Payback Bass - Muskegon Lake
Payback Muskegon
I was ready to just smash on them in this event. I knew we weren’t going to be able to win unless something crazy happened. But I don’t think I’ve ever been more confident that I could go largemouth fishing on Muskegon Lake and a bad day would be 15lbs. Which depending on things may or may not be in check range. There were going to be a lot of variables for guys running and a lot of the field was from out of town. Someone was definitely going to catch a big bag though.
We knew we would have a bad boat number but I had hoped that our starting spot would be overlooked. I was banking on it for a quick 15lbs but I didn’t think we could catch any really big ones there. We pulled in and it seemed kind of dead. No shad activity, no bass blowing up on everything, I thought maybe it just might take them a little bit to get going. I didn’t have to make too many casts and the day started with an A rig double. Just a small keeper but it was a start to the day, the other fish was short. I had probably caught 10 there the other day and watched a bunch of other fish and none of them were non keepers. It became apparent pretty quickly that things had changed. It didn’t take too many more casts to get 5 keepers in the boat but we were also mixing in short fish. Once they started blowing up around us those fish looked smaller too. As much fun as it was just beating up on them we knew that we were just wasting time. We left there with 3 that were around 2.5 pounds and a couple 2 pounders.
I wasn’t going to lean on it but we thought if we could get one 4 pound bite in the channel it would really help our day and give us plenty of time to fish for big ones. I’m not going to lie, I was a little jealous of all the salmon jiggers but we had work to do. The smallmouth fishing yielded just a couple short bites and a sheepshead. Maybe we should have given it another 45 minutes but I just knew we were going to catch big green ones. We had to make one more pass through the schooling spot just to see if maybe the bigger ones had a different feeding window. Catching more 2 pounders there wasn’t doing us any good so it was off to some of the juice without a bonus fish worth weighing in. I pulled in on the first clump and snatched 2 nice ones out of it and another keeper. We probably had 13lbs but in reality, we should have just thrown them all back so we didn’t have to waste time culling every time we caught a fish. A couple juicy weed patches later and we finally connected with a 3 pounder. We hit a community hole next that has the potential for some big bites. It was obvious right away that things weren’t right in there but we fished around for a couple minutes on key spots just hoping to get lucky.
I had a good feeling we would get a big one in the weeds later when we rotated back through them but things weren’t really going according to plan. We just knew we needed really big ones today and despite setting the hook a lot it wasn’t happening. I had supreme confidence in the next round of areas though. It was just a bunch of run and gun small spots. 10 casts here, fire up the motor, 10 casts here, and do it again. I’ve really got to give it to Humminbird MEGA 360 for making that easier. However, when I rolled up on the first one the life wasn’t there and we never caught one. I ALWAYS catch one there and was definitely concerned that the bite could be fading. I was mixing in some shallow fishing and that was really tough. I don’t think we ever caught one up real shallow covering water. The next spot I got too close to and blew out. Immediately after that we caught small ones off an area that usually just has small ones. Sometimes there is a good one there so you have to try! The next 2 places were supreme confidence spots and we did add another 3 pounder. We had a respectable bag and if we could get a 4 pounder maybe we would be in check range. We just kept catching quality fish culling little by little but no major upgrades. Cranking, dropshots, Carolina rigs were all working and it was fun. Cracking them with 17lb test and an 8 foot rod with the Carolina rig has really grown on me this year. The funny part is I was using an old bag of Strike king Game hawgs in a color they don’t even make any more. I think I acquired them at one of the KVD charity tournaments as a door prize at some point and hadn’t pulled them out in years.
There was one spot that I was really anxious to get to but I was just giving it more time. I had the highest hopes for a magnum there and we were just slowly working our way there. The rod loaded up just right when we got there and there was no mistaking it was one of the right ones. We were moving in the right direction at least, the best part was it happened again on the next cast with our biggest fish of the day. 2 casts is all it took and the game had changed. We had a good bag now and just needed a couple more of the right bites. It’s also an important lesson that shouldn’t be overlooked. If you keep working hard, you just don’t know when your day is going to change. Every cast you make could be the one. I don’t know if we culled in the next little bit or not but we went through some more fish for sure. I bet we caught 40+ keepers throughout the day.
It was back to some isolated coontail for us and it didn’t take long to get things going. The first clump we pulled up to was one we hadn’t fished earlier but it produced another 4 pounder. The good news was we still had the best ones yet to fish. More keepers and one bite that got hung in the grass and came off. We had it on for a while before it got bogged down but who knows. It had to be pretty nice fish to help us out. There were only 2 fish that may or may not have helped us that came off during this tournament. We never had eyes on either one of them so who knows if they’d have made a difference. We junked around some more and mixed in a few different things. Tried to see if we could get a resident Muskegon Lake smallmouth even, but just ran out of time to get one more good cull.
I didn’t know what they were going to weigh but I knew we had nice ones and at least felt good about the day regardless of where we ended up. I felt like we had a good enough bag to probably get paid unless guys really got them running but I also didn’t know how many spots they paid. I do know that if you get paid at Payback Bass that you are getting a significant amount of money. I feel like every bag I saw get weighed was 15-21 pounds so I wasn’t feeling very confident with our 18.24. I’d have been pretty bummed to have a day like that and not get a check on Muskegon Lake but guys surprise me all the time with how well they do. It felt good to end up in 5th place and get paid and it wouldn’t have taken much to move up just a bit more into 2nd. We just couldn’t get that one big bite in the morning to make a difference. That one random big bite has eluded us all season but at least the stuff we are counting on has been pulling through.
Congrats to all the winners and all the teams that just caught nice bags of fish. It was a great way to end the “regular” season of bass fishing for me. I actually might have another trip in me to beat up on the schooling fish but I’m really focusing on salmon jigging for now.