I had a third place finish for a 1,900.00 pay check, in the BFL Gator Division two day Super Tournament on Lake Okeechobee October 1-2, placing me 22nd in points and giving me the opportunity to fish the regional tournament on Lake Hartwell !
I practiced for about seven days, sun up until the mosquito's came out in the evening. I searched off shore 90% of the time, checking rock piles, holes, flats. and shallow grass lines. I threw traps, chatter baits, crank baits, swim baits, jigs, and soft plastics. Because the lake is low right now with lot's of clean water out there I assumed the winning bag would be caught off shore. What I found wasn't bad but it just wasn't good enough to win. The numbers were easy to catch. I caught schooling bass on everything I cast into the water but the big ones just wouldn't respond to anything I did. I know they were there, because a couple of times I would see a giant chasing a small bass up to the boat that I had on the line. Also, I found a four and a half pound fish dead with a full size bream stuck in it's throat, and a big bass was trying to engulf another blue gill that was half alive making ripples on the surface. That's why I decided to throw big swim baits but, they ended up getting very little attention. I did catch a couple of three pound fish on them but, it took way too long. On the final day of practice I went out to hone in on the off shore bite and it didn't go well at all. First of all, I was borrowing a friends boat that had different electronics than mine on it, and the couture lines were completely different, so I couldn't find the little sweet spots I had located a couple days before. I borrowed my friends boat because it runs faster than mine and I wanted to save as much time as possible during the tournament. Second of all, a cold front started pushing in causing the wind to blow a little harder making everything more difficult.
From past experience I knew that even though the big ones were there it doesn't mean they will bite, so I made the a last minute decision to abandon my whole off shore plan and fish the rim canal. I would have more fishing time, and less running time, and also the wind was supposed to pick up even more hurting the off shore bite.
Trusting my instincts worked. I had five fish totaling a weight of about ten or eleven pounds within two hours on that first day. I caught two pound fish after two pound fish all day on jigs and Venom skip shads. About two hours before having to take off for weigh in I found the sweet spot and the big ones became active! I upgraded to twenty pounds and headed in. I was in third place going into the second day, but the cold front was in full force and the temperature dropped about twenty degrees that night before the second day, shutting the bite down even more. Again it wasn't too difficult to get a limit right away, but the fish were definitely smaller on day two, at least in the morning. I worked my jig exclusively because my biggest fish were caught on it the first day, and I just knew that eventually I would hit another sweet spot like the day before. Well I was wrong!! By 12:00 I only had about eight pound's and weigh-in was at 2:30, so to say the least, I was freaking out! I put my jig rod down and let my attachment to that technique go. Picked up the skip shad rod and started taking my frustration out on burning the skip shad. That's when the madness began!! As soon as that thing would touch the water a fish would turn a flip on it!! I caught more than ten fish within the last hour and a half, and up graded with two nice two and a half pound up grades. I made a bad mistake though, I let the excitement and adrenalin get the best of me. Right at the end, I hooked a beautiful three or three and a half pound fish and tried to rush it in, all the while my co-angler was screaming "TAKE IT EASY, TAKE IT EASY" and sure enough, I lost the fish just out of net reach. That was it, that was my chance to maybe win the thing but, you know what, at the end of the day I held third and am happy to have placed as high as I did competing against such great anglers.
FISH HARD!
Thadeus Ragan
www.gladesbassin.com
