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Darin Roddick-Small's Tournament Journal

Darin Roddick-Small, Futurebass Pro Staff
Brook’s Bash 1^st annual
April 1^st Pool 12, Dubuque , Iowa

Prefishing
For this tournament, I would be partnering up with one of my friends Gregg Kisewski. We spent a large amount of time doing research on the internet and with personal contacts because neither of us had ever fished on either pool 12, or 11 of the Mississippi . After many phone conversations we decided on a tentative plan to concentrate on pool 11 due to the fact that it looked to have more fishable water that suited our stiles.

We both arrived at the launch on pool 11 at 10 in the morning on Friday to diminishing showers and temperatures that were about 50 degrees. Prior to Friday, the temperatures were in the 60’s and 70’s. We took a quick look at our map after launching the boat and decided to start up next to the dam looking for some active fish to start developing a pattern.

Once we arrived at the dam, we read a water temperature of 49.5 degrees and decided to start with cranks and swim jigs. After working the area for a while we switched over to a slower presentation including shaky heads and flipping jigs. As we worked the area over, we noticed a large amount of baitfish in the shallow areas. Despite this we were unable to catch any bass in this area.

We then worked over to a spillway on the other side of the river and worked that area as well. Here, we were flipping plastics and jigs to riprap and flooded trees. This is where we had our only pick up of the day. We were unable to connect on it though.

On Saturday, we headed back up to 11 deciding that there was just so much good-looking area that there had to be active fish in the area. We started off a little farther down the river in some backwaters but we did not find anything to our liking. So, we headed back to some of the areas we fished the day before. The weather today, was a little less desirable than Friday. At about 10 AM, the thunderstorms moved in. It was at about this time I caught our first fish of the weekend on a Brovarney Baits Big Thumper. It surprised me so much, that I reeled it in as if it was a snag. This fish came out of 7 ½ feet of water in a light current flow. We started to use this to work out a pattern.

Next we headed out to another backwater area where we found similar conditions as the one before. Almost immediately, I got picked up twice using the Big Thumper jig. The second fish I worked to the boat and saw that it went over three pounds. We left that area right after that so the fish wouldn’t get any more pressure.

We then headed to the opposite side of the lake and worked another backwater area. This area again had 6-71/2 feet of water, but it had a little better current flowing through the area. Here, we were working swim jigs and the thumpers by Brovarney baits around washed out trees. We again located fish. This time they appeared to be small mouth bass.

The Tournament
Needless to say, as we left the water on Saturday, we had a pretty good feeling of how things were going to play out. We had found quality fish, in areas that should not be affected by much. Well, much happened. That evening, a large line of really strong storms rolled through the area, producing a tornado near the area we were fishing. This was accompanied by 20-30 mile an hour winds from the SSW all day long. This matched with 48 degree air temps and rain, made for a miserable day on the water. We noticed two things when we got to our first spot. First, the water temperature had dropped almost two degrees from the day before, and the water was up and dirtier. We started fishing the area and missed on a couple of short strikes. I switched over to a Venom Lures Dream Craw that is fortified with Mega Strike. Shortly after switching over, I caught our only fish of the day, a short 13 inch bass. A few minutes after catching the fish, a pan fisherman pulled into the area and started making a lot of noise, effectively shutting off any other fish in the area that may have been catchable.

The weigh in showed exactly what we had figured. Only half of the boat even caught a keeper and the best was five fish for less than 11 pounds. Not a stellar performance by any stretch of the imagination.

I would like to thank my sponsor that helped me out on this tournament Brovarney Baits and their high quality swim jigs and their thumper line of flipping jigs and venom lures. I encourage you to check both of these fine companies out and look over the products I was using during this tournament.

Tight Lines and God Bless
Darin Roddick-Small