So … the Nitro Bassmaster Elite Qualifier at Lake Champlain presented by Bass Pro Shops didn’t go the way I wanted.
I had a decent practice where I found a pretty good stretch of submerged cover in the form of some laydowns and brush with some grass around it. Those were holding some pretty decent fish. While I don’t think they were the winning type, they were pretty good, and by the time the first Bassmaster EQ started, I was not able to get the better quality ones to bite.
I ended up weighing 16 to 16 1/2 pounds a day, which was not going to do well enough in the tournament. I ended up really low in the standings, and it’s certainly not the way I wanted to start out the three Elite Qualifier events.
After the Champlain event, I’m 85th in the points and have my work cut out for me.
During the Champlain event, I caught the majority of my fish on a drop-shot rig, and because of the wind that picked up, I had to go heavy at times to a 3/4-ounce Tour Grade Tungsten Drop Shot Weight in order to feel the bottom. I threw the drop-shot rig on medium action a 7-foot, 4-inch Lew’s Custom Lite matched with a Lew’s Custom Pro and 15-pound-test Seaguar Smackdown with a 10-pound-test Seaguar Invizx Fluorocarbon with a Finesse Worm rigged on a #2 Gamakatsu Octopus Hook. I was also able to catch some fish flipping grass with a Strike King Rage Craw, and my best fish of the event was a 5-pound smallmouth came on a KVD 300D jerkbait.
I’ve got some ground I need to make up in the standings now, and I’m going to give it everything I can to see that that happens this week in the second event.
Practice for that event started Sunday, and I go into Wheeler Lake knowing it is an interesting animal. Every lake in the Tennessee River chain has its own personality of sorts – they all fish a little uniquely. But Wheeler is the one fishery on that chain that kind of has areas of personality like the others. If you start in one area of the lake, it fishes like Pickwick. Move to another area of the lake and it fishes like Kentucky Lake. In another area of the lake, it’s more like Guntersville. It’s one of those events where I feel like I’m going to have 15 to 18 rods on the deck of the boat, and I’m going to have to attack the whole tournament in several different ways.
I know that the overall bite out there right now is going to be tough because our weather has been a little bit schizophrenic. We’re having summer-type days and fall-type nights. Because of that the fish are going to be all over the place.
Some percentage of the population are still going to be in their summer patterns while another portion is going to be headed towards their fall migration, and some are going to just be on schools of baitfish. In other words, not every fish in the whole lake is going to be at the same stage of their annual cycle.
I know that I’ll have to have moving baits rigged up, and I’ll have to have flipping baits at the ready. I might have to have some swimbaits tied up and will likely have to have finesse baits too.
I’ve got a long history on the Tennessee River — obviously, Kentucky Lake is my home lake, but I have fished as many professional events on Wheeler Lake in my history as just about anywhere else. If I think about it, I think I’ve notched more of my top 10 finishes on Wheeler Lake than anywhere else, so I feel comfortable as this event is about to start.
I’m looking forward to this week, and if I find something good in practice I can be competitive with and execute well, hopefully come out of here with the Top 10 and give myself a chance at Lake Okeechobee.
