Edited Date/Time
9/27/2012 1:47pm
Well I am back from my fishing tournament and did just ok. I stuck to my game plan even though the wind picked up to about 20 plus on the first day beating up my spot. I started flipping the mats and did not get a bite until about 10 am. My co boater caught three 12 inchers keepers pretty quick throwing a spinnerbait into open water. As time goes by I decide I should get a quick limit and then go back to grinding it out in the mats for the big bite. I catch about ten little ones real quick and have best five in live well at only about 5 lbs. Doh. I told myself to commit to mats. So I flip rest of day with no bites until the last hour of day. I flip in mat and get thumped and wrestle one about 5 plus pounds out and very next flip I get one about 8 lbs. 2 flips later I get hammered and I can tell its a monster and the earth is moving under the mat but it come unglued. That hurts. About a minute later another earth mover and this is another monster and get her out of mats into open water and she gets off. Noooo!! So I go to weigh in and only have just over 17 lbs for my five fish. I sit in 19th out of 140 boats. That night my buddy and I eat some egg salad and both wake up in middle of night food poisoning, We were fighting over the toilet and it was a nightmare. lol I don't know how I am to make it through day 2. I get to ramp at 5 am and can barely handle it. I meet my new co boater and we hit it off and will be fishing together more often for sure. I get to my first spot and we both catch a few small ones on a spinnerbait andtop water and then its back to flipping. It starts hammering rain and I realize my rain coat is in truck. I get about 8 small keepers and never got a big bite. A big fish boiled behind the boat and my co boater throws a big worm and she eats it and its a five pounder. He ends up 8th in his division and a check for 500 plus. I end up 22nd in pro division and $440. Oh well, atleast I met a few new friends.
Question: If you catch your limit you can still swap out smaller fish with bigger fish correct? So the goal is catch your limit no matter the size then go for big fish to replace the smaller fish?
I have have however fished regional team tourney opens where culling wasn't allowed,nets weren't allowed either,but that is normally for special type events during the spawn.
Congrats FLMxer!
Getting a check after a day of fishing is always nice.
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I met him at an FLW event up in Washington State about 8/9 years back or so.
Super cool dude.
P
I love my chrome spooks though!!
Nice report.
One of my old neighbors who charters in La. fished a lot of redfish tournaments. I remember him doing one out of Alabama, and he made the run over water back to our local southeastern La. territory and did really well. The length of the run over water only allowed him about an hour each day of fishing time, but that was all he needed to win.
I just got back from the lake today. Went to a couple of my go-to spots and both spots were productive. We were actually catching good sized 1 to 3 pound black bass on 1/8 oz white crappie jigs. And we were catching sand bass pretty consistently also.
My request for Christmas/birthday is a 12' kayak and I hope to enter into some fishing kayak tournaments next year.
Great thread FL!!!
Pit Row
We kill the white bass on sassy shad in February/March ! When the spawn is on, we limit out literally in 15-20 minutes. Two per cast, every cast. Its like hitting specks under the birds.
Do tons of research before you go that route on that hull.
Just that little bit of set back can cause some serious squatting problems on the hole shot and add more drag ect..at top speed.
My personal experiences with jack-plates are....
I had a Bullet 20 XDC with a non-warranty extra-lite hull.
I ran a 12 inch Detwiller JP on that setup with a Merc Racing 2.5 liter that was dyno'd at 280HP at the prop (Jay Smith Racing in Texas built the motor).
When I was trimmed out on calmer water with no wind I could hit that plate and go from 95mph on the GPS to 102 with ease
and very little drag. But you had to drive the boat at that rate of speed and it was always sketchy.
But once I started trying to drive it at that rate of speed in a mild chop..... To where at times the motor had zero drag...Driveshafts started snapping. It got spendy.Hole shot was still good as long as the plate was all the way down though.
I then put a 10 inch jackplate on my pathfinder 19ft bayboat that I had,looking for better shallow water performance.
What a mistake that was.
Just with that little bit of setback,getting the boat up on a plane was a real bitch after adding the plate.
I finally just took the thing off and mounted the motor on the second set of holes.
The boat performed much better without the setback.
And with the setback from the plate it only ran 35 to 38mph.
This was my Pathfinder 19 here (pic below).
I could get this thing up on a plane with no jackplate by spinning it and creating a wake in like 10 inches of water and then\
when the wake lifted the rear of the boat,punch it and run just as shallow as anyone with a plate with the same draft.
This boat here only had a 90 Yamaha on it but was rated for a 115.... But it would dust most other boats in it's size range that had 115's on them. Especially in rougher water that was shallow. Top speed was about 40 to 45mph without the plate ...to as where the Kenners,Nautic Stars,Makos',Nitros,Ect.. and other smaller bayboats in the same range had trouble running 35 to 38 in most conditions with 115's on them and they couldn't get their boats up unless they had at least 2ft of water even with a plate. It was a great little bayboat and handled the bigger water like 22ft bay boat.
Maverick boat company makes some unreal stuff!
As for WOT, I get 40 with the prop Im using. I prefer a good holeshot and could care less about going fast. Most often running way below that.
You could probably almost walk those.
As for a powerpole....that was a 8ft Sportsman model I had on that pathfinder.
I loved it though.
However,after that boat I bought a Hewes Redfisher 16 it had a 6ft Pro Model power pole.
Rather then mounted on the hull it had a motor bracket to mount it.
I loved the setup much better on this Hewes as far as the powerpoles went.
The remote is awesome.
Once you own one (a powerpole)....you wont want to go without one.
Their cool.
I just recently sold this Redfisher 16...and I'm going to buy a larger tower boat sometime in the future.
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