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Darin Roddick-Small's Tournament Journal

Darin Roddick-Small, FutureBass Pro Staff
Bayview Bassmasters Lake Wisconsin Open
June 2^nd, 2007

Preparation
For this event, I was unable to get out on the water and do any prefishing. In stead, I relied on my notes and what the water and weather conditions were like to determine what I would be doing. Based on those things, I would pattern some main lake structure and submerged timber to put together a limit of fish and hope that my bigger fish are where they should be. Also, looking back on my notes, I decided that I would start off by having the following tackle rigged up on my deck for the tournament.

            2Brovarney Baits Swim jigs in the following colors: Blue Devil and Crank
            1 Brovarney Baits Thumper Jig in Sweetness pattern
            2 Venom Dream Craws in the different colors
            1 Venom Tube in June bug

The Tournament
The day of the tournament started off with cloudy skies and rain threatening off in the distance. We all were hoping for it to hold off so we could run to our first spots. Luckily for us it did. When we got to out first spot, we could hear the rumblings of thunder and we knew it would not be long before the skies opened up on us. We started by fishing Brovarney baits swim jigs in shallow grass to start our day off. Within minutes, we had our first fish. It was a shorter small mouth about 13 inches long, no help. We continued to work the area catching a few short fish here and there. Time to switch spots.

We went to the next bay I had planed on fishing. My partner continued to throw the swim jig, while I switched over to a Venom Dream Craw. Moments later, I picked up my first short fish of the day. We continued down the shore and worked each area. When we reached the last docks, I flipped my dream craw right next to a pole and slammed back on my rod. I swung a 2-½ pounder into the boat. Not a bad fish to start with. At this point, we were about an hour in and we were hoping to have maybe found the key to the fish, we were wrong.

We fished the rest of the area with no luck and during this time, the skies opened up. This rain would continue for the next 3 hours. We then traveled across the bay and worked some submerged wood and it was here where the story of the day would develop. I pitched into the middle of this tree and my line got real heavy. I set the hook and my hand that was on the crank came off. To compensate, I started to run to the back of the deck and try to set the hook like that. Needless to say, it did not work. A solid three pounder proceeded to come unbuttoned right next tot the boat. That would be the first of four fish in this range that I would lose that day.

Unhappy with what had just happened, we continued to fish. We ended up jumping from place to place working different areas to catch our 7 fish limit. Every time we thought we had developed a pattern, the fish changed their minds. We would catch two or three fish on a swim jig, then nothing. When we switched to flipping plastics, we would catch a few more. All in all, we had to use about six different techniques to catch our fish, with the most numbers being caught on the swim jigs and the biggest being caught on the dream craws. We also caught two legal bass on the Venom Salty Sling, when things got really tough.  

If you have any questions about anything that I wrote about here, please feel free to contact me via email, or PM me on the message board and I will respond to you in a reasonable time. I would also encourage you to check out www.brovarneybaits.com for the swim jigs I used, and www.venomlures.com to check out the Dream Craws, and their Salty Slings.

Tight Lines and God Bless,
Darin Roddick-Small