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Darin Roddick-Small's Tournament Journal |
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Darin
Roddick-Small Futurebass Pro Staff Before
arriving at the August 19th
Saturday I started of
fishing some wood in a back channel that was located near the launch
and started by throwing a swim jig. I worked this for a little while
and then decided to abandon it after making the call that the water
was too muddy to be favorable for this bite. I also noted that the
water temperature was a mild 75 degrees and knew that this was way
down for earlier (I was told later that the water temp had dropped
over ten degrees in the past week). I switched over to flipping some
plastics into the lay downs. It wasn’t more than 5 minutes and I
tagged my first large mouth. I continued to work the shoreline and
picked up a few other large mouths on the same bank. I left after
working the rest of the channel and noted the factors that I found to
be holding the fish in that area. The depth, current flow and location
of the tree on the shore all played a factor. Also, only certain types
of lay downs were holding fish. I worked my way
up the river checking different channels with wood trying to find
which ones were holding fish, constantly paying close attention to the
details with every bite that I had. I knew these were highly pressured
fish and the fine details will play an important role in unlocking the
secret. I found my second
good pocket of fish in a new type of area and with a new pattern. I
located some fish on a riprap shoreline with added water flowing into
it. I stumbled on some small mouth bass and large mouths in this area.
It produced my largest bass on this pool, which was about a 2-¼ pound
small mouth. These fish, I caught on a red craw colored crank bait,
one of my favorite patterns for muddy to stained water. This
particular bait also has a louder rattle to it, which I like for this
type of water. At about 2:30, I
worked my way up to the lock and dam that is at the top of pool 14. On
my way up, the crowd from pool 13 was on its way down. There was a
monsterous amount of boats that came through. It was an interesting
site. It was obvious what the locals saw as the best pool. I fished up
around the dam for the next half hour and did not catch a fish I never
saw any of the other boats either, and they were on ever conceivable
spot you could think of. I ended my day
going south of the launch, looking for areas that were similar to the
spots I found holding fish earlier. I located a couple of other cuts
where I caught solid fish. I then decided to head back to the launch
and check out the results from the tournament and get some food. The results for
the tournament included a winning weight of just over 15 ½ pounds for
first and the to ten was around 11-12 pounds. Many of the anglers I
talked to had some interesting things to say about what was happening
on the water. Some of which I decided to use the next day, and some I
did not. That, I will discuss later. A
Day in Perspective August 20th
Sunday Remembering what
I had come across the day before, I started looking for similar
locations. That is, the right amount of timber, water, and current. I
then started flipping plastics into those areas. About ten minutes in,
I felt a taker. I slammed back and felt the fish, but it had taken me
into some tree roots. I finally eased off to see if the fish would
swim out of the snag. Well, it did, but without my hook in its mouth.
I continued to work up the bank to the next lay down. After pitching
my offering into the log, my line started to swim off to the right. I
set the hook and brought in a nice three-pound large mouth. I was
starting to like this pool. I fished a few more areas around this spot
but had no more takers. I continued to
work my way up the river stopping at a variety of different locations,
looking for what I considered to be the “right conditions”. I
found this one little slough up farther that was loaded with fish. I
caught 4 large mouths out of it in about ten minutes, and they weighed
in at about 10 pounds. I left right after that because I noticed some
tournament boats moving in from the river. I was more than happy about
that spot after I left. It was a little hole in the wall that looks
like nothing much. My
Day in Perspective August 26th
(Tournament Day) At about 10:30,
the sky opened up and it started to rain. At that time, we headed back
down to the lower pool where the launch was at as a precaution.
Looking back, this was a big mistake. I had planned on being able to
go down and work the locations that I had and pick up a fish or two.
Well, we did pick up some fish, but they were all small, except for a
40-pound flat head catfish that I caught in about 1 foot of water.
What I feel I can
take from this event is knowledge. I will summarize this more with an
end of the year recap, but I will start here. Being that this is my
first year on this circuit, I am learning large volumes of knowledge.
A couple of the places I have never fished before and knew very little
about them except for their history on the trail. I have also started
to develop stronger tournament patterns. I will again, cover this in
more depth on my end of the year recap. Until then, I would like to
thank my sponsors for their support and fine products. Please check
them out at their sites. www.brovarneybaits.com
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