Bitter...and Sweet

Last weekend marked the end of my tournaments for the 2012 fishing season.  It is always bitter-sweet when the time comes each year to realize that I won't be competing in any more bass tournaments.  I will still, of course get out and go fishing, but tournaments and the competition have helped make me the angler I am today.

My tournament season was a good one, several top 5 finishes and a couple of wins, I organized about a dozen bass tournaments as well, and they went off without a hitch.  So all in all, a good tournament season.

Bitter, that the competitive fishing season is done.  The 10-hour days on the water, the adrenaline that kicks in on tournament morning, and all the friends I see out on the tournament trails.

Sweet, that there will be no more 3am drives to the lake, I will be able to just fish for "fun", looking ahead to next years' challenges and the ice fishing season.

I guess one more sweet thing about the season coming to an end was that it occurred on my favorite body of water, Pool 9 of the Mississippi River.  I spent two days with good friend Don Henry chasing bass on the northern part of that pool both days.  We had to of caught around 80 or bass in two days, and I squeaked out the tournament win, and big bass.  Don and I also won the team portion of the event too.  The event was a small club tournament, but we couldn't have done much better, which I am proud to say.


It only took two keeper bass to win my last event of 2012,
but after driving 7 hours, and awake at 5:30am both
days, I was very pleased with the outcome.

Another bass tournament year is in the books, and after I make it out on the ice a dozen or so times fishing, then I will look forward to the 2013 bass fishing season.  Until then, it will be all about fishing for fun!

Fall is finally here

I think I speak for a lot of people in Central Iowa when I say I am welcoming this cooler weather.  It seemed like there were so many days that us outdoorsman were trapped inside air conditioning when we should have been out fishing the past two months.  I got out plenty of times, but would have floated the boat much more with out those 95-plus degree days.  I say, bring on the fall weather!

Fall is always bittersweet for me, as I know winter is coming, and the boat will be put away for the year.  However, on the other hand it means that ice fishing is around the corner.  This year, though, as of right now, I do not even want to think about putting the boat away yet.  Fall can be the best time of the year to catch fish.  Most anglers would say spring, but weather can really dominate spring flurries of fish biting, while the milder and timid weather changes in the fall can ignite great fishing for several weeks, not just several days as in the spring.  Another thing that you will see during the fall months is less fishing pressure.  There are a lot of outdoorsman/women who put there rods and reels away to get out the bow and arrows and firearms for the upcoming hunting seasons.  I hunt for a couple days for deer each year, but that is really about all the time I want to commit to hunting, I am all about the catching when it comes to fall. 



Fall can be an awesome time of the year to
fish for any species.  However, I like to target
bass, both green and brown.



As stated, fall can be the best times of year to catch fish.  Here are a few quick tips for your next time out on the water.  First, hit the rivers.  Small interior rivers are fantastic during this time of year.  Rivers will generally cool down quicker than lakes and this puts the fish into a feeding frenzy.  All species will seek out current seems to load up on minnows, and other prey during this time of year.  As for the Mississippi River, well if you ask me there is no better place to go after Labor Day in the entire state.

Another tip for you during the fall is to use bigger baits when the weather is favorable.  This time of year the fish are eating the largest prey they have all year long.  Minnows, shad, crawfish are all the biggest they will be, so make your baits large when the weather is favorable, and go to smaller offerings when cold fronts dominate the weather pattern.

I wish you the best this fall, and remember water safety, as the water cools, the more dangerous it is to fall in.  Use the buddy system, and always have a plan for when things could go wrong. 

3-Mile Lake

Today led my partner Doug and I to 3-Mile lake in Southwestern Iowa.  This was a the 4th tournament in the year-long series that we are competing in.  We stood in 3rd place before the tournament, which was in our goal range of placing in the top 3 once the season was finished. 

Last weekend we spent about 7 hours on the lake looking for any sign of bass that were concentrated, or at least using specific areas of the lake.  To put is nicely, we struggled, we only found three keeper bass, and only caught a few other short bass.  Leaving the lake I was defeated...until I got a call from a friend of mine that was fishing a tournament on 3-Mile that same day.  It was a struggle for almost everyone.  This made me feel a little better coming into today's event.

We were up at 2:30am to make the 2-hour drive to the lake, as we drove we figured out a plan to attack the lake.  We also knew that rain was in the forecast all day long in the area, which normally helps the anglers catch more fish.  Notice I said "normally"!!!

Our plan was a good one, the first stop we made, a shallow feeding flat and BOOM, Doug scores our first keeper bass.  We continue in this area, and BOOM, I hook up with our second keeper bass on a buzzbait.  Things are looking good!

We continue to fish around the same feeding flat, and finally give up.  We decide to head for a little deeper location, not too far away.  Zero...then we go a little bit deeper along a channel swing...Zero...we continue to hit some standing timber...Zero. 

It was time to refocus...and refocus we did.  We went to other areas in the lake that were similar to where we got a few bites early in the morning.  This was our saving grace for the day.  We hooked up on two more keepers on the day, and weighed in 3 keeper bass that were almost seven pounds. 

Fishing was tough, and I had mixed feelings as we put the boat back on the trailer.  I figured we had bombed and given up a lot of points towards our goal of the top three in the "Team of the Year" race.  Come to find out, many teams struggled, and we ended up in 6th place.  Not as bad as I had thought, and it might be just enough to save our season, it probably came down to one little decision that we made on the water today.  Belva Deer is the next stop in a few weeks to decide it all!

Bruhsy Creek flop

The Tri-County Bass club held its 8th annual 4-man Bass Tournament this past Saturday.  I have been a member of this bass club since 1999 while living in Marshalltown.  It is a great bass club with a great group of guys. 

A few years ago, 2005 to be exact I came up with an idea to have a 4 person bass tournament.  Those of you that have heard of bass tournaments know that this is unusual, and I believe it was the first ever in the state of Iowa.  My friends and family have always said I have had some goofy ideas, and this was one of them I had back in 2005.  The tournament is just like any other bass tournament, except instead of having just one partner, you have your partner in your boat, PLUS two other people on your team in another boat.  Ideally you work together, call/text each other the "hot spots", or the "hot bait" of the day to compete against all the other teams.  It has been a fun tournament to compete in. 



A nice keeper I caught during a practice session prior to the
tournament using a Vexilar flasher and shakey head worm.

I have always teamed up with other club members, and also coordinate the event each year.  Last year, our team did our best ever, we placed 4th with 33.60# for 10 bass, and I also caught the big bass for the event at 5.20 pounds.  We got the big bass award ($500) and about $400 for our 4th place finish.  This year our team had high hopes as we fished the lake prior to the event, but had little success.


This year, as the title states was a flop.  None of our team members could really find those bass creatures on the day.  All four of us fished hard, and caught numerous bass throughout the day, but as a team we only weighed in 4 bass, out of 10 possible.  We just couldn't seem to find the keeper bass that day...a FLOP as I call it.  A flop it may be, but I am a better angler because of it, and I will get back out there soon...you can't let one bad event get you down for too long.

To close, I may sound like a Cubs fan for a few seconds, but "I guess there is always next year". 

A new lake for me

My bass club here in Marshalltown had an event this past weekend at Belva Deer Lake near Sigourney, Iowa.  I planned on fishing this event since the start of the year, for one reason, to check out a new lake.  I had never seen the lake before, only read comments and posts on the Internet about it.  It appeared to be a good bass lake, and I couldn't help myself, I "had" to enter.
I decided to practice for the event on Friday, the day before competition, which can be tricky, because you don't want to catch too many bass the day before the tournament.

A foggy tournament morning on Belva Deer Lake

I hit the lake with partner for the weekend, Eric.  We haven't fished together for 3 or 4 years, so it was nice to share my boat with him again.  We were on the lake about 5am Friday and I immediately went into my game plan for the day.  At the end of the day, some of my assumptions were correct, while others were simply all wrong.  I guess that is what practice is for!  We were off the lake about 1:30pm and headed back to the motel for a break and to get our rod and reels ready for the tournament.

Practice day on Friday turned out to be the
key to a top three finish.

Tournament day, up and on the lake at 5am once again.  My plan for the day was to use topwater baits early in the morning in some shallow areas that we found holding fish on Friday.  This worked out very well.  We caught about 25 bass using Pop-r baits.  I had a limit of 3 bass in less than an hour and my partner had a nice keeper too.  We then moved to some timber, which this lake is full of!  We had certain sections picked out to fish, but nothing came in the boat long enough to help us.  Onto the the next step, Carolina-rigging sunken islands.  This is a technique that can be deadly in the summer time.  Bass move up and down the water column looking for food, and this rig can cover a lot of water and offer a bait very slowly to a bass.  I was able to add some heavier fish to the my livewell with this technique, and my partner caught two keepers too.  He informed me that this was his first ever limit in a tournament, so hats off to him for that!  We spent the majority of the day Carolina-Rigging, however at the end of the day I made a move, which turned out to move me right to the top of the standings.  I was sitting with a little over 7 pounds with my three keepers.  My last move was to flip Hot Rod Baits tubes into trees standing in 6-11 feet of water.  This was by far our best depth of water on Friday.  It paid off, I caught my second biggest bass of the day with only 20 minutes remaining in the tournament.  I was able to upgrade to 7.70#, good enough for a 2nd place finish. 
Working hard on practice day led us to a great game plan on Saturday.  My plan worked out, and most importantly I learned a new lake to fish...like I needed any more lakes to occupy my time.