This past weekend I fished 2 tournaments at Pymatuning Lake. The Keystone Bass Buddy Circuit (KBBC) was there on Saturday, and Sunday I fish in the West Penn Bass Hunters club tournament.
Saturday dad and I ran to one of our favorite weed beds that also has some lilly pads. We had little or no success until we decided to run to a community hole to catch some fish. It didn’t take long and we caught 3 nice keepers. One was a nice 4.46lbs. At that point it was 9:30 and we had a great start. The size limit in the tournament was 13 inches, but dad and I had agree not to keep anything under 15 inches. What a mistake. Through out the day up to 10:00am we only release 5 legal fish because we were concerned that they would die because of the spawn. All of them were in the 13 to 14 inch range. At 1:00 I caught our 4th keeper. We were allowed to fish until 3:30 and needed to fill the limit. I lost 1 keeper late in the day, but we never filled our limit. We need up finishing 33rd and only 1.6lbs off collecting a check. This may be the dumbest thing Dad and I have ever done fishing a tournament. Everybody makes mistakes, but too release keepers is just stupid. Overall it was a very valuable lesson because more than likely it cost us a 14th place finish and a decent check.
Sunday I was looking for a little redemtion. I started by fishing for smallmouth. I only managed to catch 1 keeper in 1 1/2 hours so I decided to jump spot to spot. I managed to catch 6 more keepers from 9:30 to 11:30. I still only had 1 good fish and 2 14 inchers. The spot jumping continued and I caught nothing. Around 1:45 I revisited a community hole that had produced nothing in the morning, but I knew there were good fish in the area. I caught 10 keepers in the last hour of the tournament on top water. Throwing buzzbaits was not only exciting, but extremely fun. The reason I believe that it worked was the cold front had pasted and the sun was very warm. I ended up winning the tournament with a 3 fish limit that weighed 7.64lbs and I had lunker which was 3.25lbs. Without my last hour I don’t even finish in the top 5.
