7/16/11

With your highs come your lows


6/23/11

The Boston Whaler aka the Bass inhaler
The very next tournament after my first place finish with the Bass Amushers was at Lopez Lake at the end of June. I did some research before to the tournament by calling the Marina (805) 489-1006 and asking them a few questions. The information that I gathered that I thought would be useful was the fact that there were no more closed off coves since the spawn was over. Water temperature was in the 70's and the Lake is up 8 feet from the 13 inches of rain that it got this winter. 

A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. 
What I thought would be a key to victory was the fact that the Arroyo Grande arm of the lake was no longer closed off. I figured these fish have not been pressured by anglers much and decided it would be a great place to start. I didn't expect the fish to be in full summer mode because the weather has been so mild this year. The one thing I didn't know was if the fish were in post spawn I am not going to bite mode, or post spawn FEED ME mode.

Started with some senkos, topwater revo, spinnerbait with some success. My dad caught one right off the bat on a spinnerbait then not much time later caught one on a senko. So I figured we had a good pattern going, shallow water senkos and spinnerbaits. This was again reassured by a keeper I caught on a senko. The problem was the bite died off and we didn't make the right adjustments.

He is starting to look like a bass fisherman ladies and gentlemen.
The winner kicked everyones BASS big time by a margin I have never seen before. With 22 pounds of bass he left everyone in the dust by 12 pounds! He was fishing the main lake and caught them on spinnerbaits and drop shoting. I think the key was he fished the main lake which probably had a summer pattern going on, shallow early then deeper later on. I was impressed after bringing in only one keeper for the day. The winner is our clubs current Angler of the Year so he knows what he is doing. It is encouraging to think that you can reach a level of skill that can set you apart from the pack by 12 pounds.

The drive back from the lake. 
One of the positives for the day was my dad had his best turn out yet. He brought two keepers to the scales and beat me.

7/15/11

Life is Like Fishing...everytime you turn around someone is trying to hook you!

Here little fishy fishy...

Here in the real world, with my two feet on the ground, I often feel like the fish. It's a little bit of a role reversal and maybe that's why I like fishing so much it gives me the chance to do the hooking! Speaking of hooking part of the reason I was inspired to write this entry was the fact that I was just in Las Vegas. Everywhere I turned someone or something was trying to lure me in to giving them my money! "Hey you! Check this out, put your money in here, I can show you a great time but I need $2,000. Go wait in that line or give me $100 and you're in. DAM you hot, let's hang out...but I need your money." I felt like a 3 inch sucker fish in a giant pool filled with 9 pound hungry bucketmouth fatties.

Vegas knows how to seduce you and finesse you into a money spending daze like no where else in the world. If I was a lure designer I would travel to Vegas to study the many ways they use to lure people in, get them to bite and bring them to the boat. Is it the flashy lights? The color red which you see everywhere, the margaritas in the foot long plastic cups, the amount of walking you do to get anywhere, the water fountains, pirate shows, bars that do not close, the beautiful women in bikinis smiling at you making you feel like Burt Reynolds or a combination of all those things, whatever it is it works.

Anglerfishes are members of the teleost order Lophiiformes. They are bony fishes named for their characteristic mode of predation, wherein a fleshy growth from the fish's head (the esca or illicium) acts as a lure; this is considered analogous to angling. Doesn't the angler fish remind you of Las Vegas and we are represented my little nemo. "Get out of there it's a trap!"

In a way it's depressing because you want to think people are being nice to you because they are genuinely interested in who you are, but you begin to realize everyone is after the small 6 and 3/16 inch green things in your wallet. Call it paranoia, but that is how I felt. It's definitely not just Vegas the rest of the world is this way as well and I have come to accept it. Money makes the world go round, it is just ever more apparent in Vegas where everything is bigger and magnified! I am glad to be out of sin city and have a chance to go fishing, where I am more comfortable being the hooker then the hookie.

Skyman out.

References:
Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2006). "Lophiiformes" in FishBase. February 2006 version.

7/4/11

That's a nice sack you got there!

When I started fishing again I wrote down a couple of goal's I had for myself and one of them was to win a tournament. I did not expect this to happen to me yet because my knowledge of the sport and  the techniques are still in their teenage years. Well, sometimes life hands you things when you are not expecting it and that's what happened to me at Santa Margarita Lake April 23, 2011.

This was a spring time tournament meaning shallow water bass bonanza! I reviewed my Santa Margarita Lake map and looked for some good shallow water flats. The back end of the lake, which is called the river, has the most productive water for this time of year. With the amount of rain we got this winter, there would be lots of newly flooded vegetation, great for spawning bass.

My go to lure would be the senko in watermelon with red/black flakes, pitched at isolated clumps of weeds and trees. I like the five inch size senko because I read in the book, Knowing Bass The Scientific Approach to Catching More Fish, by Keith A. Jones, PhD, that a bass's strike response is greater to soft plastics in the 4" to 5" length.



Driving up to the lake early in the morning with my dad I realized I had not gone to the ATM the night before to get enough money for all the options.  Time being an issue, I decided to just get in the basic tournament option which is $ 25. When we arrived at the lake I talked with the tournament director and he informed me a lot of good sticks were fishing this tournament and there was about 40 people in all. Whoops. Should have borrowed $ from pops, it was the chance for a nice check.

The day started off great! It was one of those days that I'll probably remember forever. I had a limit by 10:30 am. Once we were in the right stretch of water, it was fish after fish. I was calling out where I thought a fish would be, casting there and hooking into them. I was the Babe Ruth of Bassin that day! With success in life comes a few failures along the way and even this day had a few. I lost a couple good fish one that could have been big fish of the tournament. The big one I lost kind of popped off leading me to believe my drag was a little too tight. I also noticed my hook sets weren't that strong which I believe is because my rod is a little short; ) I use a 6'6" rod when I should probably be using a 7 footer. My final weight for the day was 18.14 pounds, one hell of a bass sack, good enough for first place out of 39 guys!

My culling system. Those are some big bass baby!
Another lesson learned this trip was about fishing etiquette. As the saying goes in life, treat others the way you want to be treated, same rules apply in fishing. Give others their space and don't be nosey while the tournament is going on. I had another fisherman who I had a small conversation with earlier in the day kind of mosey over my way when he noticed me catching fish. He asked me what I was doing, which I should have ignored but since I fish for the thrills not to pay my bills, I told him. I would never ask another angler what he was using and get close to him while he was fishing. At the end of the day I might ask a few questions, but definitely not during the competition.

The ride back to the weigh in. 

Pops with a good sack!
Feeling like a bass boss!
Now that's a sack! 
Since I was the champion I got to do an interview with Wayne Shaw the outdoor writer for the local paper. On the phone he was very nice and I told him the story of how I caught the fish and the techniques that I used, but like society tends to do he focused on the negatives in his article. Really rubbing it in that I did not get in all the money options. To be honest, I thought that by being in the basic tournament option I would be able to win some money, but so sorry:( Anyway, I lost out on $435 but like I said earlier I fish for the thrills not to pay my bills.

Bass Ambushers Article in the Tribune

Below is another article Wayne wrote about me when I was in high school. He is kind of a hater.