August continued to be hot on Lake Norman. With air temperatures in the upper 90s and the water temperature ranging from 85-90 degrees. The first day of practice started off great with a couple of fish on a white buzzbait. I also caught several fish on shoals working a ½ oz. spinner bait around and under bait fish. As the day progressed I switched to a 3/8 oz. jig with an avocado Zoom Super Chunk. This produced four nice
2½ – 3 pound spotted bass. For the buzz bait and spinner bait I was using a 7’ medium heavy St. Croix Legend Tournament Rod with a Johnny Morris Signature Series Reel. The reel was spooled with 17 pound Bass Pro Shops Excel Monofilament Line. For the jig I used a 7’ medium heavy St. Croix Legend Elite Rod with a Johnny Morris Elite Series Reel. This reel had 17 pound XPS Fluorocarbon Line. For the next two days of practice I continued to expand on the buzz bait and dock pattern. I also found that there were several bass chasing bream around their beds. I was able to use a small Berry’s Prop Bait to catch the bass around the bream beds.
The competition started out well. I had four fish on the prop bait and lost one other nice fish on the same bait. I was unable to get any keeper bites from the docks with the jig. I finished the day with just over 8 pounds and was in the top 30. The second day proved to be more difficult. I caught two fish and lost three on the way to the net while using the prop bait. This poor execution dropped me out of the top 30.
