So after that WINDY WINDY day yesterday beers and I decided we could not end our bass season on a cold slow note. We both set aside our plans to winterize our boats and call it a season and instead do one more tournament. But instead of going head to head we decided to join forces for this one.
The CSFL was having a major t ournament this weekend on lake Couchiching. Saturday was supposed to be a normal style tournament while the Sunday tournament was going to be an optional hourly weigh-in tournament. For those who don't know what this is, its a regular bass tournament where the 5 heaviest fish combined win. But also there is a prize every hour for the heaviest fish of that hour.
Seems simple enough but there is a lot of strategy involved in that.
For example let's say you catch a 2 lbs bass and you bring it back to weigh in and Noone else ends up weighing in a fish, or they do but yours is the biggest. That's great and u get a prize for that hour that you won BUT keep in mind that the big prize still consists of the best 5 fish and once you weigh in a fish it counts as one of your 5 fish. Even later after you weighed in a 2lbs fish and you catch five 5 pounders, you could only weigh 4 of them instead of 5 and so your weight would be 22 lbs NOT the 25lbs that you caught. So this now becomes a question of you choose to win the battle or the war? Or some battles along the way of winning the war which would actually add to your over all pot.
Just some added knowledge to help you understand the thought process of what beers and I went through today.
Before I get to that point though I'll take you back to the start of the morning. Due to extreme winds the Saturday tournament on Couchiching along with many tournaments were cancelled. This meant that for this one they would only be having a tournament on the Sunday. Because of this they decided to combine the rules of the 2 tournaments. Different things got changed and truthfully I'm still confused at how things went down.
7am we got to the lake and saw a parking lot full of boats. Boats of all kinds. Guys who know the lake well, pro's with sponsor stickers decked out all over thier $70,000 rigs, and unknown guys that may or may not have been pro's but that just liked rocking 250 horses. Truthfully it's intimidating but that's what makes it fun.
We launch the boat at the double launch and there is another boat launching. Thier boat isn't coming off the trailer; they try again but still stuck. They forgot to unhook thier the winch at the front. The guy in the truck behind the wheel has no clue whats going on and the guy in boat has it in reverse trying to drive it off of the trailer is reving the hell out of it. Beers notices what they're doing wrong and goes and unclips it for them. They don't even so much as say thank you. Not a nod, nothing. Apperntly they just have thier big fancy rig and everyone should get out of thier way. At this point we know that bad karma is coming thier way and I know that I want to make sure we beat them in this tourney. Rude people like this really p### me off and i hope they read this. We went onto the water and as we were rigging up our rigs more 250's just kept rolling in. I am normally not bothered by the boat as its the fisherman that catches the fish not the boat but in this style of tournament they have a huge advantage as they can rush from the other end of the lake to weigh in thier fish every hour in no time. (Granted the prize money might not out weigh the gas bill lol)
Where as the smaller motors should try to stay closer so that you don't waste your time running all over the lake.
So we blast off one boat at a time in 10 second Intervals and rake off into our spots. We were the 25th team to blast off and so the chop on the lake added with the already choppy water makes for one bumpy a## ride but we make it to our spot and let the fishing begin.
We didn't know how the bite would be as going to be as the wind storm and cold front could really have an effect on them as we noticed first hand on rice lake the day before. I'm throwing all of my faves out but nothing, not even a bite. Beers is also throwing all of his go to's but nothing either. I reach into the deep dark depths of my crank baits and put on an old friend , first cast WHAM I get a fish on. A decent sized smallie 2.9lbs.
In the livewell she goes. We look at our watch to see what time it is as the first weigh in starts at 10. It was originally 9 but due to the wind they moved it to 10. It's not to far away from 10 so now we're faced with decisions. Do we way this fish in and hope to get an early big fish prize or do we keep fishing and try to cull this fish? Keep in mind if we weigh this fish in, we have to use it in our 5 fish weight whether it wins us money or not. Also keep in mind that once u pass the break wall you MUST weigh in a fish. Doesn't matter which fish but a fish none the less. We decide to watch carefully to see if anyone else is going to weigh in. Our fish is not huge but if Noone else weighs in than ANY fish wins the big fish prize. We keep fishing but watching as well to see if anyone else will come to weigh in. During this time beers gets a bite, he sets the hook and it quickly snaps off. He is optimistic and says it must have just been a pike. I am pessimistic and think maybe it was a monster bass and just straight up broke the line? Was there a kink in his line that caused the break? I guess we will never know.
Now this is starting to set in to him as well, what kind of fish could that have been? Any way the day must go on and we decide it's looking like it's a slow day and we're probably not going to cull that 2.9 pounder we head to the weigh station. Not a soul in sight we weigh in at the 9:59 cut off and see that we're the only boat to weigh in. Sweet a nice easy prize for us (or so we think)
We get out back out and start fishing again.
Beers catches a 2 pound smallie and then shortly after a 3 and a half pounder. Now we're cooking. 11 o'clock weigh in we get an update of someone weighing in a 5.8 pound bass. wow we're not challenging that. Atleast not yet. We keep fishing and figure we'll weigh in his 3 and a half pounder. But we arrive at the scale at the same time as another team. There is a show down. Both boats want to know what the other has. If we see that they have a bigger fish then our 3.5 pounder we would lose and be forced to give up a fish. A fish that we could potentially save for the next weigh in.
But if we weigh in our smaller fish that fish would now be attached to our bag and the question is are we comfortable with a 2 pound fish in our bag which would take down our overall weight if we were wo catch bigger ones later. Bird in the hand for the one that got away? Keep in mind the other boat is having that exact same debate amount themselves. They ask us what we have. We don't tell them but instead ask them what they have, they don't budge either. It looks like we're going to have to gamble. Question is do we gamble with the big fish prize or do we gamble with our potential over all basket? We decide to gamble with our big fish prize. And gamble that paid off... literally. They weighed in a 3.10 and us a 3.45. We won what we thought was our second big fish prize, only to find out that there was a mix up with our first fish that we weighed in and that the first weigh in STARTS at 10 but goes until 10:59. Thus meaning that the 3.7 that came in later beat out our fish. VERY frustrating. Now we just used up a 2.9lbs fish for nothing. Any way atleast we won the showdown and won one big fish prize.
We keep fishing and it's tough. We decide to swith over to largemouth bass. The fishing is very slow but we manage a few and now have our 5 fish limit (including the 2 already weighed in) beers catches a few more and we're officially culling fish. At this point there is only a couple hours left and I can't buy a fish. They don't want anything I have to throw at them and I know that we're doing good but are badly in need of that big kicker fish. Time is counting and we are both struggling but know that at the very least we need just one kicker fish. With about 15 minutes left we decide to head close(ish) to the weigh-in and desperately look for that kicker. "All it takes is one bite" beers keeps saying. I say "i haven't caught a 5 pounder yet this year caught lots that were close but I can't end a year not catching a 5 pounder or bigger" with less than 5 minutes left we no longer want that kicker fish but NEED it. Beers says "its your time" I say "I HAVE to get one, I'm due" and right than and there my rods just goes WHAM. I yell "I got em I. Got em, it's a monster" beers throws down his rod and grabs the net in record time. The fish is pulling hard, I know it's a good size. Definitely not fighting like a smallie does but at this time I'll gladly take a monster largemouth. I get it from under the boat and we see it for the first time. We both let out the loudest "ugggg, it's a pike " of all time. I've never been so angry to catch a fish in my life and it was actually a pretty nice looking pike. Totally took the wind from my sails. That Pike fought like a bass. Why would it do that to me lol.
Any way we weigh in and just hope that it wasn't just us that was affected by the weather. We notice that a good portion of the boats aren't even weighing in. Just straight to the launch. This is good news for us. We get to the dock while people are bagging thier fish and hear people talking about how tough the bite was today... our confidence rises a little bit more.
We weigh in as one of the last boats with a decent weight of 13.45lbs. And find out that we're good enough for 4th place. (Money goes to top 3 spots)
That's maddening as everyone wants to get paid but at the same time we're happy with our results. We don't know the lake well at all and we're only a pound off the leader. Well until the next guys weighed in over 22 lbs that is lol.
We ended up coming in 5th of about 30 boats and won 1 out of 4 big fish prizes, not a bad day at all. We may just have to do this again some time and really show what we're made of.
Oh and those rude guys with the fancy boat that didn't say thanks? They weighed in a nice solid 4 lbs TOTAL hahahaha karma?
Thanks for reading. Been a LONG time since I did one of my super long reports, I kinda missed it. Might have to start writing them again.
Lake Couchiching CSFL tournament, FULL report
