Classic – Day 2
Day 2 brought on a lot of anticipation. The wind was going to blow and we were going to be the 4th boat out in the morning. Both things we thought would work to our advantage for catching a bigger day 2 bag. We weren’t going to pass on the Skeg community hole first thing as we thought we could get a good start there. From there it was who knows, fish around in Skeg some more and also hope the shallow stuff we had in Elk would fire.
We got to start where we wanted however the action was non existent. Some short strikes and a couple short fish, the entire crowd was sucking it up too so I didn’t feel too bad. I absolutely hate fishing in a situation like that so rather than sit there we started covering some water. Smallmouth plus wind should mean they would jump on a reaction bait if you just kept the Ultrex down.
We tried areas we had success the day before, new random places, new places that the wind was just piling into. It all sucked, no bites, no lost fish, no feedback from anything. We worked our way back out into the community hole and picked up one small keeper on a swimbait and lost a nice one on the rig. It was at least a start but other than some more short bites we couldn’t get anything going. Back to chucking/winding and exploring more dead water. We really never could just land on them in Skeg. Looking back we could have devoted a bunch of practice in there and tried to find some areas. But honestly it wasn’t going to win, I hate fishing around people, and when I go up north to fish for smallmouth the absolute last thing I want to do is fish around shallow stumps. Not that it isn’t fun or productive but we’ve been fishing heavy cover all year and it would be nice to just fish differently once in a while. After 4 hours with not much to show for it we could either keep searching in here or go run some stuff in Elk.
We’d caught some nice ones shallow in practice without much wind and assumed with the wind piling on that stuff they’d be moving up. It was one of those things that if we didn’t go try it we would regret it after the tournament. Some of the stuff was specific too and we thought that would help our cause. After a rather bumpy run across the lake we settled in and began running those areas. Mixing it up between reaction baits and slower stuff like dropshots and erie darters. Well it was team short fish up there which was a huge disappointment.
We had been mixing in a few deep places too but it was the same story out there. Finally, desperate times called for desperate measures. There was a really long stretch of nice looking stuff shallow so we just went with the wind and fished. Sometimes stuff like that works out especially when we assumed we did not need a whole lot of weight. Immediately we lost a decent fish at the boat on a spinnerbait and that gave us some hope. Despite our quick success we would only get one other bite covering water the rest of the day.
Obviously, we weren’t gaining any ground with 1 fish in the livewell so we dumped it and put it on the trailer. Not the day we hoped for but I’m also not really sure I’d have approached the day any differently. In the end the winners had great bags both days but it only took 23lbs to get a check over 2 days. Seriously we couldn’t catch 10lbs on day 2 to get us there! Knowing that going into things we certainly would have practiced and fished differently. I guess one should always assume that when it comes to the D&R Classic we will be faced with extra tough fishing. So many times, it seems that all you have to do is come in with a limit both days and you’ll get paid. The only D&R Classic I can remember being a good bite for the entire field was the Cadillac/Mitchell Classic that Shaun and I won. Those fish were absolutely going off in that tournament! The rest of them have been horrible as far as weights. At times it has been because of visiting a fishery that is just in really poor shape (Cadillac/Mitchell and Hardy Dam) and other times it has been just a tough time of year/bite on the lakes we’ve been to.
Despite the tough finish it was still a great season and I’m glad to be done with the bass boat and finally duck hunting. One of these days I’ll have enough space to have both rigs going at the same time.