Tournament Fishing after a Fish Kill

mofish · Post by **mofish** » Fri Jun 07, 2002 9:48 pm

Two years ago on my home lake I was really catching fish and winning money in tournaments. Last year the lake had a big fish kill from Golden Algee. It hit the lake hard. Im sure some of you have read the reports in the news.

There is a 16" min on the length on Largemouth. 12" on spots and 14" on smallmouth.

Most of the tournaments that are fished on the lake set a straight across the board 16" min on all fish. Well after the fish kill the over 16" fish are few and far between. Short fish are easy to come by due to restocking. But the bigger fish are few.
How would you guys go about fishing a lake like this? BESIDES GOING SOMEWERE ELSE. What special something would you be doing to get the bigger fish that are left.

The reason I ask is not just for me. We have a Wed. night working mans tournament every week. All the fishermen are frustrated. last week we had 20 boat and three fish were brought in.

Thanks
Conley

SMbass · Post by **SMbass** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 3:14 am

One thing for definate, especially if you fish there often. Find isolated cover/structure, one that will be overlooked by most other angles. Find as many of those spots as possible, just make sure it is the best cover available in the area. A large dominant bass will alawy occupy the best cover. It can be single rock in one area, a blowdown on a slight point etc. When you find a bunch of these spots, run and gun during the tournament fishing nothing but those spots, as to increase your precentage of getting a larger bass. You said the larger bass have been hurt the most, so by fishing spots that have the best cover will have the larger bass. In that area the larger bass may not be a keeper, but its the largers bass. If you run just these spots for the entire tourney, you'll have the best chace of getting a keeper bass.

What other species died? That would be a help in determining an more specific approach to the situation, as far as patterns or lures I would use.

mofish · Post by **mofish** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 1:08 pm

Tim,

It affected just about every thing in the lake eccept the catfish. There were bass, crappie, drum and carp all over the lake. It hit the shad population real hard too. This years shad spawn will make up for that they are everywere, and I do mean everywere. I'm sure that has hurt the fishing to because there are so many small bait fish right now.

Thanks for the reply
Conley

SMbass · Post by **SMbass** » Sun Jun 09, 2002 2:30 am

One thing you may want to try in those specific areas is a drop shot rig, with a small Fin-S fish to imitate the small baitfish currently in the lake. Slow way to fish but it can be effective.

JoeMo · Post by **JoeMo** » Sun Jun 09, 2002 10:30 pm

Conley/Tim- About 5, maybe 6 years ago our Club T-Director and I drove to our upcoming tournament lake to pre-fish it. After about 5 hours of only a couple of shorts, we looked at each other and put the boat on the trailer. We had to act fast, so we went to town and sure enough we found out there had been a fish kill.
We were able to move the T to another lake, but we only had about 48 hours to notify people. Although everyone says it is healthy again, no additional tournaments have been scheduled there.
Conley, I hope it comes back.
Good Fishing, JoeMo

d.mcgarry · Post by **d.mcgarry** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 2:38 am

Small fish and small limits are frustrating. I have learned one thing years ago the philosphy was get a limit than cull, well I think the caliber of fisherman and his equipment improved quite a bit. I always am fishing for quality not quantity I want keeper bites that is why I fish a jig and pig most of the time when I believe I ahve fsih patterned. I want one quality bite per hour. Rick Clunn has tuaght me to fish without fear and you must get quality to place. I would fish High percentage areas with large baits making certant that my presentation was perfect, in a tournament like you discribed you must just catch a couple or even one and you know you have a shot at winning. Good Bassin Dan Bass

brendanc · Post by **brendanc** » Tue Jun 11, 2002 2:14 pm

Conley,

What kind of depth is in this lake? I ask because if you have some real good depth (i.e. Greater than 25 FT.) There is a good chance that the bigger fish that already live deep, may have just moved deeper. If there is not a lot of offshore structure, they will most likely roam the lake bottom and follow the baitfish around. Although it can be frustrating, if you can mark the baitfish in open water, the bass will not be far away.

Tim's drop shot rig could be effective out in the open water, but I would also suggest Carolina rigging a crankbait. You will be able to cover deeper water faster than most other guys and that may just give you a bit of an edge.

On the other hand if your lake does not support a deep-water population of bass, then you are going to be forced to fish faster and smarter then the other guys. I agree with Tim's junk fishing strategy (Finding the best isolated cover), it should give you the highest chance for bigger fish.

Something else to keep in mind is that even though the fishing may not be all you have experienced in the past, and guys are getting frustrated with the countless hours of unproductive fishing, you still are able to compete and win. It's just a tuff place to fish, so you guys should adjust your mindset going into the tournament. Instead of 5 good bites, maybe you need to be happy with 2 good bites. It stills comes down to "who does the best on that body of water on that day". If you win the tournament with 1 fish, you were able to do something that no one else could and you should be proud of that accomplishment.

Hopefully you can find them deep, if not, you guys will just have to adjust to the situation...

Fish Hard!

BC

JoeMo · Post by **JoeMo** » Tue Jun 11, 2002 11:20 pm

Guys- I really hope the people who don't post (but follow the Message Boards) take the time to read all this valuable information. There are a lot of similar lakes to this one in every state and only by thinking and bettering will the puzzle be solved for each lake. This type of analysis (with exchanges of information prior to the next weekend) was not available until the Internet became operational and anglers saw what it could
provide. In this way, no angler is alone when
he tries to break the code.
Anyone else feel like putting their own twist on how this lake might be fished?
Good Fishing. JoeMo

mofish · Post by **mofish** » Fri Jun 14, 2002 2:55 pm

I must say that the post are great! I will give these all a try. My brother won last week and Dan he was using a jig. He was the only one to bring in two fish. He did just what was said he fished the high percentage areas. But instead of running and gunning he just waited them out fishing the same area 4 or 5 different passes. I did the same fishing with tubes he just got the bigger fish. We had 20 boat again and there were at least 5 fish this time.

THanks again for the post you gave me some helpful info. I like the one about Carolina Rigging a Crankbait haven't done that in a long time I need to give it a try again.

That brings me to drop shotting. I have tried this with no success on this lake. I'm not saying it wont work. But I have had no fish on it yet. You would think with all the Boat Docks on this lake it would so Im going to keep trying.

Thaks again
Conley