I had been looking forward to this event for several months. I really wanted to win back-to-back events. After several days of practicing I had discovered that October, no matter what, is still a difficult time to fish Table Rock. It is the time of year when the thermo cline breaks up, and the fish are very scattered. My plan was to fish as many spots as I could, deep and shallow, during the course of the day.
The first day of the tournament the water temperature was around 70 degrees and clear. The air temperature was in the 70s with a sunny sky and slight north wind of 10 mph. I started the day throwing a Bass Pro Shops Tender Tube on shallow gravel points. I threw the small tube on a St. Croix Legend Tournament 7’ M spinning rod with a Johnny Morris Signature Series Spinning Reel. I was using 8 pound XPS Fluorocarbon Line. I spent about an hour on these types of points, but they only produced small fish. I then switched to a ½ oz. War Eagle blue herring spinner bait. I still had no success. I pulled out my drop shot and went to try and catch my limit. It took two hours to put five keepers in the boat. After the fifth one was in I switched tactics to try and catch some bigger largemouth. This produced nice largemouth with one weighing 4.73 lbs. and the other one almost 3 lbs.. I finished the day with 14.12 lbs. and was in fifth place. The second day of the event started off a little better with two nice smallmouth on a football jig, and I also had two nice chunky bass on a spoon. I then switched to the spinner bait and caught four nice largemouth that were keepers. I was in third place after day two. Well, I was in a good position to win back-to-back tournaments, so I put away the sissy stuff and went for fifteen pounds. Unfortunately the spinner bait bite was not on. So, without a fish at 12:30 I thought I better do something a little different. I picked up a War Eagle heavy finesse jig and put three fish in the boat that weighed 9.16 lbs.. I just wish I would have made this decision sooner, because I felt that I would have caught two more fish if I would have had another hour. I finished the event in fifth place.
