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8/30/08: Lake Oneida Recap
Lake Oneida - man, this was another tough tournament for me. It was not a struggle like Chautauqua, but tough in the sense that I had a painful practice and I had to work for all of my bites.
I practiced Firday with my buddy Bill McKelvey Jr. and the weather was awful. As we headed west across the lake we battled 3 and 4 footers most of the way - only taking a few over the sides of the boat. Despite our best efforts, the wind and waves won and spent a lot of our practice time hiding on the upwind side of the lake. To add insult to injury, we were not getting any bites. At the end of the day I did catch a smallmouth that was about 1 1/2 pounds, but that was it.
My partner for the tournament was Henry Stone who said he had some fish and was confident that we would both catch limits. I guess I learned a little from my experience on Chautauqua and was able to pinpoint and eliminate the negatives that gave me so much trouble during that tournament. So despite my less than encouraging practice day, I felt pretty good about catching a limit.
From blast-off we only ran a couple of miles west where we pulled up on a small, main lake shoal. the water was slick calm and it was raining lightly. There was also a hatch of some extremely small aquatic insects. Now rain I can handle, but these insects were about to drive me insane. All I could do was put my head down, fish, and try to ignore them - easier said than done: They were in my face, on my neck, buzzing in my ears, behind my glasses, and pretty mych everywhere else - it couldn't have been worse. then I put a nice 2.8 pound smallie in the box that I caught on a JDC Baits Gibroni and forgot about the bugs for a moment. Boats came and went as we continued to run laps on the shoal and pick fish off the shoal. I kept switching between a texas-rigged JDC Baits Gibroni and dropshotting a LaChase Baits Ribbed Morsel and slowly put five in the box.
As we headed to weigh-in I thought I had a pretty good bag, but despite everyone having a tough practice the weights were right where they should have been. My five fish only weight 8 pounds 10 ounces which was good enough for a 33rd place finish, but not what I was hoping for. The good news was I beat my good buddy John Cook by two ounces and didn't fall in the points.
The final regular season tournament is back on Champlain and I am really loking forward to this one. It is a two-day tournament and Hopefully I can make the cut. I have a couple of areas where, if the fish are on them and my partner will go to them, it will be lights-out - we both will have the opportunity to bring in 16-18 pound bags.
www.hardkorefishing.com
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