Derek's Tournament Diary

[Derek777]

Introduction:

My name is Derek, and I'm a hardcore fisherman/tackle junkie that happens to be lucky enough to be sponsored by some very cool companies:
CB's Hawg Sauce: https://cbshawgsauce.com
Filthy Fishermen Custom Bait Company: https://filthyfishermen.com
Enhanced Concrete Design: https://www.wagnercontractors.com/
The Angling Center: https://theanglingcenter.com

These are my tournament diaries.

I'm fishing tournaments this year for the first time, and the trail I chose to fish is the American Bass Anglers American Fishing Tour. I chose this tour because a very good friend of mine, Wayne Alker is the Tournament Director for the ABA in Pennsylvania, Division 09, which is where I reside.

I'm also fishing as a co-angler for two reasons. Firstly, I don't own a purpose built bass boat, which is neccessary to fish the waters that the tournaments are held. And secondly, as I am new to tournament fishing, I'd like to improve my fishing skill and as a co-angler your skills are tested quite thoroughly, through keeping focussed throughout the day whilst fishing behind skilled angler/boaters who usually get first crack at prime fish holding spots, and through being required to learn or perfect angling skills by being presented with situations where your angler/boater has chosen to fish areas, types of structure, or types of fishing in which you are forced to adapt and excel quickly or else end the day skunked/did not weigh.

As a side benefit, and an important one in my eyes, I will be exposed to many different makes of boats and equipment, and I will be able to use that exposure to prioritize or eliminate certain makes or models of boats and equipment based upon my experiences and needs.

 

[Derek777]

Getting Ready!

Before I fished my first tournament, I realized that as a co-angler, I needed to pare down my voluminous amount of tackle that I would normally carry with me on my boat on a fishing trip to my favorite lake. And then pare that down yet again.

As a co-angler you are never sure what type size and size of boat you will draw to fish out of, and amount of storage space it has, and though my research I've found that there is no standard size for rear storage. It could range from voluminous to none.

I decided to organize my tackle using the Falcon FTO tackle system, and it has worked out great. The Falcon boxes all come in a standard size of 12.5 inches by 8.5 inches (much smaller than the standard 14x9 plano boxes), and varying depths depending on the purpose for the box (hook/terminal tackle box being much thinner than a spinnerbait or jig box). I carry six boxes in a Falcon V6 tackle bag: a hook box, a jighead/weights box, a combination spinnerbait/buzzbait/jig box, a shallow crankbait box, a medium/rattletrap combination box, and a jerkbait/swimbait/topwater/deep diving crankbait box.
If you can imagine trying to select the ''go to" tackle from over 35 regular sized plano tackle boxes (14x9 and up), that task i had was quite daunting.

I dedicated two boxes or 33% of my tackle to hooks, jigheads and terminal tackle. I feel that these are high on the list of priorities as soft plastics are a large part of my fishing strength.
The hook box has a variety of worm hooks, dropshot hooks, spare trebles, and regular octopus style hooks to cover the angles from ultra finesse to flipping and topwater.

The jighead/terminal tackle box carries a variety of shakey jigheads, tube jigheads, dartheads, weighted hooks for paddletail swimbaits and deeper soft plastic presentations, tungsten bullet weights, dropshot weights, split shot and split rings.

I elected to go with one box of shallow cranks as the waters that the ABA in Division 09 hold their tournaments on are primarily tidal waters, and I would be fishing alot of shallow flats with weedbeds and shallow structure, as well as docks, rip rap banks and pilings in waters 6 feet or less. I chose my shallow cranks to cover the most situations that I could with my favorite colors and colors that have been proven to catch fish on those waters through my research of past tournaments held there.

I chose to go with a box split 50/50 between medium cranks and rattletraps. I chose medium divers in my confidence colors, and based my traps on two colors, shad and reds/firetiger. i have a couple of the reds/firetiger, but the rest I have doubles or even triples of varying shades of shad, due to the massive amounts of weedbeds that the tournament waters hold.

I chose to go with a box with 50% jerkbaits in natural/confidence colors, 25% hard swimbaits for catching those lunkers, and 25% topwaters for those times that the topwater bite is on, but need a slower presentation than a buzzbait can provide.

my last box is 45% spinnerbaits in my confidence colors, 45% jigs in confidence colors, and 20% buzzbaits. I narrowed down my confidence colors to just a few, and selected a variety of sizes to accomodate various situations.

There is also four outside pockets on the V6 tackle bag. The left pocket holds needlenose pliers, scissors, split ring pliers, and hand sanitizer. The front pocket holds my XTools culling system (tags and scale), and the right hold my selection of CB's Hawg Sauce. I carry three bottles of water based Sauce, sassy shad, sassy crawfish, and sassy garlic, and three tubes of the gel, sassy shad, sassy crawfish, and sassy garlic. The back pocket is empty. I also have just enough room in my V6 bag that I can fold up my weigh in bag and slide it behind the tackle boxes.

My last and personally favorite but most difficult task was selecting what soft plastics I should bring, and how should I carry them. I chose the Falcon Worm Bag, which they say holds 40 bags of worms. In the real world It will hold 25 or so bursting at the seams. It was difficult, but I narrowed my soft plastics down to categories, then colors. I have a selection of confidence colors in finesse worms, senkos, flipping bugs/creatures, tubes, and trailers. When the topwater bite heats up, I will add topwater frogs. I am also sponsored by Filthy Fisherman Bait Company, so you can be sure that my soft plastics bag is well stocked with their Big Sticks (5.5" senko), Needle Sticks (5.5" slim senko) Skanks (4.5" finesse worm), Jizz (4" finesse worm) and their Froggs (floating buzz frog)when topwater time comes around.

I carry my raingear, licences, lunch and drinks, suntan lotion, bug spray and sunglasses in a knapsack.

Rods and reels were a bit easier. I take six rods, but could take five realistically. I bring a custom 7'0" Otterods rippin/deep cranking rod set up with a Team Daiwa Zillion Crazy Cranker 4.9:1 ratio reel, a 7'0" custom Otterods medium/shallow cranking rod with Team Daiwa TDZ 103P 5.1:1 ratio reel, a 7'8" Kistler Mag TS telescopic flipping/pitching/makeshift swimbait stick paired with a Deps Zillion, a 6'6" Kistler Mag TS spinnerbait/chatterbait/buzzbait rod paired with a tuned Team Daiwa TD Sol, a Airrus Puls-R 6'9" finesse jigging/tube/topwater rod paired with a Team Daiwa Steez 103HA, and a G Loomis Bronzeback 6'3" spinning rod for plastics/shakeyhead/dropshotting paired with a Team Daiwa TD Sol 2000 series spinning reel. With these rods, I'll have most situations and techniques covered.

So you can see, it was a difficult task but not impossible for a tackle junkie like me to really focus my gear for tournament use.

 

[Jim]

Seems like you have everything covered!

6 rods as a non boater, you are brave! :LOL2:

 

[jkbirocz]

OMFG DEREK USED CAPITAL LETTERS AT THE START OF A SENTENCE :shock:

 

[jkbirocz]

You also did a great job selecting lures. With all of the tackle you have, I understand what a task that was. I think you will do well in the tournaments, as long as the boater doesn't screw you.

 

[Derek777]

The Big Day!

The American Bass Anglers Division 09 hold their tournaments on the North East River in Maryland, and on the Delaware River in Pennsylvania/New Jersey. Both of these bodies of water are tidal, so fishing them is quite challenging as the fish move around alot depending on the tide and where they sit upon structure..

Saturday April 26th was the date of my first tournament, and it was held on the North East River. This area is also known as the Susquehanna Flats as there is quite alot of shallow water. In my research on the area, I looked up the tidal charts, and found that the first high tide was at 2:53am, and low tide was at 8:37am, and the next high tide was at 3:00pm, so we would have less time fishing outgoing current as compared to incoming current. My research also showed that there would be 2 main types of fishing that would be effective there: fishing the weedbeds and fishing the docks and marinas. Although I did not know which boater I would draw or where they would take me, I prepared for both eventualities by tying on my "go-to" lures for fishing those areas. For ripping through the weeds I chose to use a lipless crankbait in a shad color, and for pitching the docks I tied on a 3/8oz jig in a combo june bug/black neon color with a black twin tail trailer. Let me preface by saying that neither of these techniques that these lures were utilized for were on my list of 'confidence' skills. Also, at this time of year the fishing would be made tougher by the imposition of a 15" size limit for bass until about June, when the limit would drop down to 12".

The angler I drew had plenty of experience on the North East River, so I was happy to learn all I could from him. We started in a large cove that contained a huge weedbed that was just starting to really get thick. I gave my lure a generous shot of CB's Sassy Shad Hawg Sauce and started casting my lipless crankbait around and varying my retrieves until I found one that worked. When my lure would get hung up in some weeds, I'd rip it out then pause a second and reel up the slack before I would start reeling in again. Not too many casts in to the day I caught my first fish doing just that, After the rip and pause, I started reeling again and felt the weight but didn't really set the hook, as at the time I was fishing fairly fast, and as my hooks were ultra sharp, I figured that the fish would be hooked pretty well, however I was a little nervous when the fish jumped the first time but stayed hooked up and the rest was easy. I was really relieved and this first fish really took alot of pressure off of me as I wouldn't end my first tournament with a skunk and gave me alot of confidence in my abilities to fish on a competitive basis. Through out the morning until about 9:30, I caught 2 more keepers using the same technique catching every fish when ripping the trap from the weeds.

Another technique that I used to catch another keeper fish was pitching finesse weighted plastics to individual weed clumps. This is the technique used to perfection by the angler that won the tournament who picked apart every clump. We didn't get too many more hits after that fish, so we picked up and moved and tried pitching to some dock pilings on another part of the river. The only fish caught were 7" or smaller. At this time the wind started to pick up, and I was glad that I was just able to concentrate on fishing, and not boat handling.

We picked up and moved back to our original cove, where I found that pitching the finesse weighted plastics to the clumps was a difficult prospect due to the wind and the large bow in my line. I started cast my lipless crankbait again, this time alongside a long riprap point that jutted into the cove, and hooked up a fish that was just on the line of being 15". I had my first 5 fish limit in my first ever tournament, and I was ecstatic. I wasn't able to cull any fish the rest of the day and so at 2:25pm we arrived at the weigh in having fished hard and done our best to find and catch fish.

I weighed my 5 fish in at 12.17 lbs, and finished in 5th place out of 23. I was only .2 lbs out of the money. I was very happy, and people were coming up and congratulating me as from what I have heard and seen, catching a limit as a co-angler is quite an achievement, and it was extra special as it was my first ever tournament.

Looking back at the that first tournament, I realized that I was lucky in that I wasn't restricted in my casting areas, as the weedbeds we fished were vast, and virtually anywhere could hold fish. One interesting thing I noted was that I used the Hawg Sauce pretty generously throughout the day on my lures, and I think it helped the lure slip through the weeds a little better, and gave the fish an incentive to hang on when they struck and give me a chance to hook up. My boater used the same bait I did a fair amount of the day, but with no Sauce, but I finished with 5 with a few shorts, he only caught 3 with 1 short. I also realized that I really needed to work on my pitching as I watched my boater cast precisely every cast to the perfect spot with very little entry splash. It was a great start, and I really hoped that it wasn't just beginner's luck.

 

[redbug]

boy that red boat and black truck sure look nice, and the camera guy takes a nice picture..

nice report..and I am digging the reverse grip

 

[Waterwings]

Great report and nice catchin'! 8)

 

[Derek777]

Back to Earth

After the success in my first tournament, I had confidence in my abilities, and that I could compete at a half decent level of fishing. I was under no illusions that it would be that easy every day, in my researches on past tournament finishes in the ABA on the North East River, there was quite a few zerosdid not weigh/skunks so I quite expected that at any given time I could and would skunk out, despite my best efforts. There are so many factors that can affect the fishing, from the boat/angler you draw as a co-angler, the area you fish, to the tides, the weather, the list could go on and on.

This next tournament was held on Saturday May 3rd on the North East River. The weather was colder, windy and cloudy. Tough conditions, but I was in a positive mood as I looked forward to the challenge and to learning more about the North East River.

I drew a boater who chose to fish the Furnace Bay area as he had had a few big fish lost in the previous week's tournament there. It is a vast expanse of weedbeds with little other structure. We would be fishing the high tide to outgoing. My boater and I had a very long day, and despite our best efforts the best we could manage between us is a short 12" bass that I caught shallow close to shore. After 6 hours in the weedbeds, we switched to pitching to docks with again no luck, so we went to the weigh in empty handed. The winner had 4 fish and about 12lbs.

I try to learn from every experience, and keep logs of my fishing so that I can detect patterns and have an idea of what to expect. I noticed that between the two trips, and through talking with other anglers who had done well that there might be a very general pattern that would perhaps help eliminate some unproductive water and spots, which is what all fishermen would love to know how to do. In my analyzing of the two days, I noticed that fishing the weedbeds was more productive when the tide was low, and outgoing, and the docks and pilings were productive when the water was higher and on both sides of the high tide. Current seemed to be neccessary for catching larger numbers of fish in both areas.

Looking closer, I would hazard a guess in that when the tide was high in the weedbeds the fish would spread out and when the tide was low, the fish were more apt to hang closer to the weeds and therefore make ripping lipless cranks through the beds more effective. When the tide was low in the docks and pilings, I think the fish would move out of the exposed areas into deeper water or hang tighter to inaccessible areas and then when the tide would come in, the fish would move to the pilings and outer areas of the docks to feed on passing baitfish. In this tournament, we hit the weedbeds and docks at the oppositie times that we should have, and the reports of other fishermen who were successful in other tournaments on the same day in the same area confirmed this.

I took what positives I could out of that tough fishless tournament, learning through hard earned experience that sometimes it's not good to sit on a previous pattern hoping it would work again, and that being aggressive and searching for the fish in different locales and areas during the tide cycles might be the way to go when I am fishing a tournament there in the future out of my own boat.

 

[Derek777]

its a diary, and i have lots of time on my hands too rainy to fish.

 

[slim357]

Whens the next tournament?

 

[Leibs16]

Dear Diary,

Today my fishing partner asked me if he could touch my Little Mermaid Rod. I told him no way big boy, but he continued to fondle it every chance he got! I’m scared Diary, really scared.

Love,
Derek

 

[Leibs16]

Kidding aside, very nice job in your first tourney Derek! Keep it up!!!!!

So do you fish with someone different every tourney??? Hows that work??

 

[Leibs16]

I don't want in!! I just wanted to know how the pairings are made?? I thought you had a team of two, but it looks like you switch, and its individual not pairs.

 

[Jim]

I don't want in!! I just wanted to know how the pairings are made?? I thought you had a team of two, but it looks like you switch, and its individual not pairs.

In the ABA Boaters stay on their own boats. Non-boaters are put into a hat and then they pull a number and that number is the "boater" they are paired with for the day.

 

[Nickk]

Dear Diary,

Today my fishing partner asked me if he could touch my Little Mermaid Rod. I told him no way big boy, but he continued to fondle it every chance he got! I’m scared Diary, really scared.

Love,
Derek

OMFG!!!! :lol: :lol:


Derek,
Nice write up, you should do BLOG. I fish as a non-boater in a club, it's fun, I'm in my second season.

 

[Derek777]

In The Money!

Well, there was a two week break between the last tournament that I skunked out in and the next one which was on May 18th and held once again on the North East River in Maryland , so I took that time to regain some fishing confidence at my home lake, where I caught a few decent fish and remembered what it was like to feel a bite.

The day before the tournament I went through all my tackle, re-organized my worm bag with some plastics that I thought would work, did a few lure adjustments and stripped and restrung a couple of reels. I was ready to go, but all these preparations delayed my preferred 6:30pm bedtime, and I ended up going to bed at 9:30, with a wakeup time of 1:30am. Needless to say I was a bit tired when i got up, but fortunately had packed everything the night before, so I was able to roll out of bed, into the shower and out of the house with little trouble. Got to Wayne's, loaded all my stuff into his truck (or so I thought) and away we went down the turnpike towards Maryland.

We arrived at the ramp, and were the second boat in the water. About 5 minutes later there was a long, long line at the ramp as people started lining up to launch their boats. It turned out that there were 4 other tournaments scheduled for that day, so it was a bit of a madhouse with 60+ boats everywhere and people everywhere looking for their respective tournament. We also heard from some pople who had fished the day before in the B.A.S.S. Weekend Series out of the same launch that there were some terrible conditions, with 6 foot rollers and people losing trolling motors and boat moldings due to the pounding. The forecast for our tournament wasn't any different, so everyone was expecting to get pounded, and there was alot of tension in the air. It was at this time I realized that I had forgotten to take my worm bag out of my truck at Wayne's house, so I was basically limited to 1/2 of what I wanted to do. I was a bit off my game at the start of the morning to say the least.

I drew a boater who wasn't deterred by the ominous conditions, and we took off into some choppy water for a 20 mile run to the Sassafras River. By the time we got there, my kidneys were bleeding and needed a transplant, I had blue balls and my eyeteeth were floating needing to leak the lizard. We fished the windward side of the river first, and the wind was blowing right onto the weedbeds and laydowns we wanted to fish, making the water the color of overmilked coffee and rough as anything. We toughed it out for a bit, then decided to try the other side of the river in a creek. It was structure paradise. Points, weedbeds, docks, laydowns, reeds, rocks, you name it, it was there. However, the fish didn't seem to be there, and we had no luck there, and I managed to snag in every perfect fish holding location resulting in multitudes of blown spots. It was nice to be out of the wind though. So we decided to be true hardcore fishermen and go back to the windblown side. As soon as we left the creek we were amazed, as the wind and waters had calmed down immensely. We fished a laydown and on my boater's first cast he hooked up and landed his fish. Then I got a hit, and was pulled down into the branches and was broken off. This happened a few more times to myself and my boater and then the bite stopped, the wind picked up a bit and it started to look alot like rain was coming.

We decided to cross the North East River/Upper Chesapeake Bay and fish an area call Havre Du Grace. It was a very cool locations with lots of riprap, and other manmade structure to fish. We had no luck there, and as it was getting close to the end of the day, we made a run to an old abandoned marina that was fairly close to the weigh in and said we'd fish it for about 30 minutes before we'd have to make the run back to the weigh in. We start fishing, and it started pouring rain, and I kept on thinking to myself that I should throw a shallow crankbait and debating whether I should as I seemed like I was Captain Snag for the whole day. I did this for about 10 minutes and finally decided to throw one on as we reached a likely looking spot. I made a couple of casts, and on the third cast there was a big flash and Fish On!! I got it to the boat and after a few missed netting attempts I got it landed and in the livewell. I was stoked and relieved as the skunk was off! A few more casts later I had another flash at the bait, but it didnt get hooked and that was it for the rest of the day.

We got back to the weigh in, and after the ages long line to get the boat loaded onto the trailer, I got my fish in my weigh in bag and went to see how I did. My fish weighed in at 3.22 lbs. So when the placing were called out wasn't I surprised as anything to hear my name called out for 3rd Place, a trophy and my first tournament cheque for $85.00!!! Although I didn't really pay attention after that, I think 2nd place caught 2 fish, and 1st place caught 3 fish and the lunker fish of over 4lbs.

One of the assets that I think I possess is a 'never say die' positive attitude and I think that really helped me that day as it seemed the chips were stacked against me from the start with the lack of sleep, the lack of a worm bag and the propensity to snag up at the slightest hint of structure. I'll also give alot credit to my rain gear, which is Cabela's brand and about mid range cost wise. I was dry as a bone all day, other than my feet which were soaked, and I believe it helped me keep my focus on my fishing instead of thinking of how cold and wet I was if it hadnt of kept me dry.

One of the other purchases that I made especially for tournament fishing was a Fish Hedz face mask. It was worth every penny. Going 60 mph and seeing bugs hit the mask and smear off, and having water droplets hit like little bullets but feeling none of them and being fresh to start fishing after a long run is a major bonus in my eyes.

Anyways, I'm still excited as a little kid on Christmas day with 6 feet of snow outside on a monster hill and having just unwrapped a shiny new sled! In my first three tournaments, I finished 5th with a limit, skunked out and finished 3rd and cashed an $85 cheque and am sitting 8th overall in the ABA Divsion 09 standings. I couldn't have asked for a better start, and I'm looking towards the next tournament which will be held on June 22nd on the Delaware.

 

[Jim]

Just think, you could go all the way to the end and win the whole thing as a non boater, win a Triton...and then trade it in for a top of the line Tin boat! :wink:

 

[redbug]

you left out your other catch???
esquired would be proud

 

[Derek777]

:mrgreen: i already have a top of the line tin boat