|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date:
June 05, 2005 Contact:
Dan Kimmel
517-882-8902, djkimmel@greatlakesbass.com Kimmel Takes 2nd in Top Bass
- Bass Pro Shops Open on Houghton Lake HOUGHTON LAKE,
MI — A limit of five healthy smallmouth bass weighing 12.73 pounds was enough to give
Lansing bass tournament angler Dan Kimmel a 2nd place finish in
his first appearance in a Top Bass Tournament Trail event. The Top Bass
Houghton Lake Bass Pro Shops Open was held Saturday June 4, 2005. The 2nd
place finish earned a total of $605 in winnings for Kimmel. “I
used the jerkbait earlier in the day to find the bass since we had overcast
skies making sightfishing difficult,” stated Kimmel. “I was fishing a shallow
flat with a darker bottom, so the bass were hard to see until you were right
on top of them. They would get harder to catch once they saw me, so if I
didn’t get the bass to hit the jerkbait, I’d throw a marker and come back a
few minutes later to catch it with the tube lure.” Kimmel
says he had a limit early in the day after catching three keepers in the
first 15 minutes of fishing on the chrome/black jerkbait. “I culled one of my
first keepers with a larger keeper about mid way through the morning and
caught a couple keepers that weren’t big enough to help,” said Kimmel. The
fishing slowed, but the sun finally came out about half way through the nine
hour tournament, so Kimmel made a move across the lake to check some deep,
hard-to-see beds he’d located larger bass on in practice. “There
were two other tournaments going on from the west end of the lake – part of
the reason I chose to start on the east end of the lake – so I expected some
of the bass would already have been caught before I got there,” added Kimmel.
Surprisingly, two of the larger bass were still there and Kimmel quickly
caught them on the tube lure. Culling his two smallest bass with these larger
fish moved his total weight up almost another pound – the difference between
finishing 2nd instead of 5th or 6th place. “I
had one of the last smallies swallow my tube lure and it bled some,” Kimmel
said, “which concerned me because a dead fish penalty would have taken my
total weight down enough to possibly drop back out of the money places. I cut
the line about 8 inches from the lure, leaving it in the bass. Then I put my
aerator pumps on full and added chemicals to slow the bleeding and calm the
bass. At the end of the day, the bass looked normal. I avoided the dead fish
penalty giving me the high finish I needed.” Kimmel
caught several other keepers later in the tournament day casting the tube
lure along sand drops into weedy holes but was unable to catch any larger
than the five he had in his livewell. Still, he reported he’s happy with the
finish. “I don’t fish Houghton Lake a lot for bass and was not familiar with
many of the anglers who fish the Top Bass circuit so it was difficult to
estimate how much weight it would take to win or place high,” said Kimmel,
“so I’m very pleased how it turned out.” Kimmel’s
next tournament is the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League event on Saturday June 25th
on the Detroit River. His sponsors include Ranger Boats, Yamaha Motors, D
& R Sports Center, Lake St. Clair Combat Fishing, Xtreme Bass Tackle, All
Star Graphite Rods, Pflueger Fishing and Shakespeare Fishing. For bass and
tournament fishing information, you can contact Kimmel through his website at
www.GreatLakesBass.com. END |
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|||