Traverse City I went
fishing with my father on the East Bay. We Launched from a public
access site on Mission Point. We targeted weed beds in shallow
water again hoping to find spawning smallies. We only caught 1
keeper and a short fish on the west side of the East Bay so we decided
to run across to the other side. The wind was picking up but we
ran across anyway. We found a bunch of empty beds in the shallow
rocks and a couple beds that had males on them. I caught 5 fish
off beds but all of them were small. We worked our way to the
break and fished a couple weed beds on the break. This is were I
saw a bunch of huge bass cruising around. I only managed to catch
one that was almost 3 pounds. I was in a trance looking at all
the bass when my father said. "we should start heading back because I
can see white caps." I agreed so we started heading back.
Instead of taking the easy way around the Bay using the protected
shoreline to block the wind I decided to drive right across the middle
of the Bay. There were 2-3 ft breaking waves that soaked us from
head to toe. My little 17.5 ft Skeeter speared
every wave. I wouldn't recommend a small boat on the
Traverse Bay. Thankfully nothing on my boat was
broken.
July 2, 2006: To day was beautiful day with plenty of sunshine
and light winds. We decided to fish the East
Bay today. We drove up to Elk Rapids and launched our boat by the
Elk River. The water temperature was 65 degrees in the East Bay
so I decided to look for spawning bass. As we left the Marina we
drove strait south for about a half mile. We stopped to fish a
couple weed beds that we could see from a mile away. They were
actually weeds and rocks together. We caught about 50 bass off
these weed beds that were mostly males. The males were up
starting to make their beds along the edge of these weed beds. As
the water started to warm and the sun got higher in the sky the females
started to move in. I caught a couple really nice smallies; The
biggest tipped the scales at 5 pounds 3 ounces. In the picture
you can see how shallow the water was were I caught her. We ended
up catching around 60 bass on the day and our best 5 bas weighed 16
pound 5 ounces.
July 1, 2006: Kelly and I headed up to the Grand Traverse Bay today for a little vacation time.
We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge which is minutes from the Bay.
We arrived in Traverse City at 4:00 pm but we didn't get out on the
water until 6:30 pm. I decided to start fishing in the West Arm
around Power Island hoping to land on the mother load of spawning
smallies. When we got there I didn't notice any beds but a few
bass were swimming around the shallows over the top of the sand
grass. I only caught one cruising bass that weighed 3
pounds. Although there was tons of rocks and the water was
perfect we only managed to catch two bass.