Opening Day 2023
Opening weekend this year was an eye opener to the size of smallmouth we have in West Michigan. Weights were unlike anything that anyone had ever seen for this event. Probably a combination of factors contributing to the great weigh in. Lower water, light winds, a wave of smallmouth, a strong year class of fish, and some of the best sight fisherman around.
I got in ¾ of a day of practice a few days before the event and of course the wind blew even though it wasn’t supposed to. I spent all my time on Muskegon even though the forecast looked great to run wherever you wanted for this tournament. For the record that is not enough practice for this event against this crew of guys. Unless I get a couple days next year I doubt I’ll fish the event. We didn’t have much by the end of practice and we knew our day would hinge upon getting the one 5 pounder we had found. If we got that, I was confident we could get a decent check based on results from years past. I also knew it was going to come down to boat draw whether we got it or not. Boat 25 out of 44 was likely not going to be good enough for that.
Someone was on it so off we went to our next biggest fish. That fish was gone and without those 2 fish the odds of us just fishing around and getting paid were pretty slim. We did box our first keeper while blind fishing that bed however it was only a 2 pounder. We picked a close 3.5 pounder we knew about and then just went into an area that had a bunch of fish. Obviously, there were going to be a bunch of boats too but we were just going to try and catch what was in front of us. We picked a 4 pounder next and then a smaller one nearby. All the while making mental notes of where the fish that looked catchable were. I knew we were going to have to blind fish them at this point since they had been so spooked by all the boats. It didn’t take too long and we had a limit with a few nice ones.
I knew at this point we had to get back and make sure that big fish had actually gotten caught. You never know in sight fishing tournaments how things area really going to go when another boat is on them. Especially when you launch at 6am and it takes a minute for the light to get right. If we could get that fish we would be in decent shape. Well they didn’t leave us that one but did leave an ok fish nearby. We got that and then had a few more places to rotate. The next cull got us all 3 pounders but it wasted a bit of time. I lost it right at the boat on the first try and it took it another stop to get it to bite again.
Back to the community hole it was, we had to see about a few spooky ones and check on a big largemouth. I got one of the spooky ones pretty quick. It is so important to make a perfect mental note of exactly where that bed is. Whether you have to remember things that are on the bank or something that is visible in the water. It makes a big difference to be far away and also have the element of surprise.
There really isn’t a whole lot else to report on the rest of the day. It was just picking away at them getting all the ounces we could. We had to release and then recatch one that was hooked in the chin. That took awhile especially since we lost him one other time in between the release and the 3rd bite. That fish was close to another nice one that just wouldn’t sit in a bed and was just acting goofy. We did get it to bite 3 times on 3 different baits but it never actually hooked up. The largemouth I mentioned early never held that tight but we never had the time to commit to him. I’m pretty certain it was catchable but it would have taken some time with how it was acting. It was a pretty nice fish and definitely would have helped us out.
At the end of the day it was disappointing but we salvaged something and had a nice bag of fish. Even if we had gotten our other ones we still would have missed a check since it took 22 pounds to get paid! That’s the first time I’ve had 18 pounds (17.95) on Muskegon Lake and not gotten a check. Just crazy weights all around with 25 pounds to win! Congrats to Luke/Nic and everyone else who got paid. I think we ended up in 15th and still have a good feeling about how we fished tournament day just not how practice went.
It’s going to be interesting to see how much of a player spawning smallmouth will be in our White Lake D&R this coming weekend. I’m not really sure what to expect other than I’m sure the largemouth will be snapping and the potential to catch a big bag of either species is there. Trevor and I took a quick look at it over the weekend to see how White Lake has changed. Other than the flat tire on the way there it was a great trip. Even then I’m always grateful when a mishap happens and it really isn’t that stressful to get it fixed and get back on the road. Otherwise it is on to COTM West tonight. We start out at Muskegon and it should be fun.