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Darin Roddick-Small's Tournament Journal

 

Darin Roddick-Small Futurebass Pro Staff
Winneconne BFL Tournament Journal
June15, June 16, June 17th (Tournament Day)

Before arriving at the lake
Prior to heading out to the Winnebago Chain of Lakes, I spent considerable time reading maps and talking to other people that I know have fished the chain before. Aside from that, I conducted a variety of searches on the body of water to see what patterns were working, and have worked there in the past at that time of the year. From the information that I received, I saw the average winning weight for a five fish limit was going to be around twelve to thirteen pounds. I also looked at the BFL website to determine that the last payout would be in the 8-9 pound range. With that in mind I set out to find that the colors that worked well included black/blue, Black with red flake and shades of brown. I also learned that the predominate forage base would be crawfish. The last bit of information that I received was that many suggested that I stick to one body of water and learn it as well as I could. This is because the chain is a very large body of water and it can also get very rough and even dangerous if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Strong winds have forced more than one angler in the past to scratching their fish and trailer back to weigh in.

I decided to fish south of the launch site of the Winneconne Resort and spend my time fishing Lake Butte des Morts and try to look into Lake Winnebago as well. Deciding that, I studied the maps and located areas that I thought would hold fish. Now I was ready to head out on the water.

June 15th (Thursday)
I started my morning out at the launch site, arriving at slightly after six in the morning. The weather was mild and the water temps were in the upper sixties. I was excited about fishing this new body of water today, even though I have heard many stories about how it has humbled many a good fisherman over the past few years. I felt that I was up to the challenge. I started off by throwing a ¼ ounce Brovarney Jig in the Mellon Head pattern across the emergent weeds that I found as I was heading downriver from the boat launch. It wasn’t more than five minutes before I had a blow up. Although I missed that fish and was unable to catch it on a follow up bait, I looked at it as a positive sign and tied to start a pattern off of it. I continued to work the grass edge out into the lake without any other takers on the jig. I set it down and opted for at black and blue flipping jig. I worked it around some rocks and promptly bagged my first legal fish, the large mouth went 15 inches and weigh close to two pounds. I thought about where I caught it and what is was doing there, and moved on.

While continuing down the bank, I noticed a tree that was overhanging into the water, although it did not look like much, I threw my swim jig up under it and got smacked. I proceeded to reel in a short large mouth, but was encouraged at what had just occurred, as there was a long string of these trees along this shore. I continued working them and ended up catching a few other short bass from under these trees. I felt that I was on the verge of a pattern. With each fish I caught, I considered where on the tree it was located, water depth, the presence of weeds and how the wind was blowing into the cover.

On my way down the shoreline, I worked a few of the many channels that are located on the chain of lakes. Although they offered good water, weeds and many docks to work, I had little success fishing fast through them with a swim jig. I did catch one small northern pike and lost a few others while in there though. After a couple of different trips into various channels, I decided to abandon them. I chose to do this for a variety of reasons. First of all was the amount of pressure they were receiving. In each of the channels that I entered, I meet a variety of different fishermen that were also pre-fishing for the tournament. I knew these fish were getting beat up hard and would be of little help to me on tournament day. Another reason that I felt it was in my best interest to leave this “prime” water was because the fish were definitely in a negative feeding mood, in other words, they did not chase after my offerings as they passed. So, I continued to work my emerging wood pattern.

The remainder of the day found me cruising the shoreline, looking for wood that met the criteria I had set forth. I ended up locating a number of spots were fish were stacked up under these trees. While fishing one of these banks of trees, I noticed a small channel that was going back into what looked like a swamp. On the edges of this particular channel was matted duckweed and reeds, with some scattered lily pads. I decided to investigate. At this time I was still fishing my melon head jigs with a pink action plastics grub. Within minutes I had a nice three-pound largemouth blow up on my jig. Was I on to another pattern? After ten minutes and three more good blowups, I knew that I had another spot, and possible pattern to consider. So I left that area as to not draw attention to it.

I finished of the day with what I felt to be two promising patterns to fine tune on the following day and to use on the day of the tournament. I went back to my hotel room to think about what happened on the day, make some notes for future trips on my maps and write some notes into my journals.

Upon returning to my hotel room, I met up with fellow Futurebass Pro, Gregg Kizewski. Gregg and I discussed what I had going for a pattern so that he could go along with me on the final day of pre-fishing. I knew this would be a great opportunity to have another angler in the boat to help refine the pattern even further. At this point I was looking forward to getting back out on the water the next day.

June 16th (Friday)
On Friday, I had the pleasure of sharing my boat with Gregg Kizewski during my pre-fishing day. It was also great to have another person to bounce ideas off of and to try different things. We again started our morning off at about 6:00 AM. On Friday I decided to head all the way down to the Winnebago itself. Even though the winds were blowing at about 20 miles per hour form the East/South East, I knew I had to at least try it. We got down there only to find the areas I wanted to fish with 3-4 footers and a direct shot from the wind. At least I knew. There is something to be said for closure. At least it was not a complete loss. On the way we found and fished a couple of new areas. On Friday we used a variety of soft plastics and jig and jig combos. Although we shook off all the fish, we were able to see a few of them and found them to be quality fish. After fishing this same pattern, we headed to the cane beds on Butte des Morts. We worked these, and the surrounding weed beds for the next hour or so with swim jigs, plastics and I think Gregg even threw a frog at them. We had no takers.

Upon completion of fishing the cane bed areas, we moved on to some area docks. Again here we threw a variety of baits, including jigs and plastics. We were able to establish another pattern on some of the docks in the area, which was something I was not able to do the previous day. This made me feel better, to have another pattern that I might be able to fall back on if the others fell through. We ended up fishing docks for the next few hours with numbers of pick ups and again, seeing some nice fish chase after the bait as we pulled it away from them. At about 11:30, we called it a day, as we were out of the wind and the sun was really starting to heat things up. I also felt that I had nothing else to gain by being out there fishing in my areas I planned to use. So, we headed back to the hotel to re-rig our gear and discuss what we learned during our time on the water. I have to say that I felt good going into the tournament with what I felt that I had going.

June 17th (Saturday) The Tournament
My day started out by having an unexpected wake-up call at 2:45 in the morning. This was not the time, or the way I wanted to start my day. I tried to fall back asleep, but of coarse, I was way to excited to do that. So, I started to get my things in order for the day. I started by loading up with sunscreen because I knew I would need it with the day’s forecast. I also like to do it first thing in the morning, so I can wash of as much of the residue as I can with soap and water. After that I proceeded to load my equipment into the boat and the food and drinks that I would need for the day.

My non-boater showed up at the hotel at about 4:15 and we left for the launch site. He seemed like a very nice guy and I looked forward to fishing the day with him.

After we were given the go ahead, we raced down the lake to my first spot. I noticed that the lake was considerably rougher on this day compared to Friday. Once we arrived at the first location I began fishing. Within the first five minutes, I caught my first fish unfortunately it was a rock bass. Moments later, my non-boater caught a small bass, that looked to be a legal large mouth on a split shot rig. I continued to fish, having troubles with my casting accuracy. Needless to say, I was getting frustrated. We continued to work the series of trees, but with no success. I believe that the increased boat traffic of the weekend shut these fish right down. I decided to move to another location. Upon arriving at this new spot, I started by flipping a Brovarney Big Thumper jig into some trees with in minutes, I caught my first legal fish. We continued to work the area for a while longer with no other takers.

After fishing this spot for a while, we move to another location on the lake. I continued to fish a series of docks and had a solid strike in moments on the flipping jig. The fish felt solid, but I could not get it hooked solidly. Looking back, I should have been using a lighter jig in the shallow water around the docks. About 45 minutes later, I had another solid strike, which I also lost. At this time, I switched to flipping a plastic creature bait, because I knew I could not afford to loose any more fish. I had no more takers over the next hour, so we left the docks.

I moved back to my tree pattern and started skipping tubes and senkos into the trees. This technique seemed to be working well the days prior, so I tried to expand on this technique a little more. I proceeded to connect on a number of bass, but unfortunately, they all measured up to 13 ½ inches. I also lost two fish that felt like better fish that got me tied around some branches in the trees. I finished out the day by catching a number of short fish, but not adding any more legals to my tally. My total weight for the day was a disappointing 1 pound, 15 ounces. It was a very frustrating end to the day knowing that I did not fish a very good tournament. You are never going to place very high when you are losing more fish than you are putting in the boat. The one positive that I felt came out of this is that I earned points towards the season, and I learned a lot of information about both the body of water, and things I will change to make myself a better fisherman.

I hope you enjoyed reading the summary of my tournament on the Winnebago Chain of lakes. I encourage you to visit www.brovarneybaits.com and check out their fine line of swimming jigs and their new product, Big Thumper. I think you will find these to be of the highest quality.

Take care and God Bless,
Darin Roddick-Small

Futurebass- Pro Staff
Brovarney Baits- Pro Staff