Weather: Fortunately the forecast for brutal heat was wrong. In the morning it was quite foggy with a very light drizzle, but it was over 70 degrees. It took a couple hours for the fog to go away, but it stayed overcast until around 2 when it would switch between mostly cloudy and mostly sunny. I don't think it got out of the lower 80's during the tournament day.
There was a bit of a breeze all day that would vacillate between about 3 and 10mph.
I arrived in Brainerd a bit before 5:30AM to meet my boater Dennis. My first question was if he had a life jacket for me, because I had forgotten mine. Luckily he did have one. Next thing Dennis informs me that he was given a spot to fish by one of the club members who had injured himself waterskiing and couldn't fish. The spot was supposed to hold a "super school." That sounded good.
The ride to the lake in the fog was uneventful thankfully. We didn't blast off until right around 8am, because one of the guys couldn't find the launch. We were suppose to have an idle only launch because of the fog, but some of the guys didn't get the memo and raced off. Because of this my boater Dennis decided to run to Alvin Lake. We got to Alvin in about 15 minutes and it looked fantastic. We started fishing pads, but it was dead. We pulled out on the weed flat and I got a little bass on the Repo Man. We spent about an hour and then left to go to the "super school".
We got to the spot, which was way off shore in Le Homme Dieu Lake. It was kind of a U shaped breakline with weeds. It didn't take long and Dennis had a couple of good keepers in the boat. My first bite was a rock bass on a black/blue Lake Fork Crawtube on a tube jig head. I think Dennis got had got a 3rd keeper when I put a 14" largie in the boat. Dennis told me, it was a quality keeper for the lake. Next I got a 13.75", then a 13.5" then a 12.10" before a pike broke me off. I stayed with the tube jig head but went with the color junebug instead. My first fish was a nice 15" and I got my limit with a 13.25". Around that time Dennis switched colors to one a guy in the club told him was working and on the first cast Dennis got a 3-13, which was his best fish of the day. I think I got a 14.10" on the junebug and then I tried a green pumpkin Lake Fork Crawtube that was Texas Rigged with a fairly heavy bullet sinker. I think I caught a couple of fish that didn't help, then we switched locations to one of Dennis' spots.
I culled up with a 14.50" and caught a pike, along with a few that didn't help on this spot. I believe Dennis upgraded a little bit. We worked this spot just one pass then headed to a hump in Carlos. I pulled a 16.5" that went 2-11 off the hump and Dennis missed a couple of fish. I tried a little topwater on the hump but that wasn't happening. We tried one other spot in Carlos before heading back to the super school.
At the super school I got a 15.25" to cull up some and I caught several fish that didn't help. Dennis knew he had a good bag, but probably not enough to win and the sun was starting to peak out a little bit, so he made the call to run back to Alvin. We couldn't get the big pad fish to go at all. On our way out of the lake Dennis got a small cull off of a dock as we were headed out of the lake.
It was straight back to the super school. When we arrived there was a speed boat parked right on top of one of the points/spots. We just moved over a little and started fishing. Having this boat out there served as a marker buoy for me and I was able to catch fish on 3 consecutive casts, but unfortunately none of the fish helped. We kept catching fish and I made a small cull with a 14.10 with a 14". We continued to catch fish, but they didn't help. I did miss one that might have helped me some, but it would have had to have helped me by over by 10ozs to catch the person who was in front of me. We headed to the weigh in in Bugaboo Bay at about 10 to 4PM.
Results: My weight was 10-8 and put me in 6th Place out of 22 fishermen. My boater Dennis came in 2nd with 13-4. 1st Place was Mark Munson with 14-10 and the 4-8 Big Bass.
Analysis- If I had it to do over again I think I may have only thrown the Texas rigged green pumpkin Lake Fork Craw tube as that got my 2 biggest fish. On the drive home Dennis said I was using a weight that was too heavy. He may be right as he did throw back a few fish that I could have used, although had I had those I still don't know if I would have moved up to catch 5th.
Next Bass Snatcher Tournament: July 31st Mississippi River Brainerd (Lum Park)
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