Bass Cat Owners Tournament

[Durand Dan]

Hey Mac. How did go at the Tournament?

[Dan]

I anxious to hear as well. Was going down to fish it but ran out of $$$$$$$$$$.

[smbassman]

I'm not Macbass. but....

Fishing was great all week long.  Catching fish pretty much every where we went.  Laid off our better spots for 4days before the tournament.  By prefishing results we were expecting 12-15#s per day with limits of 2-2.5#'ers coming easy and we caught a few 3-3.5's each day also.  The weather for 3 days before the tournament was perfect - warm, cloudy, a little rain and the fish were feeding!  On the day before the tournament we caught a 3# smallie with a 1/2oz jig and a fresh crawfish sticking out of it's throat and it still bit the tube.  Most fish were showing signs of multiple hook wounds.  With 648 boats in the tournament - there was a lot of pressure.

First day of the tournament started cloudy and perfect.  We ran to a cove with a decent bed fish and caught it on the first cast, tossed into  another pocket and got fish #2 in 15mins.  We jumped over to another cove with a bed fish that looked like it was a keeper (most fish left on the beds were small).  Due to some cables tieing off a floating dock I wasn't able to get very close.  This fish was stubborn and took a lot of work.  After 1hr it measured in at 14 3/4"s.  All I can think is the thickness of the spotted bass threw my judgement off. 

We then ran about 15 miles down the lake and up another arm to a 3.5# smallie that I didn't think anyone would find.  We moved up on the rocky flat and found the very subtle bed empty.   As we were moving out, I spotted the fish (or one just as big) cruising the flat nearby.  I began fan casting the flat and finally felt the bump, set the hook and reeeeeeeeeeled like crazy as it charged the boat.  A quick change in direction and a head shake near the surface sent the hook flying.   

That was the end of the keeper size bed fish and also the end of the thick cloud cover.  We fished for the deeper main lake smallmouth the rest of the day with only one more keeper fish and lots of 10-14"ers.  The quality had definitely dropped.  I was leary of changing patterns because I knew the coves were full of boats - did I mention there were 648 boats?  We weighed 3 fish for 5.05#  13.?+/- was leading but I think 5th place was under 10#s.  Reports were that fishing had slowed a lot!

Day 2 I made up my mind to find the quality smallmouths we had caught all week long.  The forecast was for mostly sunny and hot, so I was counting on the shallow largemouth would have been picked clean and the weights were going to drop. All the leaders from the early flights on day 1 were leaving late on day 2 so that would also help.  We fished hard all day and worked depths from 10-40' and ended up catching just 3 fish again for 6.56.  A few costly mistakes (losing a 3.5#er and wasting an hour of cloud cover on a short fish ) kept us out of the top 25 money.  Most of the leaders were sight fishing or found bass busting big schools of shad and the winners were fishing in the backs of coves throwing shallow.  I never would have thought there would be enough shallow largemouth to win the tournament on with that many boats.  I think we ended up around 60-70th?

It was a great time and a great vacation on a beatiful lake.  I am always amazed at the down to earth owners of BassCat and their hospitality.  Being around the automotive industry, I usually think of large business owners as suit wearing millionares.  The Pierces don't appear to be any more than a hard working middle class family.  Most of the BassCat pros were there.  Ike seems like a nice guy.  He was actually pretty quiet and stayed to himself when he wasn't being hounded for autographs.  He wouldn't hesitate to approach the kids and offer his autograph and talk to them though.

Well, I am rambling on and on..... so this is the end of my report of the 2007 BassCat Owners Invitational.

[Dan]

Thanks for the report. I know the winners from last year. One lives near me and the two of them have fished our Tear Drop Tournament Trail for a number of years. I have their article on their last year's win on our teardropbass.com website. Thanks again for the great report.

[macbass]

well here goes my report which isnt the best in the world. but did meet smbassman down there it amazes me you have to drive 700 miles to meet someone from michigan..good job on the fish sm and of course your wife. my report isnt as good as his. We did find fish every day but we were fishing totally different water I never seen a fish on a bed in the back of any coves that I checked so I spent the week fishing deep water. On sunday the first day of practice we start in a big cut with a lot of points and picked 2 keepers right off the bat on a rappala dt10 crank bait first 2 cast. lost 2 crank baits on the next 2 cast to some very aggressive ugly gars. went to tubes and drop shot and a shakey head and started fishing bluff wallspicked up 3 keepers on the bluff walls left this area for the rest of the week. The next 2 days we spent trying to chase down a good school of smallies but that didnt happen. Caught a lot of short fish. The next day which was wednesday went up another goos size cut found the carp in a good bedding mood and making a lot of noise fished every dock in the cove caught a couple of shorts moved out of the cut to the first point picked up 2 keepers. Finished out the bluff and finished out a small limit. The next morning thursday we went to a cut we had fished part of and had one bank in it we hadnt seen and looked that over pulled out of the cut to the main river and hit the point and started down the bluff wall. On the first pass caught a 3.5 lber and a3lb spot and left it. Hit 4 other bluff walls that morning and the fished were stacked on all of them. So we called it a day before we did some thing stupid like hang a hog.   The first day of the tourny was a sight to see how you can organize that many boats and get them in and out is unreal. Probably the smoothest run tourny I have ever seen especially of this magnitude. And as SM said the hospitality is just unbelieveable. The first day the bluff walls decided they did not want to produce and only gave up one smally about 2 1/4 pounds. then the second day was not much better for us did end up with 3 fish but caught them all in a 30 minute span with about an hour left in the tourny. all on tubes and ran out of the tubes they wanted on the second fish. But that wont happen again. But to that note weather was fantastic fishing was good caught fish everyday met new people made a few new freinds and cant wait for next year to do it again. Sm hope to see you this summer and get a couple of days of fishing in if you want. just give me a shout. We  ended up 148th

[Dan]

Hey Mac,
Sounds like you had a great time. I am definitely jealous. Fish don't always cooperate and definitely hard to figure sometimes. Are you fishing the DK open? Hope I can fish the Bass Cat tourney next year. Do you know how Gary Evans and Dave Baker did?