Tournament Bass Fishing and Me: A report about this weekend.

[BrockLee]

Lake of the Ozarks - 22 March 2015

USA Bassin’ - PB#2

Water temp 44-56

Clarity - “Lake Ozark Clear” / Dingy towards end of the Glaize

Matthew Mullins / Brock Schuld

We arrived an hour and a half early to find ourselves amongst a sea of Power Poles and HDS 12 sidescan units and my anxiety kicked in. There were jerseys with sponsors everywhere and a big trailer out front that read Anglers In Action and it brought back memories to my first tournament Wes and I fished three years ago in my Triton 18 Explorer with a 115 Optimax. This morning AiA had a 100 boat tournament launching at 7:00am, just thirty minutes before the smaller 17 boat USA Bassin’ tournament I had conned myself into doing again. I watched as the boats and trailers separated, engines fired and smoke hovered above water for an hour. I felt my stomach tighten and worried about everything I could think of, “Will the boat start?” “What if we don’t catch anything?”. I choke it all down, we launch the “new to me” Red metal flake Triton TR20, we hit the livewell check as boat #3, after the no wake zone, the Hot Foot was down. We came up and was running over 60mph loaded down in the matter of a couple seconds. A short run straight out of PB#2 we turned right into the first cove that wasn’t occupied with 15 boats. Ten minutes into the jerkbait game, Matt pulls in our first fish, 14 ⅞ inches, which is a short fist on LOZ but the vibe is good. We move down the cove, there are shad flipping and bait balls on the graph, this is going to be a great bite, I can feel it. I catch a 14 inch bass in the creek channel of the cove in 20 foot of water casting at the shad flipping and working the Shad with Peach belly RC STX, identical to what Matt is using. We continued there for awhile and packed up to make a series of short runs down the Glaize arm. We mainly hit rocky coves, some with drops, some gradual grades. We just couldn’t figure it out. There were times of desperation that involved me with an Alabama Rig in 50 ft of water and Matt fishing a football jig alongside me and even some crankbaits. We ended up back into a shallow cove forced to the opposite side by unruly crappie anglers between some docks in 3 foot of water looking down a 15 foot narrow little cut. I threw a Lucky Craft GP Pro Blue Pointer SP and caught two short fish and Matt caught another dink that rivaled the size of his jerkbait. We gained some much needed confidence. There was time left. There is always time left in a tournament. I have caught 5 fish in 30 minutes on good days. That’s what I told myself. That didn’t last long. We watched as the pattern changed. The jerkbait pattern stopped today and we refused to shy away from it. I wouldn’t accept that a spinnerbait would work, it wasn’t time, there wasn’t enough wind. We decided to flip some older docks and ran around Osage Beach looking for anything built prior to the year 2012. The adventure under the Grand Glaize Bridge ended up being a waste of time and as we ate the wake of a 60 ft yacht my over rev indicator beeped as my prop came out of the water when we became airborne while running back to the fishable lake parts. We ended up hitting some coves right outside of PB#2, throwing a chatterbait while Matt flipped a jig. The end was near. There was bait everywhere, all different sizes. How do we compete with a million of the real things? In the last 10 minutes of fishable time, in the back, back, back of the cove I throw my Blue LC Pointer SP and jerk it erratically real fast, completely out of frustration. I stopped it 6 ft from the boat to watch it suspend and shimmer two feet under the cleanest LOZ water I have ever seen, it is quite a thing to see such perfection in a lure like a well made jerkbait. And then it happened. An absolute hog, comes up and slams it with his face, mouth closed, as I set the hook into nothing. I watched a giant take interest in my bait and I reacted too fast. It was over. We had been been defeated by the bass. We limped back to the weigh in, licking our wounds with the feelings of defeat. It was at that time that I realized I had set the hook in my fingertips more than in actual fish when I looked down at my bloody sunburned hands to turn in our poker chip. We stood there and watched the fish being weighed in. It was nothing like yesterday at Pomme. 8 lbs and some change took it! 5 lb sacks took 2nd and 3rd. As we packed up, we had the same conversation I had with Wes a day earlier. What the hell are we doing wrong? Why didn’t we catch fish? The guys that caught those fish worked for them and deserved every dollar they made. It was one of the harder days I have had. Not just physically but mentally. All I have wanted in the last three years was a tournament boat, a fast motor, and nice tackle. I have all of those things now and the last two days have proved to me that I need to learn more about bass fishing. I can’t buy my way to the podium.

[fishinwrench]

I can tell already that you have something that a lot of guys don't. You have the ability to be honest with yourself.

Just pay the dues, You'll do fine.

[Ketchup]

good read. Its those tough days that make the easy ones feel really easy. Wounds are licked, so now get pumped for the next one. You got this.

[BrockLee]

Thank you all for the feedback. I really do appreciate it.

[MOsmallies]

We all have those days... I actually have way more of these types of days than the really good days... Just keep at it and know the fishing gods will even the score some day soon. Great read!

[Smalliebigs]

Awesome read!!!! I love the absolute honesty.....There is a lot of luck involved in very many aspects to fishing, even derby fishing. I have seen dudes who I knew sucked but, had unlimited funds and time to push there cause forward as a tourney fisherman. They still sucked but, time on one body of water finally won out for my friend and he became deadly on his lake. LOZ is no different I know dudes down there that are going around catching what amounts to what I call pets. they have so many specific docks and they know what fish are there most often. sometimes they are there and sometimes they aren't but, if you have enough pets on enough docks you can bring in a really nice bag.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Never heard of the Ned?

I too appreciate your candor and heartfelt honesty.

It's absolutly refreshing to read a story like this and know you are not alone and someone is not afraid to admit it.