CBAF Federation Cup

I belong to the Canadian Bass Anglers Federation . Its a great organization that enables anglers interested in getting involved in tournament fishing an opportunity to get their feet wet at a reduce cost. In addition, the opportunity for those who don't have boats to be paired up with some accomplished anglers and learn the ropes so to speak.

The CBAF had their main year-end event called the federation cup on Bay of Quinte(BoQ). Its a great event with plenty of socializing with other members and more importantly, a lot of fishing. BoQ is a great fishery. Its not uncommon to hook over 30 largemouth in a day.


I headed out for a few days of pre-fish and located a number of great spots. Unfortunately I used last years experience of multiple hook-ups and stung alot of fish thinking that I'd clear a away the 2-3 pounders as an 18 pound bag per day is generally required to finish respectably. That plan didn't entirely work out. The lake had the signs of turnover and the fish were scattered. Not to mention the weather had a significant negative impact on the bites. Lets just say I had a fantastic pre-fish but not so good event. I finished 47th out of 79 boats with a two day total of 20.53 lbs. I stung just way to many fish on pre-fish. Ah well, great learning.

A decent finish at Stoney Lake Combo

Well, I've arrived home safe and sound from a three day fishing trip (2 tournament days and 1 pre-fish) and have regained sufficient alertness to write a follow-up post. Tournament fishing is tons of fun, buts its also a ton of hard work. I would suspect you cast 1000 times more than on a leisure trip.

This is our second year at the Stony event. Year one was a dismal failure for us. We placed dead last. In fact, we scored an ego shattering -1 as a result of some misread rules on length of fish by specie. We were also new to tournament fishing and as a result, indecision and frustration permeated the day. The long drive home after-wards was... lets put it this way, depressingly subdued contrasted with the occasional flurry of words not suitable for public viewing. Suffice it to say, our goal this year was to redeem ourselves. Anything above 60th place would make us happy. Fortunately we did better than that.

My Stony tourney (correct spelling BTW) partner Aaron only fishes one tournament a year and Stony is it. We managed to put together a two day total of 20.13 pounds which was good for 24th spot out of 126 boats. Not in a pay spot, but worth more to us than the money. We walked away with a repaired ego and vastly improved sense of confidence! Priceless.

The weather for the tournament was unstable. Saturday was a considerable improvement over the cold and bitter Northeast winds we faced on the Friday pre-fish. Sunday was dark and rainy for the majority of the day.

We threw a variety of baits and the top producers for us was spinner baits, jigs and drop shots. I took to throwing a spook and other various top waters but the fish just weren't into heading to the surface for any slow moving presentation. We fished the spinner baits fast and close to the surface and they seemed to like that instead.

Fortunately during pre-fish we found an early morning spot that provided us with a couple of quality keeper fish on both days. I've discovered this year that a spot with a perfect combination of structure, cover and food will usually replenish with new fish the following day. They're rare to find, at least for me, and are a huge advantage to setting the tone and confidence level early in the game.

Saturday the fishing was consistent until around 2 o'clock. Most of our fish were smallmouth caught in 4-6 feet of water over rock points. We needed one more fish to make our 5 but we couldn't find him. So our weight was one fish short day 1 for a total of 8.12lbs.

Sunday fishing was good first thing as I mentioned above, but it slowed down within a few hours. The ironic thing about a confidence bait is that because of your trust in it, you end up over using it when you should change up your tactics. We had 2 fish in the box (early morning spot fish)by 7:30. We fished hard and realized things weren't happening for us, it was now almost 12:30 and our cut off was 2pm. We decided to drastically change things up and head to deeper mid-lake humps and drop shot. Good decision. We hook and land a fish just shy of 4 pounds and manage to nail 4 other quality fish where we culled two. Incidentally, we heard during the after tournament gathering on day 1, that the lake had turned over. I'm not familiar with all the characteristics of what a turn over lake looks like, but I do know the fish scatter at various depths. We caught many just shy of tournament sized fish in 30+ foot depth supporting the turn over notion.

So all in all, a great result that we're happy with. I can't say enough about the Stony lake Combo tournament and organizers. Ken Hamilton, one of the main organizers is a great guy. Its a unique tournament where everyone gets a prize. There are lunker pools for each day and a two $625.00 draws, at no additional charge. A great value in my books ($160.00 entry fee per team plus optional $20.00 daily lunker pool).

Looking forward to next year.

DUB FX Bristol

While I certainly enjoy Tournament Bass Fishing and dedicate alot of realestate on this site to the subject, the overall theme are things that I find cool and interesting.

I love music and am also a musician. (Played tons of gigs in my younger years which earned me enough money to go to school and get a real job ;) So, that said, this site will also share some space with things I find cool (on any subject really). My latest discovery are these fellas from London England playing an outdoor gig in Bristol.

They're extremely talented and I can tell extremely passionate about their music. They use electronic samplers that enable you to record snippets of sound and layer them on the fly. In this case the only actually instruments are Dub FX voice and his cool partner playing the sax, Mr. Woodnote.

Enjoy, its a great song

Stony Lake Combo Tournament

Hello All,

I'm heading to this years annual Stony Lake Combo Tournament. Its one of the years best tournaments organized as a charity event by the Douro-Dummer Volunteer fire-fighters association. All proceeds go towards great causes and I'm happy to be a part of it. There's a food and beer tent for registration day and after the weigh ins each night (Two day event). Additionally it includes the ability to include walleye in your bag count ( max 5 fish total of either bass or Walleye. Only two walleye over 18" allowed to conform with MNR slot regulations)

If you haven't been to Stony Lake in the Kawarthas, its a gem of resource. An absolutely gorgeous lake with a variety of structure and cover environments that should satisfy every multi-specie angler. Some of the shorelines are absolutely spectacular, in particular the area around Hells Gate (A name that should instill caution in the casual boater - Its called Stony for a reason and I'm sure this lake has consumed more than its share of props and lower end units). Should you find yourself in the unfortunate position of sacrificing a motor to underwater demons, there's an Island Catholic Church offering a consoling venue for repent.

This is my second year at the tournament. Last year was a dismal showing for us and my partner and I aim to redeem our poor performance. There's a lot of interesting stories about that experience that I'm saving to write about when the season is done and over. Don't want to jinx myself for a second time. A great learning that I think any new Tournament bass competitor could benefit from.

In any event, I'm looking forward to fishing this tournament and I'll be sure to nod my cap as I pass by good ole St. Peters Church, I could use all the help I can get for both the fishing and my lower unit ;)

Cheers

Flavio

BASSMANIA CLASSIC XIII

My partner and I entered the BM100 (for boats with 115 horse power or less) series this year for a chance to Fish the BASSMANIA XIII CLASSIC held on the Tri-lakes (Pigeon, Upper and Lower Buckhorn and Chemong Lakes). Our season started slow with some mediocre, head scratching weights, but we fought our way up to a respectable finish of 6th place overall after 4 events. This earned us the privilege to fish the Classic in our first full dedicated season of tournament bass fishing.

Going to the Classic was a great experience with the added opportunity to talk to and fish against some of the best anglers in Ontario. During the opening orientation meeting I got a chance to meet the cream of the crop. Mike Desforges, Doug Brownridge, Ceasar Ruscio(a broken rod story later), David Chong and many other notable top tournament anglers were present and to say that I was excited and honoured is definitely an understatement.

Our first day we scored an underwhelming roughly 7.5 pound mixed bag of large and smallmouth. My pre-fish the week earlier had me zeroing in on rock\weed transition areas with prime strike zones seemingly in 10 to 12 feet of water. That pattern seemed to hold for the pre-fish the day prior to the event so my partner and I decided to stick with that plan. It didn't work out as expected. The weather was beautiful, for sun bathing that is. It was a hot and sunny blue bird day with water as flat as a pancake, not really conducive to good fishing. Top weight at the end of the day was 20 lbs, so we knew someone had figured them out. We certainly had our work cut out for us the next day.

Day two had us trying for bigger smallmouth off deeper rock shoals. Again, the sky was cloudless and the water clear as gin. We could see at least 12 feet down and knew the fish could see us, so we headed to deeper water in the hopes of hooking unsuspecting bronze backs. Nothing.... It was still early, maybe an hour or so into the event. I knew we had to drastically change our our game plan as we suspected we needed at least fifteen lbs to make the cut for the final day. (Turned out to be 19 lbs!!! ouch!!) Checkin was 4pm, an extra hour more than usual. I can't begin to describe how fast checkin time comes around on a tourney day. Seems like a snap of the fingers. It goes by so fast!!

I scanned the horizon for any visible cover or structure and noticed a small offshore island of cane. With it being so bright and clear, overhead cover might be the ticket the bass were looking for to shield them from the penetrating sun. We planed our way over and cut the main engine just short of a hundred yards from the edge of the cane. Our slow approach had us tossing spinnerbaits to cover some water for any aggressive fish. The cane island had a perfect combination of openings covered with some slop and we started pitching and flipping our baits. As we made our way to the point, I got my first subtle "tick" and set the hook hard on a one and half pounder. Not big, but it was one for the box and boosted our confidence. Just what we needed to get the ball rolling! We push a few meters further around the island, made some targeted casts and suddenly I sensed a second subtle "Tick" and proceeded to boat flip another largemouth that was slightly bigger at just shy of 2 lbs. Okay...things are looking good, we're making some quick progress. We press on and a few moments later my partner let loose on an aggressive strike with another clone fish just shy of 2 pounds. Fantastic!!! The excitement level was high and we had three fish in the box for just under 15 minutes of pitching and flipping. We continued on until we fished the entire circumference of that small cane island and decided to go for one more pass around. This time we choose different baits and heavier worm weights in order to get into the farthest reaches of pockets.

My partner Ryan decided to target the really thick stuff. Within seconds of his cast he snapped back a hard hook set on a beautiful 3.5 pound largie. Wow!! Our second time through and we're getting bigger fish. Suffice it to say we were pumped and the adrenaline flowed freely!!. A few moments later I cast into an adjacent opening and let my power worm settle to the bottom. Sawing it back and forth amongst the cane I felt the slightest little tick. That kind of strange sensation that's so subtle but which triggers your brain to instinctively shout at your body to set the hook... and hard!!! Another bright green three pounder in the box!

In just under 25 minutes we had boated roughly 12.5 pounds and still enjoyed several hours before weigh-in. We continued on around that little island but the bites died off. Even still, we couldn't have been happier. Not only had we a great limit to start the day with, but our confidence was significantly boosted and as we all know, confidence is 99.9% of the game.

That short and exciting experience perfectly set the tone and mindset to find new water in search for that lurking monster that would be needed to get us past the cut off. Unfortunately we didn't end up finding him but we had such a great time and learned a ton. We started our event at 85th position and ended in 51st out of 116 boats. Not a bad day in our books and those 25 minutes is what keeps you coming back.

Cheers

Flavio

A world of opposites - developing a pattern

After numerous pre-fishes and basically hitting a new lake that I've never fished before for a majority of the 09 tournament calendar, I've come up with somewhat of a loose formula for trying to figure out the fishery as efficiently as I can. It occured to me that its really a matter of opposites:

Deep- Shallow
Fast - Slow
Big - Small
Light - Dark

With that in mind I have 8 rods rigged for each of those circumstances and through-out the day try to get it down to one choice from each group.

Cold Front Reward

Headed out yesterday to Pigeon for the first time to get a sense of the water and location. I'm fishing a tourney on the tri lakes this coming weekend and wanted to first and foremost scan for prop killing obstacles. Thats basically my pre-fish strategy...find prop killers and they usually hold fish ...two birds(bass)one stone kinda thing;)!!Anyways I picked probably the strongest cold front day in a while to go fishing. Water temps were average 65f, wind changing from North West to East back to North through-out the day and blowing 15-20+ knots and on and off again cold rain.Really tough boat control to say the least...anyways found some calmer water and fished real slow...managed a decent day with lots of 1.5-2 lb's a few healthy 2.5-3's and a nice kicker that I didn't weight but I figure 4+. Not a bad day and look at the lake considering the weather, couple pics attached of a couple fish...couldn't work the camera well for the others in the rain.CheersFlavio