Great Lakes Division BFL La Crosse, WI 5-18-13

Saturday brought the first BFL Great Lakes Division tournament of the 2013 season to La Crosse.  While I didn't fish it, I was able to get reports from a couple different anglers.  I will be posting these reports over the next couple days.  Today, I'll bring you the first of these updates with a guest blog post written by Kyle Schauf.

In His Words

Fish to win.  Fish to win.  Fish to win.  It’s pretty easy to say, rolls right off your tongue, but when it comes to tournament day it is a lot harder to do than you think.   I haven’t always done it; it’s something that in the last couple years I’ve really tried to focus on learning.  Prior to that, I’d be happy if I got a check.  Aim small, miss small, right.  Don’t get me wrong, the W’s aren’t flying my way, but it’s a lot easier to swallow when I miss first by ounces and land in the top 5, than it is to miss a check and land in 60^th.  Fish to win!  You have to practice the same way, eliminate areas and patterns that aren’t holding the winning fish.  So I’ve learned…sometimes you just don’t find the winning fish.

The BFL Great Lakes Division made its first stop of the season this past weekend here in La Crosse.  For me, practice started last Tuesday evening.  Prior to practice, I had yet to catch a bass on pools 7, 8, 9…so it was basically a fresh start from scratch.  I started my search on pool 7, Lake Onalaska.  Grass where I could find it was sparse and submergent. The rest of what I found was dirty, cold water and a few short bass.   A far cry of where I thought it would be, and at least a month behind last year.  So I abandoned the lake for the day and head out to the river in search of some brown ones.  Umm, not a bite.   When you get a bite you can start to piece things together, when you get nothing…as expected not much to go on. 

Wednesday night was much of the same, a night on the lake in all new areas with a few smaller fish.  I was definitely eliminating water but still really hadn’t gotten any clues to what was actually going on.  Thursday, finally a full day on the water; surely I could piece it together, after all, I had a full 12 hours on the water ahead of me.  It started out well, first stop, one keeper, then another, and another.  Ok, well this area is holding some fish, only problem they aren’t of the winning kind.  So I leave, head to a spawning area, the water is warming and there is an approaching spawning moon.  I pull into the shallows of the bay and see lots of spawning activity.  I found a lot of smaller bucks, building, cruising and even saw a bit of bedding activity.  However, everything I could see was small, maybe keeper range or slightly bigger and certainly not what I was looking for.  So I pull off the shallow weed edges to work them over.  The females must be close, the edge, the drop, the deeper ditch.  With a forecast of warming temps, I could almost visualize the females pulling into the shallows by tournament day.  My search of the weed edges and drops, gave me nothing, not a bite.  Where are they?  It’s early afternoon…and I’m still looking!   I pull into another shallow area and find 2 big fish on beds.  The kind I’m looking for pushing five pounds each.  I backed out and left them. 

Friday brought rain and a dip in the thermostat.  I decided to go back out to the river to see if anything changed.  The water was falling, the flow was increasing, but the water was surprisingly cleaning up.  I checked the smallie spots I had looked days prior and sure enough, I shook 4-5 bites and pulled up  a decent one.  My plan was formulating, despite the dip in temps I still could see the females moving in. 

Tourney day, boat 132 of 139, not really the draw you want in any tournament.  My plan was to see if I could put together a limit of males while I waited for the females to push into the areas I had found and of course pull the two big females off the beds where I left them.  I figured if I could catch those 2 big girls plus 3 other decent ones, I would position myself for the win.  Fish to win. 

After missing the first lock, I pulled into my first area and caught a keeper or two on a Senko.  It was by no means fast and furious but by about 9:00 I had a small limit.  I left my primary shallow flats in search of the bigger fish.  Once again I probed the edges of the nearest grassline, ditches and closest deep water;  I alternated thru the spectrum of traps, vibrating jigs, spinnerbaits and flipping baits  but nothing prevailed.   By noon the sun was high and warm.  I had upgraded my limit a couple times but it was only by ounces.  It was time to make a move. I headed over to catch the big girls off their beds.  The sun was high and they should have been set up perfectly.  I approached silently. As I arrived I couldn’t tell if they were home or not because of the shadows.  After a half dozen casts I realized that they had vanished.  I am not sure why they left, by virtue of nature or at the hand of an angler, but they were GONE.  Considering this was a key part of my fish to win program, much of my hope to win vanished right along with the big females off their beds.  Put it behind me.

I still had a plan to upgrade..  I headed back to my starting area, where I upgraded about 5-6 times, again only by ounces with each cull.  By one o’clock I knew this wasn’t going to be the way to make a run at the top spot, so I decided to make a run to check out the brown ones I had found the day before.  My hope was that the 4-5 bites I shook the day before would be bigger upgrades to my largemouth.  When I arrived at my smallie area I pretty much could tell it wasn’t going to happen.  The flow had increased pretty drastically and I only managed a couple of small buck males.  It was about 2:00 when I made the lock back down and had a little time for some last minute upgrades before the 3:00 check in.  I made a couple stops on some current points and eddies, but was unable to find a keeper bite.   The day was done.

At the scales I weighed in five large mouth for 10lbs 8 oz.  The winner had a bag of 5 good smallies for a little over 16lbs.  Despite my mid pack finish I still felt that I made decisions to fish to win.  I basically caught the fish I found in practice and never got the big bite that I was hoping for.  The females are not “there” yet.  With the full moon this week, stabilizing water levels, and some sun…I fully anticipate some big waves of spawning females will make a move into the shallow flats.  If you’re going to fish the Miss pools 7,8,9 for spawners, tie up a Senko, put on your Solarbats shades, because in my opinion…This week will be THE WEEK!