Bass Weekend Series Crash and Burn - Mark Lamb

Hello Bass fishing fans. After a few days of stewing over my 1st Bass Weekend Series of the year, I thought I would share with you when things do not work out.

I just finished up fishing Lake Wylie for my 1st major tournament of the year. I pretty much fish 12 months out of the year and use club events to keep me tuned into what the fish are doing. As most parts of the country has experienced, we have had a pretty brutal winter here in the southeast. Don't get me wrong, we do have the ocassional snow, but as I type this blog we are getting our 3rd or 4th. I mean this is NC, where it can be in the teens at night and spike up to 60 degrees in a 3 day pattern. But not this year.

The lakes around here have been at full pool or above since the fall. With the cold temps and wet winter, it has left our lakes in the high 30's and low 40's and very stained. Since the majority of our lakes are all largemouth, this has made the bite extremely slow. However, due to some lakes with warm water discharges, I have been able to stay on the water and keep the bites coming. Slow, but still getting bit. Now off to Wylie at the NC/SC border.

I practiced for last weeks event on Valentine's weekend without a bite. I pretty much wrote this off because of the tomato soup color of the water and recent snow fall the night before. I then practiced again the Friday before the event. Water temps were in the mid to high 40's, water clarity was stabilizing and some fish were moving. I practiced the typical Winter pattern and those techniques that did well on the lake in previous tournaments. Normally this would consist of main lake points and pockets, and secondary points and pockets at the mouth of major creek arms. Baits of choice are usually, jerkbaits, spinnerbaits, jigs and crankbaits, all looking for that suspending large mouth bite. I only had 2 bites in practice but they were a 3.5# and 4.5#. I expected a grind it out tournament, but not what I got.

Tournament day temp is 30 at blast off and expected to be in the 50s. Pretty much what it had been for 3 days. Water temps are in the high 40s and close to 50. I expect that fishing will be slow but think I can bit on some transition areas where some of the suspending fish will move up....Whatever I did on Sat. did not work. I think at one point I had 15 rods on the deck. In the end, i just never got a bite. I know I only fish this lake once a year but I felt like my skills of adapting and junk fishing my way to a few bites would have really paid off. A blow to my psyche and ego was really all I gained in the end.

Now a few days later, I am actually over it. I am looking forward more than ever to get back on the water to exact my revenge on those finiky green creatures. It also helped after I found out how difficult the bite really was. It took a little over 16#to win but the local won by throwing a T-rig chartreuse grub in open water pockets... Really? That is something that I just do not have the experience for on this body of water.. There were 57 total boats, out of that there were 5 limits, 13 zeros, 1 4 fish boat and then the remaining were 3 fish and under. Even our resident State butt kicker, David Wright only managed 1 fish...So I take this in stride and will file this one away... and not look back...