Slump Ended Bathed in Potomac Water

I have to admit, coming in for this tournament I did not have high hopes for myself. I kinda thought I would do the usual 0 out. Well I did. But we'll get back to that issue later. Right now I want to talk about how this whole thing set up.

The Potomac River is my home water sort of. I mean, I grew up right near the area. I would not say I know it intimately but I know it's basic make-up. I'm not at a complete disadvantage in this fishery. So the week before the tournament, I heard of some good fishing coming out of Douge creek. Seated near Fort Belviore, VA; Douge is a funnel shaped creek with a shallow channel. It has been known to be very productive and often gives up good fish. Grass is very plentiful as well and has 2 washout points on the southern shore. These points have creeks that run out of them and into the main body, which makes the points very exaggerated. Sure enough the bass were there. They were no doubt liking my Explosive Tackle spinnerbait in black and red. Next time shaking off a catfish that wanted a piece of the action, but not until after he slimed my boat.

I'll save you the anguish of telling you the long version of the rest of the tournament by just saying I did not hook up on any legal length fish. But before you all lose hope and interest in old Bob, if you have not already, I can tell you that this angler had his hour after the last meal of the day.

After me and my co-angler got too hungry to even fish, we headed back to Mattawoman and rolled back to camp with guts twisting, obviously for two reasons. Of course we got harassed for not putting anything on the scales and to the other side of the spectrum; ''sorry you had such a crappy day of fishing". After feelings had been replenished and everyone had a good laugh at my expense, we had some killer steaks for dinner which were flipped with a grill fork unlike the night befrore's plastic fork idea. They tasted better without the petroleum by-product additive. Anyway, over good fishing conversation and beer, we finished our steaks and started out for yet another opportunity to duke it out. This time opting out of paying into the purse. Remember that statement because it will become chief later on in this story.

The boats are in and everybody starts taking off. I'm already at a major disadvantage here in the fact that everyone else is using golden rule. I don't have a golden rule! So now I have to bring back 15 inches or over and they just have to measure anything 12 or over and throw it back. Really I can't say much for my attitude at the time. I was not angry or anything. Just disappointed about my sun glasses being lost to the depths earlier that day plus not doing anything in the tournament. I really just wanted to go fishing. Not really wound up for the competition of it, not about the money at stake because there was none. Just let's fish. So I decided to just idle on into Grinders Wharf. Grinders, if you can picture this, is about 100 yards from the ramp. It's really a cove with some old pilings and a wreck or two. From shore it drops from 0 to about 10 feet pretty rapidly. Then it comes back up to a flat about 4 feet deep and covered in thick coon tail. Then that drops off into an even deeper channel around 14 feet and back up again with a massive grass flat that stretches all the way out to the main body of Mattawoman. I'm in the 14 ft. channel at this point, punching the grass about 20 feet in from the edge, with a YUM wooly bugger and a 1 oz. flipp'n weight pegged with a handful of tooth picks. My co-angler says "I'm going to try a buzz frog". I begin thinking to myself "yeah along with everything else you have in your bag as well. I have never seen anyone switch as much as he does. I wonder how he ever figures the fish out. As I'm am thinking this, one comes up an kisses his white frog. Okay, this guy is on to something I think... and just then he hooks up but the grass interferes with the hook set. Just about then I am thinking I need something that is designed to move slowly and can partially penetrate through the grass. I got it! I pull out these huge mongo 8" YUM Dingers in black and blue. I rig it texpose with no weight and give a wing. It just flops on top of the sloppy thick weeds like SPLAT!. Then I pulled it into a gap in the Forest and let it fall all the way and let it just sit. The pick-up, the move, the hookset. YANK! Got him (or her). It's a nice fish in the 3 lb. range and the good part is it was over 15". A keeper? What's that? At any rate. One's in the live well and plenty of our 2 hour limit left. I hurle the huge worm like a mace to the next gap in the Forest but no body's home, so I turn to the edge of the grass just before it hits the 60 foot wide channel. The worm sinks and I twitch it's way further into the weed line and same thing. I could feel it get attacked and YANK! Another quality fish at around 2.5 lbs IN THE LIVE WELL! YES! I could see fish moving all through the grass, but as I targeted them they would not bite. I saw a very large boil further down the weed edge so I figured I would cast behind it and maybe I could get it's attention with some twitching. I felt the fish suck the entirety of the worm in with my mega sensitive G Loomis GL2 rod. I reared back with a devastating hookset that brought the fish out into the channel with me. As it came for the boat I raced to take up line and keep tension on the hooked lip. Once it reached the boat it must have realized that it was blocking its way into the grass because it took an instant detour around the bow, narrowly missing trolling motor. Meanwhile I'm thinking ''please don't play ring around the Rosy on my trolling motor and break off". I swung the fish around to the other side placating it's need to be near the vegetation, and that was all it had. Thumb, lip, boat, in that order.

By the end of the whole 2 hours I had a couple ounces over 10 pounds with just 3 fish. Mainly because the biggest took up half of that total in it's weight alone. I went to bed that night thinking "what if I had caught another couple of 3 pounders." The slump is over!

This Is Getting Old, Real Fast

Yet another tournament in the books with nothing to show for it. This one at Chesapeake Bay. I am very lucky that these last two tournaments were not club related. If that was the case I would be slumming down around 10th place in points.

It started out that I was not event going to fish. I had not found a partner come Friday night and I was not too worried about it. I made a call to a buddy in my club to see if I could dig up a co-angler. Sure enough he had some kid that he knew through Link's Marine. So, I pony up the $55 entry fee, not knowing who was going to be fishing behind me.

Come Sunday morning at the dock I meet this 20 year old kid with 2 rods and a tackle bag. I didn't want to seem too chummy at first because I had no idea what type of person he was. From blast off, we started heading down river on the North East, to a marina on the western bank. Guess what... 'ol boy forgot to strap down his rods. As they quickly started to gain altitude off the front deck, his reflexes kicked in and he grabbed them both all while letting go of his hat. His hat being the least if my worries, I turned around anyway because I felt bad for the guy. All day with no hat! That's sun burn you don't even want to talk about let alone wear it for the next 5 days.

So we finally get there and start fishing. Seems like he knows what he's doing. Everything is cool for the most part. I see him casting in good areas and he was covering water that I was not. Well after about 12:30 that all changed. I could tell he was getting fatigued and he kept switching baits. Tell tail sign of losing patience. Which happens to be rule number 1 in bass fishing; or fishing period for that matter. But I want to keep this guy into it. So I move to another spot and yet another spot. Neither one of us had caught a fish as of yet and the clock is nearly striking 1pm (inside marina at NLT 3pm). I started fishing a rip rap wall that housed some train tracks. about 300 yards worth. We fished the whole thing and not even a bite. At the end we can see disturbance along the bank. It was a tell tail sign that I had found feeding fish. A creek that lead under the train tracks feeding into the river had small bait fish coming out with the tide in droves. As they exited from under the bridge, it appeared all the commotion was from bass picking them off as they passed. I pulled out an ultra light combo and tied on a little tiny jerk bait that matched exactly what I saw. I casted an pulled it right into the ball of bait fish over and over. Just then I noticed the same thing beginning to happen under the bridge. It seemed that they had begun plugging them before they could even exit into the open. I trolled up into the narrow opening of the RR bridge and started casting. I have no idea what was up with these fish, but they just did not want anything to do with anything I was showing them. During all this, or most of it I should say. My partner is kind of just standing there looking around. That struck me as weird. $1,100 on the line an you just stand there and look around? Not my idea of being competitive.

Try as we did we came up short, literally. I fished another rip rap wall near Anchor Marina (the launch site) that had a deep channel running beside it. I started running a Gizzard Shad color, Strike King Red Eye Shad in a reel and pull pattern that caught me a 13.5" and 14" fish with minutes left on the clock. With the minimum size limit at 15", That's not gonna do it. The wall came to a pocket and I made note to hit the deep corner of it thinking "Okay, last cast". I don't know if it was just being hurried or what, but when I came around with that crank bait, I hit the top of the trolling motor and it just shattered the lure to pieces. That's when I knew it was over. I won't say I fished with a handicap in this tournament, but I will say "two lures are better than one" and let you figure the rest out. I think I remember saying to myself "Thank God it's over."

NC or Bust

I'm back from the North Carolina adventure. That's right; I towed the Ranger all the way down there. The idea was, I was going to be returning $700 richer. I got to my buddy's house about 4:00am and crashed out like a big dog. I was sort of in that state where you're so tired that you don't even realize it.

We got up the next day (the same day for me, Friday) to the high paced action of his 3 year old son. The last time I had seen him, he was just a little baby just barely able to walk. After our coffee and morning routine we headed toward Falls Lake. A pretty large expanse of water mounted in the Piedmont of N.C. near the state capitol, Raleigh. At the ramp I was surprised. HUGE! Must have been about 70 parking spots and I think we was the only ones there. Smooth ramp, launched us with no problems and if it had not been for our full bladders, we would have been blast'n out of there in minutes.

As we got out on our way, I made a "B" line for the NW corner of the lake where I had spotted some standing timber on Google Earth. I frequently use this program when scouting large expanses of water. When we got there it looked like really good fishing, aside from the murky water from all the storms during the earlier part of the week. With trolling motor digg'n and outboard up, we threw some spinnerbaits and buzzbaits to the outer edge of a submerged island. We just kept moving further and further in as we come up short on every cast. We finally got up to the live trees which were some kind of cypress. They pretty much grew in a straight line following the shape of the shore line, but about 40 or 50 yards from the bank. I switched to a purple and blue Explosive Tackle jig with a june bug color trailer and started to flip. We came up to a group of 4 trees and I flipped it. I felt the fish suck in the jig, set the hook, in the boat. A nice 4 pound fish. OK, so we have been fishing for about 30 minutes and I get a good fish. Things are looking up. We finished up in the trees to no avail. To make a long story short, the rest of the day produced nothing. We went home with great concern for what was to come the next day when money was on the line.

Against my better judgment, we went back to the same place on tournament day. Pretty much fished it the same way but without a curious young fella playing with switches and asking every question under the sun. We got up to the same location where I caught the keeper the day before. I felt the jig get sucked up once again. I went to set the hook and I could feel the lure slip past her lips. Out popped my jig from the water and landed at my feet on the deck. DAMN! I missed that fish? That almost never happens to me. That's why if you are fishing for five bites and you miss and break off fish; I am probably going to beat you because I don't miss and I for SURE don't break 'em off. After we completed our loop we decided to fire up the Merc and head down current toward the dam. Bout 10 minutes we end up like 8 miles from where we were. Both of us pick up spinnerbaits and start chuck'n to the shore inside a cove. Bing! My homey hooks up on a fish and gets it right up to the boat before it decides to spit the hook. 2nd fish lost. We continued around through the back of the cove where the water got extremely shallow and we managed to get the boat stuck on a sand shoal. After spending 20 minutes getting us unstuck, we started throwing to some old growth sticking up next to the bank. Buddy boy hooks up again and it comes unbuttoned. 3 fish lost. Now both of us are just pissed off so we move on to the next cove. A flooded drainage area hidden from plain sight provided an opportune area for a hog to get caught. Joe threw his lure in there and hooked a short fish. "We're looking for at least 16 inches dude". At least he had one in the boat. We motored down to yet another cove. I spotted some brush under about 8 feet of water with the trunk of the brush sticking out. I decided to pull a Strike King Red Eye Shad through it to see if I could coax a reaction strike. I casted way past it and just as the thing made it up to the bush I felt something bang against it. We'll call that 4 fish missed. As I am tying on a new spinnerbait, a fish plops down on the deck in front of me. Another no go for Joe as the fish is only about 13. Thoroughly probing the entire area of the cove nothing else takes a one way ticket into our live well. We looked across and liked the way the cove on the other side looks so we go. Poor Joe hooks up on one after getting snagged in a tree and he forgot to retie. I think the fish fought up over a stick and it just broke lose right there. I could see the frustration in my friend's face. That was number 5. An entire limit, lost to near misses and break-offs. Dang shame! I ended up horsing in a 15 inch 2 pounder just before the buzzer and that was the end of it. I just can't get over the fact that our entire bag was ours for the taking but we could not hold on to one of them. All you can do is laugh... and maybe cry. But at the end of the day, I had a blast with my good friend. We'll get 'em next time Joe!

Still No Gear

It's been weeks upon months since I have put my order through with this guy T.J. Tackle. (Not the company logo shown to the right.)

I met up with this guy months ago at Bass Pro and he showed me some custom spinnerbaits that he made. Nice stuff really. Well made you could tell and he made a lot of really nice colors that you don't normally see. Spinnerbaits, buzzbaits and jigs any configuration of color and size you can think of.

I ended up buying one off him on the spot. He handed me a card and assured me that anything could be done. He basically had no limitations on the options you can choose from. He had one particular base-line color that interested me. It had the shad type head with a brown copper color. I contacted this guy later on and gave him what I wanted... ten spinnerbaits all with the copper brown head with some different blade and skirt styles. I think he charged me like $30.00 total. Now, I know red flags are starting to pop up with some of you. Well minded consumers know when they see load of crap. Something seemed fishy to me with this guy, so I made him agree to a "special" deal. I made it very clear that I needed them at the very least by the last week in March first of all. That having long passed. I also told the guy "Look, I have never dealt with you before, so I would like to receive half of the order up front and I will pay you, and then you send me the next half after you get the money". He said that was cool, being I was a first time customer.

As I stated before, I never got the initial shipment. The guy never returns e mails or my phone calls. What if I was relying on these lures for a tournament? I would be in bad shape. This whole ordeal taught me a valuable lesson. If you happen upon one of these small venture type businesses; don't rely on them right off the bat. Do a couple transactions with them in a non time sensitive setting so you may get the feel of how they do business. Is their product consistent? How long from order to door do they usually take? Can they overnight to you if need? These are questions that can only be truly answered to you with the business's actions. Do not take their word for it! You may end up falling victim to the possible turn out that I was able to haphazardly avoid... on a tournament... maybe. It's just not worth it.

The logo above happens to be a company owned by a good friend of mine. A quality lure, that is priced accordingly. What he does, fits what I look for mostly and most importantly, I know what his capabilities are. I know what he can do by way of delivering the product to me. I know what I am going to get every time and there are no misunderstood expectations. Mind you this fella has a demanding occupation so I don't expect to be able to call him from Virginia on a Friday night and have lures at my hotel on Saturday morning. That's just fine as long as that is the inclination from day one.

So with that said, you can tell, I'm sure, what and who I will be going with in the future. Once you find a good one, keep 'em.

Weighing the Possibilities

Just looking at the current club AOY standings (can be found at: http://www.eteamz.com/EasternShoreBassmasters/news/index.cfm?cat=469039 ) and I am swirling around the prospect of taking this thing. I am currently sitting in 3rd place with 277.08 points with our Potomac river tournament coming up in May. My thought is this... if I can bring in a 2o or so pound bag, that would put me in position to possibly take the tournament. On top of that, I happen to know that the current leader (at 402.8 points) has a tendency to sometimes struggle at Potomac. So to put it simply, this is my chance to catch him in points. Or at the very least lessen the distance between us.

The importance of my superior performance at this tournament is chief, for the reasons I stated earlier. Only problem is say I do take the tournament with a ginormous bag that puts me at the top. There are still 5 more tournaments to go at different locations that I have a specific disadvantage. Knowledge and experience. Now I'm no baby in this sport but at some of the places we fish, I am. Sassafras, I only came up with 2 fish that were just over a pound, Wicomico I have never fished and Nanticoke I continue to struggle staying on fish... chronically. I know I have the power to change these facts. I can pre fish the Wicomico, find some more spots on the Sass and get my act together at Naticoke. But do I have the time and patience from my family? Do I have the knowledge that will at least allow me to put myself into situations I can learn from? If I search around the Chesapeake and find a little honey hole, unless I have an idea of what sizes I need to fill the live well with, it won't matter. I guess thinking that far into it just makes it seem almost impossible but when it all boils down, that's what it takes. I can't really speculate much about Wicomico river. Some places I have fished for the first time and it's like reading a children's book; easy to read. Nanitcoke or "Nantichoke" as it relates to me, is my horror story. I shock that river for Fish & Wildlife as my profession. I help run the shad hatchery, I earn my living on that river. I know it like the back of my hand. But when I go in my boat to hook and line bass, it's like they know I'm there. They know who I am and why I am there. I fish all the textbook locations for weather and time of year plus use all the same colors and presentations that other anglers use and catch fish with. That place just hates me.

What I encountered on Friday was total bull shit. I worked a retaining wall bank with a sandy shore line and a ledge sloping down to about 13 feet, docks, boats and everythang. To make a long story short, not a jig, spinnerbait, crankbait or shakeyhead would catch a single fish. End result... pissed off.

Catch'n 'Em Sleep'n

This business I'm dealing with is about the most selfish race to the top I have ever seen. Maybe it's the fact that the word "fish" is in the word. Everybody is just out try'n hustle their game and don't get me wrong, I am too. But some of these guys you would think they are already at the top of the game. Talk'n bout how they are going to show up the boat field at the next tournament and shit like that. I can see some friendly harassment but damn, these guys are tough sometimes. I don't get involved. I just get out there on tournament day and do my thing. These fools sleep on me. They pay no regard to my talent as if I was no threat. Well check this. I'm a put on my grand hustle and let them know what's up. Yeah, it pisses me off when people get orders put through right away for gear because they have a certain amount of popularity and have been around longer. What bout the customer? When I am offering my money for that shit as a customer and basically get blown off because they think I am lesser of an angler... fuck that. I'm about to blow up in this bitch and I will always maintain my humble attitude. Some of these boys win one or two tournaments and they think they are the next Ike. Time to deflate that head Arrogant McEgo. It's a damn good thing I have this blog so I can vent off steam quietly. After all, I'm not good enough an angler for anybody to spend the time reading it.

Bass Idiology

Some would say that bass fishing all comes down to luck. Others say it's and intricate form of art that takes an almost zen-like approach to master. I say it is a perfect marriage of the two. Taking the fundamentals of statistics, adding its own randomness to the equation and the knowledge and physical skill only obtained by a seasoned veteran trained in targeting only three species of fish. I'll give you my reasons for truly believing in this theory (perhaps asking yourself why I waste the time).

First off, "skill" as they call it, in my opinion is a relative term. It comes in different levels. One of the things I pride myself on, is the fact that I know that this is the one angle that I can control. I can practice casting, rigging, etc. and become more efficient in these categories. Now, let's say I was me and I was lumped in with some Elite Series pros in a conversation about skill and worth out on the water... I would most assuredly come out with the short end of the stick in that debate. Then, say the same conversation, but I am among other anglers that fish on the same level as me and in the same state, body of water, quality of gear, etc. Now where do I place among those anglers being debated as the better? Probably still low on the totem pole but that's beside the point. My point is... exactly as I stated before. Skill is a relative term. Why? Because one can lack thereof if categorized incorrectly. You can only measure ones true angling skill if you gauge them appropriately. If you are measuring a source of electricity that pumps out only mv, and you have the volt meter set to a 200v range; you are bound to have a reading that is nearly impossible to comprehend. Ya dig?

Luck... Not a term of relativity but one that should be taken into consideration in terms of statistical behavior among the fish one is trying to catch. Yes, bass have habits. Papers have been written by scientists and patterns have been recognized by fishermen and general traits such as predatory behavior can be obviously expected. The catch (no pun intended) is all the variables that play into who is where and when. Let's pretend for a second that we could follow the biggest bass on the upper Chesapeake Bay. She is an 11-10 (let's just say) and she is hunkered down on a piece of timber near the shore about a 1.5 miles up the Northeast River. There is a tournament tomorrow with 150 boats. In order for that fish to be 'guaranteed' (100% probability) to be caught, you would have to have each and every angler fish every variation of lure, every single dock and piece of cover and structure within the limits of the species salinity tolerance. Every combination of every variable would have to be met. Now we could say the same for any specific fish. I just chose "the biggest fish" for interest. The figure in this equation that allows fish to be brought in to the scales, is the sheer fact that the fish are populated in a large whole number and disbursed among the entire area; of which is a variable factor its self.

If we take a lump of the statistical values and a lump of the fundamental skills we talked about, and welded that together, that is what gives us our KVD's and our Mike Iaconelli's. They take those two main bodies and mold them together in their own twisted ways and live by it. It allows them to catch fish on a level that makes us hate them for it or cheer them for it. You may call this post philosophical; you may call it bull shit. But there is always the one roll of the dice that says its truth.