I was finally able to get back out on the water last Friday just in time to practice for the CT-Outdoors tournament on Saturday and the Kerchal on Sunday. Fishing was tuff, but I was able to find a few beds with fish on them. The water temp was about 54 throughout the lake and I was surprised that the fish were starting to come up. There were beds everywhere, but very few had fish on them. I think they must have made a mad dash for the bank when the weather was so nice a couple weeks ago and then backed off when it got cold and rainy. The bed fishing paid off in both tournaments for us and Art and I ended up winning the CT-Outdoors tournament with 8 smallies for just under 30 lbs. The next day was a little tougher, but we still managed a 4th place finish at the Kerchal with another 8 smallies for just under 26 lbs. I love bed fishing, but the minimal amount of fish up and the rainy, windy conditions made it more difficult than I would have liked. Hopefully the fish don't leave again with this cold rain that we've been getting since Saturday night. I'll be fishing the Keitech open on Thursday, and the CT-Outdoors 2 day this upcoming Friday and Saturday on Candlewood. Hopefully I'll have some good pics to post. It's kind of funny how Art happens to be holding the big fish. I think Dusty did that when we won too.
"Momma told me when I was young.... Be a simple kind of man, oh be something you love and understand" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
"I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some...." - Jason Mraz
"Give me one moment in time, when I'm more than I thought I could be. When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away and the answers are all up to me" - Whitney Houston
"Im'a be what I set out to be, without a doubt, undoubtably. And all those who look down on me, I'm tearing down your balcony. No if, ands, or buts, don't try to ask him why or how can he..." - Eminem www.go-fish.biz visit my homepage
FLW American Fishing Series Potomac River, MD Water Temp: 80-85 Post Spawn
A new year of tournament fishing has begun. Unfortunately the money isn’t quite the same as it has been for the last few years; the payouts have really dropped off, and the sponsorship money is really tough to come by. Dusty isn’t traveling with me this year, so I had to find an alternative to staying at a hotel. Money is really tight right now and I can’t afford to stay in a hotel by myself. I made plans a few weeks before to share a camp site with one of my buddy’s. I would sleep in my truck and the fees for splitting a camp site would be minimal. I called him to find out our site number and he said the one he had been assigned was on a bad angle and he couldn’t sleep like that so he asked to be moved to the overflow. Unfortunately for me, they would not allow anyone else in there, so I was now stuck with no place to stay. I considered turning around and driving home, but the thought of loosing my $850 entry fee encouraged me to stay. There was nothing I could do about my sleeping accommodations at this point, so I launched the boat and went fishing. The first thing I noticed when I got there was that the tide was far higher than it should have been. The water was so high that there wasn’t even the slightest trace of grass showing. I ran back up Mattawoman creek a little ways and started fishing an area that I had caught them in last year. The further you got back into a weed bed the clearer the water got. I was able to find some good looking water that looked perfect for a buzzbait. I caught a few small ones, but not the ones I needed, especially since the size limit was 15” this early in the season. Fishing around in the clearer back waters I did notice allot of suspicious light spots. There were empty beds everywhere, but new enough that I would have sworn that they were still on beds. I dismissed the idea sighting the 83 degree water temp. I ran around and fished a few other places I had fished the last few years with very little success. With the 15” size limit in place I did not boat a keeper all day. I got off the water and went to the camp office to see if they had a site I could stay on. They said all the sites were full and that no one else would be allowed in the overflow. The camp ground manager hated her job I think, and it made her feel good to turn people away even though she knew there were open sites. I drove around the campground a couple of times and decided to squat in the camp site that my buddy had reserved knowing full well that it had not been rented yet.
"Momma told me when I was young.... Be a simple kind of man, oh be something you love and understand" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
"I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some...." - Jason Mraz
"Give me one moment in time, when I'm more than I thought I could be. When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away and the answers are all up to me" - Whitney Houston
"Im'a be what I set out to be, without a doubt, undoubtably. And all those who look down on me, I'm tearing down your balcony. No if, ands, or buts, don't try to ask him why or how can he..." - Eminem www.go-fish.biz visit my homepage
I went to the camp office first thing in the morning to see if any sites had opened up. They had the site that my buddy had originally reserved still open, so I rented that one. Now that I had a place to sleep, I was ready to head out on the water. I wanted to run up the river to giant weed flat that I had caught fish the previous year on. I had allot of success on a spinnerbait when the tide was high and I though that with the high tide we were having that maybe the fish would be there and biting. I made it about 5 miles up the river when my “hot” light on my boat came on and started screaming. The engine cut off and I was floating out in the middle of the river. I started the engine again and went to get on plane and the alarm went off again. I turned the motor off, raised it up and checked the intake screen to see if it was clogged. There was nothing I could see, so I got out my tool box and started to take the screens out to see if there was something had made it through and was right there. I was lying on top of my motor, holding on with one had and unscrewing the screens with my other had. I had never taken the screens out before so I didn’t know that once you take one out the other falls off. I took the one screen out and then went to get the other one and it was gone, now lying at the bottom of the Potomac. Now there was nothing to keep foreign objects from sucking up into my motor, GREAT!!!!! In the meantime the motor had cooled some, so I decided to start it up and see if I could get up on plane. It worked, so I headed for my spot thinking maybe it had cleared itself out. No chance, I made it about a quarter mile and it started overheating again. For the next 5 hours I would use the trolling motor for 30 minutes and then drive until the alarm started going off again. I got back to Mattawoman and decided to fish one area in the mouth so that the whole day wasn’t a wash. In 30 minutes I shook off 6 fish flipping and hooked one about 15”. Even in the shadow of my unfortunate day, there was a glimmer of hope. I pulled the boat out of the water and went up to the service trailer. THANK YOU EVINRUDE!!!!!! for caring enough about your anglers to send the service crew to each tournament. Even in these tough times Evinrude still sends the trailer to make sure if you do have a problem you can get back out on the water. Other motor companies left their anglers high and dry this year with no help. So it takes until 6pm, but we finally figure out what the problem is; some grass had made it all the way through the motor until the last possible spot before it would exit back out the exhaust and then got stuck. Once we picked the balls of grass out of there we were good to go.
"Momma told me when I was young.... Be a simple kind of man, oh be something you love and understand" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
"I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some...." - Jason Mraz
"Give me one moment in time, when I'm more than I thought I could be. When all of my dreams are a heartbeat away and the answers are all up to me" - Whitney Houston
"Im'a be what I set out to be, without a doubt, undoubtably. And all those who look down on me, I'm tearing down your balcony. No if, ands, or buts, don't try to ask him why or how can he..." - Eminem www.go-fish.biz visit my homepage
#1220250 - 06/09/1003:20 PM
Re: Tales From The Trail 2009
[Re: Jess Caraballo]
Barn1
Member
Registered: 04/15/04
Posts: 2422
Loc: Vermont
Sounds like a spiin-off to the Gary P. show. Good job gritting your teeth and getting through the tough spots. Hopefully those fish you shook off are over the size limit and still want to eat!
Man O' Man Jess, you sure got one heck of a constitution for this stuff. I will sincerely add you to my prayer list that good things happen to and for you. Thanks for posting again.
Don't doubt in the dark what you learned in the light.
#1220608 - 06/10/1011:31 AM
Re: Tales From The Trail 2009
[Re: MarkO]
OHMYGOD
Member
Registered: 06/23/04
Posts: 20754
Loc: Suffield Ct
Wow, hope things are going better! Glad you got a camp site.
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you do........ 
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