Looking Forward to Charlevoix
One more big event to go for the year and I’ve got really no clue what to expect. I’m sure with all the warm weather we are having it will put us right in the middle of transition time and an overall tough bite. WMB had their classic on Charlevoix last year and it looked like if you could catch 10 bass over 2 days that you were going to get paid. That’s never really a lot of fun on a travel trip but someone is still going to catch them.
I don’t think we see a ton of domination with forward facing sonar on the lakeshore. But this event is going to heavily favor anyone who is proficient with it. I know I’ve got my work cut out for me with that. While I do a lot of casting at different pieces of structure I can see, I don’t do a whole lot of picking off individual fish. I am comfortable with how far I have to cast based on what I’m seeing at least. If everything allows I am going to try and get up there a day early and hit some different fisheries where I can practice and get my MEGA Live dialed in for deep clear water. But first I want to swing by Houghton and get some practice swings in.
That’s all going to be weather and time dependent but in an ideal situation it would be nice to do. We’ve got a house up there lined up for Thursday night so there’s no wasting time or waking up at 3am to practice Friday morning and I know whatever happens we are going to have a good time with this crew.
What to do for practice? I don’t really know or really have a plan yet. I fished a classic there in the fall quite a few years ago and really struggled. I think I’m a better fisherman and a better smallmouth fisherman than I was then. But I still have very little experience going up north in the fall and I don’t have any special tricks. I just want to get around them and If we can make that happen maybe we’ll get 5 bites by being persistent both days. In a perfect world we find the best stuff in practice but that is going to be very difficult in one day. But where do we go, shallow? Deep? In between? I hear a lot about how you can’t fish deep enough on Charlevoix. Getting 5 fairly early on tournament day would go a long way in continuing to explore and upgrade.
As far as locations I’ve got some stuff to check for sure but I really think that watching what the wind will do on tournament days is going to be the deal. I’m hoping to use it to my advantage instead of having to hide from it. However on a lake that big in October sometimes It’s more about fishing where you can actually fish. We shall see but hopefully it ends up being a good end to a good season.