Eliminating Unproductive Water

I fished a tournament last weekend on a lake I had not been to in 14 years. In the past I had fished this lake five times and only ever caught one fish. Looking at it from this point of view it doesn’t sound like a good idea to fish a tournament here. But that’s how bad I wanted to get back into competing. I decided I needed to have some areas to fish before I got to the lake so I spent sometime on the internet looking over some maps of the lake. I found two little spots that looked good on paper. One was a hump way off the end of a point and the other was a hump in a little cove.

The first hump was right near the ramp so that was my first stop. But another boat beat me to it so I fished on the point instead. It was a good move, this is where I caught my biggest fish of the day. I got him in about 15 foot of water on a drop shot. After the other boat struck out on the hump I moved out to it and caught a keeper on my first cast to it with a shaky head. So 30 minutes into the tournament I had two keepers in the live well and all day to get three more. After fishing the dam, a marina, the dam again, the same hump again, a bay and a few more points all I was able to manage was two more keepers. I did catch short fish in most of the spots I stopped but didn’t get what I needed. At the end of the day I finished ninth place and the tournament paid top eight. If I had gone in with my limit I would have been looking at a top five spot.

The big issue with fishing a lake you don’t have recent or good history with is getting stuck fishing unproductive water. In my case that was the dam. It only produced a few short fish and given the time I spent there it wasn’t worth it. It’s a spot I either should have skipped or not stayed so long. Once the wind picked up mid morning it put the fish in more predictable locations but I went back to the dam a second time because it was blocking the stronger winds. This second move is likely the one that kept me out of the money. It was fun to get back in a tournament and I am itching to get back in one on this lake because I think I can learn well enough from my mistake. – Michael