It's that time of year again. Yep, the Elites are back in town with official practice beginning Monday morning. A stop down to the junior state tournament event revealed a few of the Elite guys already in town. Crochet, Hite, Chapman, and Tietje were at the tanks and in the weigh-in crowd. It appeared that the kids were really enjoying having those guys around and chatting with them as they waited at the tanks. It's nice to see anglers of that caliber taking a little time to make the day for some idolizing young teens. I'm pretty sure they won't forget this state tournament for quite some time.
Monday will mark the first day of practice for the Elites and Torry Rhoades and myself will be riding with and documenting a day of practice with a couple B.A.S.S. pros. Torry will be with David Walker and I will be riding with the "Cajun Baby" Cliff Crochet. The purpose of our ride-alongs will be to document a day of practice from take-off until the boys put the boats on the trailer at the end of the day. Our focus will not be on the lures they throw or the techniques they use, but more so on the way they break down a body of water and the decisions they make over the course of the day. How fast can they develop a pattern? Do they pick apart an area or do they run and gun? These are just a couple of the questions we hope to have some perspectives on. After the tournament concludes we'll be posting about our experiences on the water and likely will have gained some valuable insight into tournament preparation. It should be an interesting day and I'm really looking forward to it.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Friday, June 7, 2013
Day Two Sturgeon Bay...Sometimes it Blows
For day two of our River Road clubber to Sturgeon Bay we faced a significant change in conditions. The temps dropped into the 40's with a stiff northwest wind at 20+mph to start the day. Any hopes of running north to those pre-spawn fatties from the day before had vanished and now the plan was to figure out what to do without leaving Sturgeon Bay. For this day I drew Kevin Herlitzke. Kevin had spent the day before fishing in and around Sturgeon Bay so we had options. The flats were out of the question to start the day as the wind was blowing straight in, frothing up the shallows with 4 foot waves. After a short bit messing around on a flat in the channel the decision was made to run to Sawyer Harbor.
Getting to Sawyer Harbor on a good day is a piece of cake. (If I had to guess I'd say it's 2-3 miles from the shipping canal.) But on a day with 4-5 footers blowing straight into your face, I promise you, it will make you pucker up tight. Especially for guys like us who don't spend a lot of time on Great Lakes waters. Once we got there it didn't take long to start putting fish in the boat. Kevin hooked up first on the Flash Mob Jr. Not long after, I boated one on a spinnerbait. For the next four hours we worked a portion of flat that had weed clumps scattered throughout it. Those fish were definitely relating to the weeds. Any time you pulled your bait through a clump you'd get bit. The wave action had really dirtied the water up, but it didn't seem to bother the fish. We probably caught 30-40 fish from that particular area and we weren't the only the boat there. The size didn't match what I caught the previous day, but that was to be expected as the majority of these fish were post-spawn. Not catching the same weight really didn't bother me. It was a blast having jacked-up smallmouth crushing a spinnerbait. It's been a while since I've had that happen. The umbrella rig was by far the best producer though. Kevin put on a clinic with that thing and caught more and bigger fish than I did on the spinnerbait. I threw it a little bit, but I get bored chucking that thing out there.
At a little after noon the wind began to settle a bit and it looked like we'd have a chance to fish the Sturgeon Bay flats. We made our way across the bay and set up on a rock ridge that had some bedding fish up on top. Kevin picked up the A-rig and I picked up the jerkbait again. I didn't get three jerks in and I was hooked up. Soon after the fish was able to shake the hooks and was off. I immediately fired the bait back out there and jerked twice and I was hooked up again. This time with a fish close to 3 pounds. I was able to cull with this fish and with the quick action, thought I'd be able to cull out my entire bag. That didn't happen, but we did pick up a handful more as we worked that area. With about a half hour remaining the wind really laid down and we were able to look at some on beds. It was difficult to see the fish and how they were relating to our baits, but we did put a hook in a few.
At the scales I managed a measly 13.5 pounds while Kevin weighed in over 15.75lbs. Neither weight was enough to make the top five on this day.
Top Five Finishers
1. Jamie Nichols 19.06lbs
2. Andy Smith 17.67lbs
3. Ryan Geister 17.07lbs
4. Kyle Schauf 15.92lbs
5. Dave Snyder 15.85lbs
Big bass honors went to Kevin Herlitzke with a personal best 5.17 pound smallie.
1st Place finisher Jamie Nichols
My closing thoughts on Sturgeon Bay are that it's an amazing fishery. The long growing seasons we've had the past few years, coupled with the population explosion of the goby have created one of the best smallmouth fisheries in the country. I don't know if the weights will continue to rise like they have the past few years, but if they do the next world record smallie will likely come from the Bay of Green Bay. This I do know, I will be spending the first few weeks of the fishing season next year looking for one of those 8 lb giants.
Getting to Sawyer Harbor on a good day is a piece of cake. (If I had to guess I'd say it's 2-3 miles from the shipping canal.) But on a day with 4-5 footers blowing straight into your face, I promise you, it will make you pucker up tight. Especially for guys like us who don't spend a lot of time on Great Lakes waters. Once we got there it didn't take long to start putting fish in the boat. Kevin hooked up first on the Flash Mob Jr. Not long after, I boated one on a spinnerbait. For the next four hours we worked a portion of flat that had weed clumps scattered throughout it. Those fish were definitely relating to the weeds. Any time you pulled your bait through a clump you'd get bit. The wave action had really dirtied the water up, but it didn't seem to bother the fish. We probably caught 30-40 fish from that particular area and we weren't the only the boat there. The size didn't match what I caught the previous day, but that was to be expected as the majority of these fish were post-spawn. Not catching the same weight really didn't bother me. It was a blast having jacked-up smallmouth crushing a spinnerbait. It's been a while since I've had that happen. The umbrella rig was by far the best producer though. Kevin put on a clinic with that thing and caught more and bigger fish than I did on the spinnerbait. I threw it a little bit, but I get bored chucking that thing out there.
At a little after noon the wind began to settle a bit and it looked like we'd have a chance to fish the Sturgeon Bay flats. We made our way across the bay and set up on a rock ridge that had some bedding fish up on top. Kevin picked up the A-rig and I picked up the jerkbait again. I didn't get three jerks in and I was hooked up. Soon after the fish was able to shake the hooks and was off. I immediately fired the bait back out there and jerked twice and I was hooked up again. This time with a fish close to 3 pounds. I was able to cull with this fish and with the quick action, thought I'd be able to cull out my entire bag. That didn't happen, but we did pick up a handful more as we worked that area. With about a half hour remaining the wind really laid down and we were able to look at some on beds. It was difficult to see the fish and how they were relating to our baits, but we did put a hook in a few.
At the scales I managed a measly 13.5 pounds while Kevin weighed in over 15.75lbs. Neither weight was enough to make the top five on this day.
Top Five Finishers
1. Jamie Nichols 19.06lbs
2. Andy Smith 17.67lbs
3. Ryan Geister 17.07lbs
4. Kyle Schauf 15.92lbs
5. Dave Snyder 15.85lbs
Big bass honors went to Kevin Herlitzke with a personal best 5.17 pound smallie.
My closing thoughts on Sturgeon Bay are that it's an amazing fishery. The long growing seasons we've had the past few years, coupled with the population explosion of the goby have created one of the best smallmouth fisheries in the country. I don't know if the weights will continue to rise like they have the past few years, but if they do the next world record smallie will likely come from the Bay of Green Bay. This I do know, I will be spending the first few weeks of the fishing season next year looking for one of those 8 lb giants.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Day One Sturgeon Bay Whackfest
So it's been a while since my last post. I apologize for that, but the last couple weeks have been extremely busy. During Memorial Day week I went to Open Bay Lodge in Ontario on our annual family fishing trip followed by three days of work and then right back on the road to Sturgeon Bay for a two-day club tournament. I'll get back to the Open Bay trip later this week, but today I'll fill you in our River Road trip to Sturgeon Bay.
If you've never been to Sturgeon Bay, it's a trip you have to make if you're a serious smallmouth fisherman. I've never been to a place more loaded with 4-5 pound fish and it has the ability to kick out true monsters. You have a legitimate chance of catching smallies over 7 pounds. Earlier this spring during the annual Sturgeon Bay spring open, two fish over 8 lbs were weighed in with many fish over 6 pounds weighed. Big bass honors were taken home with a fish weighing 8.45 pounds pictured right. WOW!!!!! While we didn't bring in any giants of that magnitude, one member of our club did manage to catch two fish right near that 6 pound mark.
The Sturgeon Bay area of the bay of Green Bay is an interesting fishery in the spring. From my experience there over the last three years, I've come to the conclusion that there are three different spawning periods that occur there, four if you count the Lake Michigan side. The first areas to fire up in the spring are the areas in and around Sturgeon Bay, including Little Sturgeon, Riley's, and Sand bays as well as Sturgeon Bay itself. The water warms in these areas the earliest and seems to kick out the biggest pre-spawn bags. Once these fish start to spawn, however, your best bet is to begin moving north from Sturgeon Bay. That's not to say that you won't catch a ton of fish around Sturgeon Bay, but once the spawn starts it's much more difficult to find and catch the giants. As you move north you'll find colder water and more fish in that pre-spawn mode. Areas to check out here are the points that extend out into the bay of Green Bay along the Door County peninsula, as well as, the bays including Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, Eagle Bay and Sister Bay among others. These waters I would put into the second wave of spawning activitiy. As these areas start the spawn, it's time to move out into the Bay of Green Bay itself, looking for humps and island that will still have cooler water and the last of the spawning waves.
On the weekend of June 1st and 2nd our club planned a two-day outing that launched from Sturgeon Bay. Having just returned from our trip to Canada it was time for me to get some work done and I didn't get any time to practice. I drew Torry Rhoades as a partner for the first of our two tournaments and he was able to practice the weekend prior. His plan was to spend a day north and I had him check some water that I had done well on in the past. There were fish on the chew up there but he didn't catch any monsters. He also reported back that he hadn't seen any bedding activitiy going on up there yet. That was the key in my mind. No beds means pre-spawn fish. Just what I was looking for. As the tournament edged closer some other guys from our club began heading up and reports started trickling back about all the beds in the southern bays and reports of some guys having 100 fish days which was another plus because I knew that they would have a hard time leaving all those bedding fish to look for bigger ones. Who could blame them? 100 fish days? Geez. As we showed up the night before the tournament the dock talk going around was that they weren't catching any big fish north. Of course this was dock talk, but we're a pretty open club when it comes to information sharing. Even so, I thought there might be some sandbagging going on and with the reports that I was hearing I thought that the northern stuff should be ready to explode. Luckily, I had drawn Torry and he was eager and willing to make the run north.
Tournament day greeted us with light winds which is a God-send when you're traveling 30 miles through the Bay of Green Bay. The trip was a breeze except for the fact that I managed to get a jerkbait hooked into my rain suit within the first three minutes. When we arrived we pulled up on the main point leading into one of the bays. Water temp was in the low 50's which means perfect jerkbait temps. It didn't take long and Torry was hooked up with a nice 4+lb fish. Then another. And another. During this time I caught two small keepers. It was one of those times where you knew it was pointless to put them in the box, but I did just in case. From there we began working down the flat in about 6 ft of water. We continued to catch fish but there weren't any big ones coming aboard. From there we moved out to the second break and focused on area in about ten feet of water with a mixture of sand and rock. These areas I had done well on in the past, but Torry hadn't checked them so I wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't take long and I was able to put one in the boat around five pounds. That was really all we needed to see so we spent the next 5 hours working this area. By 12:30 both Torry and myself had the weight that we would end the day with. I was unable to make a cull after 10:30. At 12:30 we decided to run off shore to check some water out there. We found a bunch of fish but neither of us were able to upgrade our catch.
Our primary techniques for the day consisted of jerkbaiting with a little umbrella rig action to mix it up a little bit. I was able to land a few on the A-rig but none that I eventually weighed. The jerkbait carried all the weight for both Torry and myself. When it was all said and done our boat brought in 10 fish for over 46 lbs with the top six finishers all catching bags over 20lbs.
Top Five Finishers
1. Nathan Ranallo 24lbs 3oz
2. Ben Potaracke 23lbs 4oz
3. Torry Rhoades 22lbs 2oz
4. Jim Tomsovich 21lbs 9oz
5. Dave Snyder 20lbs 5oz
Big Fish honors went to Ben Potoracke with a 6lb 1oz brute.
The strangest thing about fishing the Bay of Greenbay is that even with over 24lbs of smallmouth in the box, I never felt comfortable with my weight. Any other place I've fished I wouldn't have questioned having enough to win, but I know what that place can produce having gotten my butt whipped in the Open over the past few years. Our Day Two tournament would be a different story as the weather was about to take a change for the worse. I'll tell you more about it my next post.
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