Grand River D&R 2024
The hangover from the White Lake event was going to carry over to this one. I didn’t practice for this one as Trevor had done really well in a CBT the weekend before and knows the river really well. He already had a solid game plan in place and sometimes additional practice can complicate that especially with the weather we had coming. I did however miss getting to spend some time on the river because practice for that event is really the only day I spend all year exploring out there.
We had high hopes to get some really high percentage stuff and get off to a good start. It isn’t often I really root for a good boat number but I wanted one here. We got a solid number but it wasn’t good enough as someone was where we wanted to be even being boat 20. The area we ended up in was prime looking though however the fish didn’t seem to think so. It was standard river stuff for us to start, frogs, flipping baits, buzzbaits, and they weren’t on any of it. A couple small fish and one keeper that touched the line was all we could come up with. We ran a couple more river stretches and added one more keeper but things were just feeling dead. The current was gone and there wasn’t a lot of bluegill popping going on. One solid fish did roll on a swimjig but unfortunately it was in a thicker spot and I couldn’t get the bait through and the fish couldn’t re find it. After a couple hours and 2 more small keepers for a total of 4, Trevor decided it was time to pull the plug and head to Spring Lake. It didn’t take long and we were culling in there but not by much. It was so hard to get on anything with all the other competitors around and we knew that we were fishing used water. However we were still catching them and it was just a matter of getting a couple of the right bites. With every swing of the bat it was more of the same. We were even catching a lot of short fish, like really short fish.
We did get one little flurry where we caught our 2 nicest fish really quick. Unfortunately one was skinny as can be and despite being a nice fish in its previous life it wasn’t going to weigh much. The frustration with used water was building and we decided to go back to the river. That is always a super tough one to make because I think one of the best bite windows in both places is at the very end of the day. We needed a big one though and it is more likely to get a 4 pounder in the river than anywhere else. Off we went to see if we could flip one up. Trevor thought he had the one but it fooled both of us and was just another 2 pounder. There isn’t really much else to report as action was few and far between. We caught fish on frogs, spinning rods, flipping, and crankbaits throughout the day but just couldn’t land on a nice one.
The sherriff was really patrolling and targeting bass boats it seemed during the tournament too. Including pulling one over right at weigh in. That was making things interesting out there as I think you really had to watch whatever wake the boat was putting out. Even though plenty of bigger boats were pushing a lot of water in the no wake. When the scales settled we had a little less than 11.5lbs and I was glad the suffering was over. One big bite would have made a huge difference for us but we could never get it. This day certainly didn’t unfold like we expected as is often the case in tournament fishing. It was another day that was just surprising at how well guys caught them. It just goes to show that no matter how bad the fishing is in your boat there is someone out there who has it figured out when you are fishing against 70+ boats. It literally never fails and that is one thing that anyone who is new at this game needs to always remember. They are biting somewhere and someone is always catching them, it is good motivation for when times are tough.
That definitely ruined our hopes at getting another fake D&R series AOY (since there isn’t one even though there should be). There’s no added pressure at the last one event other than my last 2 weekend tournaments have been incredibly frustrating and just “one of those days where nothing goes right”. That is what keeps tournament fishing interesting though and makes the “easy” days feel that much better. I’ll also put part of the blame on us for not working hard enough at this one. Even with a game plan in place there’s always the chance to find a couple places where you can spend 5 minutes and maybe catch one. That has paid off in the past and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in myself for not going and exploring even if we weren’t going to use any of it. Plus I won’t see the river other than a few hours on weeknights for probably the rest of the season. It bothers me more that I didn’t use the time to work hard at becoming a better fisherman than if it may or may not have helped in the tournament. I don’t know if there are any tournaments that I can fish in July so it might be awhile before I get a chance at redemption.
In the meantime I’ve got some smallmouth fishing planned on our up north trip with hopefully some lake trout and ciscos thrown in too. I am really looking forward to that one and it will be interesting to see how the bite is as it is later than we usually go. Calm weather would be a bonus for getting on the big water but I also have some trips planned to smaller lakes to work on my MEGA Live proficiency.