Today Quin and I fished the Sam Houston State University Big Bass Bash. It was one of the tournaments in the Boat U.S. collegiate tournament trail. The tournament was on Lake Conroe, which is north of Houston, TX. We had never see this lake before let a lone fished this lake. With high winds being predicted by the weather man we werent sure what to expect.
We got to the launch ramp around 5:30 AM since we had left my aunt and uncles home in Tomball pretty early. This gave us enough time to go through the tackle and figure out what our game plan would be. We started by firing up the Humminbird and looking at the map of the lake. We decided to run a ways down the lake and find coves and points.
As for the tackle we tied on Stanley Wedge spinnerbaits, the hot colors for the day were golden perch and white/ chartreuse. Two rods with Carolina rigs with Skinny Bear flukes and brush hogs. (sounds a lot like that Falcon report huh?) We also threw a Manns Baby T Minus crankbait in shad pattern. There are shad ALL over the lake right now due to their spawn, and since Conroe is pretty shallow in most coves the Baby T Minus worked perfectly for us. And last but not least we tied on a oz Shakey head with a Margarita Mutilator Roboworm.
The big producers for the day that helped fill the livewell was the shakey head and the Spinnerbaits. (by far the Stanley spinnerbaits, they accounted for 90% of the keeper fish)
We started off by gunning the throttle right at 6:30AM and heading towards the golf course. We were targeting boat docks fishing tight to the pilings. Lets just say we were feeling pretty damn good when we had two keepers in the livewell by 7:30 AM! Quin caught both of them off of spinnerbaits. I lost two, and stuck one that ended up being 15 and inches. I kid you not, it never fails the size limit was 16 and I had to catch a fish that was less than a quarter of an inch shy of going on the culling clip.
After exhausting that cove we moved to some other similar coves but only caught undersize fish, and due to the sun coming out the morning bite died.
After giving up on coves we decided to go with what worked for us last month on Lake Lewisville. We hit up the marinas and fished super tight in the docks. I literally pitch baits into opening in the docks no bigger than a foot wide, over dock lines, and into crack between the dock floats and supports. It is super nice to be spooled up with McCoys 100% fluorocarbon for this! I use the 17# test paired up with a light weight, but super strong backbones Rainshadow RX8+ bass blank and a Curado 50e to get the fish out quickly. The McCoy line is super abrasion resistant, I did not loose a single fish or bait all day due to nicks or cuts in the line. I usually retie every hour or so, but not as often as some anglers.
We were throwing spinnerbaits as far back as we could in the slips and hitting them against all kinds of stuff! The Stanley Wedge spinnerbaits held up great! The skirts never wore out, very little paint chipped off and none of the eyes fell out of the leadhead.
It was a slow pick throughout the day. We did manage to do extremely well! Between Quin and I we caught about 20+ bass. I did pretty well myself if I do say so. I put a 4.3, a 3.45, and a 2+ pound fish in the boat. Quin ended up putting a 3.1 and a 1+ pound Spotted bass. Quin put a few others in the livewell but we managed to cull them! It was such a nice change of pace to actually get the cull clips out and stick em through some pissed off basss lips!
At around 12:30 with only a few hours left to fish I nailed a Swamp Donkey! casting into an empty slip I nailed the 4 pounder on a white and chartreuse Stanley spinnerbait right under the float for the dock. I honestly thought I had hooked a Gar when she took off, since I fish 17 # test I button the drag way down on my reels. This fish peeled off a good twenty feet of line before I could turn her head! As soon as she came to the surface and jumped we freaked out! Quin did a perfect net job and had that fish in the livewell faster than Obama can spend our tax dollars! We knew at that point that we had found one of the kicker fish we were looking for. With a solid weight in the boat we were pretty happy. We managed a few more little fish before weigh in, but nothing to cull the 1.5 ish pound spotted bass that was in the boat.
Being that this is Sam Houston States home lake, and they are a very good club we knew things would be tough. Sure enough, less than a pound separated the top 5 teams. We ended up placing 4th for day one. Unfortunately good ol Baylor makes college students take these things they call Finals next week. (yeah, whodathunkit, tests in college!) So we had to head back today to study and will not get a chance to go for the win. But wed like to wish some luck to all the other teams fishing this weekend!
As always, sponsors play a huge part in our fishing. With it taking a C note to fill up the truck, its is nice to be covered for some of your tackle. And sure enough, it was Stanley Jigs inc.s Spinnerbaits that worked their magic for us!
A HUGE thanks to
Skinny Bear Tackle
Manns Bait Co,
Culprit Bait
Roboworm
Stanley Jigs
Batson Enterprises
North Fork Composites
Bullard Int.
Costa Del Mar Sunglasses
Ardent Reels
McCoy Premium Fishing Line
Seaguar Fluorocarbon
Earthsports.com
Bass King clothing
Hodges Capital Management
Diamond Pacific Construction
Owner Hooks
Unibutter
Cablz
Power Tackle
