D&R Sports Muskegon Lake 2024 - Tournament

We had interesting conditions for tournament day. A cold front with the potential for some rain later in the day (fortunately that would hold off until after the tournament) but it did cool down to the high 50s. For once it wasn’t going to be incredibly windy for a Muskegon event. I was actually a little disappointed by that because I was going to be using a lot of moving baits in this tournament.

It was weird because to start the day I only had 4 rods out and all of them were moving baits. I don’t know the last time I started a tournament with only 4 rods out. I was really hoping for a good boat number because if those alewives were where I left them than we were going to make a mess right away. Boat 28…which is about as bad as it gets. Right at the end of first flight so you are one of the last to go out but don’t get the 15 minutes of extra fishing time as if you were boat 31. No biggie though as i am not one to get wound up about boat number.

I was pretty surprised to find no one where I wanted to be. Things were about to go down, well until I looked at my MEGA Live and didn’t see the bait. Bait gone = bass gone in an area like this. No point and getting back in the drivers seat and running to the next place. Just had to hope we could relocate them nearby. Some first cast magic happened anyway and keeper number one was in the boat. I know some people are superstitious about their first cast but not me. First cast, last cast, any of the casts in between are all good with me. Even though it was nice to get one, it was just a 2 pounder and I knew the area was toast. We started looking for the bait and caught another one. I was shocked to see one of the biggest community holes on the lake was open and I thought maybe we’d get a gift fish there but it was not to be. It was time to start running some stuff.

We either couldn’t get on that stuff or none of that stuff was working. I was pretty surprised that this was turning into more work than I expected. We did pick up another fish but 3 of the places we fished I thought we could catch 10+ keepers off each of them. Things were letting us down big time but we had lots of time to turn it around. A big chunk of the day was literally a blur after that. We hit some more disappointment trying something I hoped would work but didn’t try in practice. I was skeptical that it would but it was one of those areas that if it was firing then I knew 10 more places that would also be good. It just wasn’t there yet but hopefully in a few more weeks. Finally we got into a rhythm and started catching them.

We filled our limit off on place then culled a few times off the next. Still no big ones but one solid fish that could be building blocks of a good limit. After that I just don’t know exactly when or where things happened. There were times we were catching them so fast (but they weren’t big enough) that I would hope they would stop biting so we could go to the next spot. I couldn’t really tell you when or where 4 of our weigh in fish came from because we caught so many similar ones. But I know exactly how our kicker went down. When a fish just stops your crankbait like it is stuck in the bottom you know it is one of the right ones. Fortunately it only made one heartstopping jump on its way to the net. A couple more of those and we were in business.

We just couldn’t get them. Trevor did get some big catfish bites and those were exciting for a minute. We had some good laughs the rest of the day with just how much fun it was. There was one place where the bait wouldn’t even make it to the bottom. You could just watch your line slowly going out and set the hook. We just kept searching for that difference making bite. It was interesting to me some of the stuff that was being ignored. We spied another community hole with no one around it. Made a stop and caught a solid limit in 10 minutes but just none that would help us. Thinking back on it maybe we should have pressed that area a little harder rather than going to look for greener pastures. Because by the end of the day it was getting really hard to get on anything and we were running out of sneaky spots.

There’s no mistaking one of the right bites especially after swinging on a lot of fish for the day. We finally got it with about 40 minutes to go. The excitement was short lived because it broke me off on something sharp. That can be the downfall to fishing around some of the industrial stuff Muskegon has in it. We really needed another big one and that hurt bad. Even without it we still had a pretty good bag I thought. I hadn’t handled the fish much so I didn’t really know what we had. Trevor and I find it easier to just have one guy do all the culling that way there is no confusion and someone is always fishing. Whoever is riding shotgun usually does the culling. I said at the end of the day that I think maybe we’ve done enough to get paid and I could tell by Trevor’s reaction we must have a pretty decent bag.

We were in the top spot for a bit with 16.22 but I knew it wouldn’t hold up (link to standings). We didn’t fall as far as I expected though and ended the tournament in 3rd place. I will take that any day against 60+ boats and that crew of fisherman. Plus we got 500 dollars of Humminbird/Minn Kota bonus money. The contingencies are the real deal at these events. It capped off a whirlwind weekend for Trevor who had just gotten back from a college Saginaw Bay tournament the night before. Him and his partner Max finished 5th out of almost 200 boats! I always say you just have to keep catching enough to get in that top 10 in every big tournament and your days to win will come. It is disappointing that there really is no AOY for this series because we would be off to a great start. We’ve got the river up next and I’m not sure I’ve ever fished an 8 hour tournament there in June. Should be fun!