Tournament time

[Martini78]

Well, the first tourney of the year is tomorrow morning. The water is still in the upper 30's here in Northeast PA, so the bite is slight and light. Last season, at this tourney (same lake and same time of year) only 4 or 5 fish were caught out of 20+ anglers, so it should be a tough day. If I do well, I'll let you know.
[signature]

[Simp]

Good luck bud.
[signature]

[fsh4fun05]

Woohoo! I have been waiting all winter for this! Make sure you take some pics. My first tournament is next weekend but the water is alot warmer.
[signature]

[gdn443]

Good luck in the tourny. I remember last year we had one in a few weeks and had teams made up of three boats apiece. Out of 6 guys I caught a 11/2 lber to win second place.[crazy] Cold way to start.
[signature]

[Martini78]

Ok. Tourney today is over. I ended up finishing 4th out of 27 anglers. Legal size is 15" and limit is 4 fish. Only 6 of us boated legal fish... here's how things ended up:

6th place guy caught a 1.55 pounder
5th place guy (my boater) caught a 1.75 pounder
4th place (me, woo hoo!) caught a 3.05 pounder
3rd place guy caught two fish for 6.75 pounds
2nd place guy caught three fish for 7.55 pounds
And the winner caught a limit of 4 fish for 19.35 pounds with the lunker of 6.76 pounds (new club record lunker and total weight) while culling 3 legal keepers... the guy is phenomenal

I caught my fish on a 5" Reaction Innovations Flirt worm on a 1/4 oz shaky head. I was also tossing a small 1/2 oz tungsten jig, a 1/8 oz spider jig, and a Carolina rigged 4" Power lizard.

...And no, I have no idea what the winner was throwing, but I'd sure like to know!!!
[signature]

[fsh4fun05]

Congratulations! A fourth place finish is awesome but what makes it sweeter is that you were a non-boater. Did you take any pics?
[signature]

[Simp]

Congrats on the place. I'd like to enter a tourney one of these days...

One little question though. What is a shaky head? Is that a jig hook? or a worm or something?
[signature]

[lunkerhunter2]

It's a jig head. Google it.[cool]
[signature]

[Martini78]

[signature]

[Martini78]

That's the only picture I took with my phone but I got some good ones with the club's digital camera. Our club has a website, [url "http://www.leggettscreekbassmasters.com"]www.leggettscreekbassmasters.com[/url] where pics from this tourney will be posted soon. It might take a couple days for the site to be updated. Anyway, check out the pic I took of the winner holding his two biggest (6.76 and about 5.5 pounds). The 6.76 is a monster here in Pennsylvania where the cold winters and heavy pressure keep the size down. Just to give you an idea, 2.5 pounds is lunker in some tourneys here and people get 5 pounders mounted.

If there was something I would say I learned from this tourney that I could pass along... Don't wait for tourney day to experiment. There's nothing like fishing something you have confidence in when it counts. I fooled around with some lures during the tourney that I had not practiced with. I didn't waste much time with them, but I learned not to do that again. Save the trial and error for practice fishing and at least you'll have your A-game for the tourneys.
[signature]

[fsh4fun05]

Good point about the experimenting. Save that for pre-fishing. Have you read the 2009 bass contest post that is stuck on the top of the bass forum? You could have been the first to enter [shocked].
Simp: Check out this video. [url "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7-xktoD6rw&feature=related"]Shaky head[/url]
[signature]

[Simp]

Thanks for the vid man, very informative. I will be fishing those. I'm assuming shaky head is the name brand of the worms and jig heads?

as for the bass contest, I have an entry for smallest bass...but it's on my girlfriend's dad's camera, no clue when i'll get it.
[signature]

[fsh4fun05]

Shaky or shakey is just a term used for that type of fishing. I have been using this technique for years. The only difference is now somebody famous put a name to it. I just call it a worm on a jig head.
[signature]

[Simp]

Oh, lol. Either way, I'm definitely going to fish it. I'm gonna get the stuff today.
[signature]

[Martini78]

We had our 2nd tournament of our circuit yesterday and I scored a big ZERO. 27 anglers entered, 11 weighed in (16 guys blanked altogether). The winning weight was only around 9.25, second was just under 9 and third place was just under 8. Those weights were 4-fish limits of 15"+ smallies.

The lake was new territory for me, and my boater (not that I fault him) had us in prime trout waters most of the day. Neither of us caught a bass at all. So with this, I'm down a couple spots from 4th to about 7th or 8th for the season. Next tourney is at Candlewood Lake in Connecticut.
[signature]

[gdn443]

Too bad on the zero for the day, but it happens. Good Luck on Candy, one of my favorite places.
[signature]

[Martini78]

We'll be there May 7th, which I am thinking is a Thursday. I've heard Candlewood is an awesome place to fish and I'm guessing by May the fish should be turned on in terms of feeding. Is May 7th too early for spinnerbaits and senkos?
[signature]

[fsh4fun05]

It's never too early for a spinnerbait or a senko. You can slow roll a spin bait right on the bottom or yo-yo it in deeper water. As far as a senko goes, "Senko is as Senko does" LOL!!! I throw senkos no matter what the temperature and I have yet to be let down.
There are variations now of the original senko type bait. Forked, tails, paddles, etc. I fished a small tourney last weekend and worked for an hour to get a lmb out of a bush. Nobody was catching anything, anywhere and throwing everything. I finally caught it on a Lake Fork Hyper Worm, I love these baits.
[inline 1175-768.jpg]
[signature]

[gdn443]

Locals use a white with blue spinnerbait called a candlewood. I fish mostly the northern end of the lake and have had good results with crawdads this early on rocks. Don't know if you have fished this lake before, if not maybe I can explain some areas that work for us. Send me a PM.
[signature]