Darrin Roddick-Small's Tournament Journal


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Darin Roddick-Small's Tournament Journal
Darin Roddick-Small Futurebass Pro Staff La Crosse BFL Tournament Journal September 15^th Super Tournament Prefishing I spent the week prior to the tournament up in La Crosse during my pre tournament scouting due to the inability to take off from my new job to test the waters during the week. I spent the whole weekend dissecting the areas of pool 8. I had originally thought of working my way up to pool seven as well, but decided against that after locating a couple of pockets of bass in the 2 ½ - 3 pound range. My first school was to be found around areas that I had fished for a number of years while I was in the La Crosse area. It had a combination of wood, and rock with areas of sand near by. The other new areas I was working, were down in the Goose Island area. This area was where I had actually located my best fish on this weekend trip. I found the fish to be holding very tight to the cover and needing multiple casts to the same area to entice the bites. This was due to the drastic temperature fluctuation that was taking place. The weather had gone from the mid 80’s on Friday, to the upper 50’s on Saturday. Anyway, we worked a variety of baits and had success during the weekend. Patterns included, cranking wing dams, Carolina rigging, swimming jigs and pitching plastics. My best fish on the weekend came off of pitching plastics and on my Carolina rig. This is where I decided I would start next weekend. The Tournament Well the day came and we started fishing. We headed right down to Goose Island where I felt that my best fish were located. While flipping this stretch of stumps and lay-down, we caught a number of short fish, waiting for the big fish that I knew were there to bite. While flipping into the top of this tree, I felt a fish pick up my plastic. I set the hook on a nice fish. While puling it over a log it came unbuttoned. I continued to work the area for more bites, but they never came. I decided to work to the other side and flip some trees located there. That is when tragedy struck. While going across the slough, my trolling motor went dead. I was just over 40 minutes into the day and I was dead in the water with stiff southern winds to really make matters worse. After working on it trying to locate the problem, and the breaker for the system, we spent about an hour and forty minutes. In a last ditch effort to locate the problem; I searched for the breaker again. I stumbled across a small silver box with a match head size black button and pushed, and crossed my fingers. After getting up to the front deck, I pushed the button on my motor. It finally worked. At this time it was almost ten and the weather was not getting any better. So, we fished on, we struggled to say the least. Both myself, and my non-boater, were a little mentally drained. I know I was for sure. We fished on. I went back to my pattern I had found the week before. We worked this the rest of the day. I finished up catching two legal bass for over four pounds, but I lost at least two others that would have weighed as well. It seemed to be a perfect ending for my season this year. I feel like I was moving from one hurdle to the next on this first year of fishing the BFL. I was hoping to make the top forty for the year, so I am disappointed with my 56 place finish in the standings this year, but I look at it as a great stepping stone for the future. I would like to take this time to thank my sponsors for all they have done for me thins year, and I look forward to working with them in the future. Please check them out as they truly have great products that are geared to the bass fisherman. I stand behind them 100% and hope you give them a try. I know you will be happy with them as well. Check them out at: www.brovarneybaits.com www.futurebass.com www.venomlures.com Take care and God bless Darin Roddick-Small