White Lake HOTD
I finally got the chance to jump into a West Michigan Bass HOTD this year. It would seem wrong to not fish a single weekend tournament on White Lake all season. The only practice we got for the event was our Monday nighter that week. To put things nicely…it sucked! I think we had 5 for 11 and change with no signs of anything great to come. Found maybe one area that we might want to visit during the tournament but that was about it. We went salmon fishing instead of practice and it was a nice reset from the summer bass grind. I was really good at having big kings just come unbuttoned and was hoping that was all out of my system for the weekend.
Since we weren’t in the early draw we were guaranteed to have a crap boat number. Which I sort of prefer on White Lake and boat 83 didn’t bother me one bit. The plan was just to get in wherever we could. I had a couple areas in mind but you never want to drive past anything good immediately after take off on that lake. Well unless you want to do a big lap around the lake and not find anywhere to fish. We need some weed growth to come back there to spread the field out again. It would be important to find a way to catch some nice ones early because I felt really good about a few places in the afternoon. That kicker fish was going to be the tough one to get!
We settled into to a familiar area that I have had a lot of success on in the past. It didn’t take long and we put 3 in the boat. One on a swim jig, one on a worm, and one with the first topwater cast. Of course it ended up being the only topwater fish and all 3 of them were small. It was time to bail on that area and check the weeds in another familiar place. We hadn’t been there in awhile but I just had a feeling about it that day. There wasn’t a boat in sight which was a huge shocker. It also probably meant there were no fish there because it isn’t a secret spot or anything. Grass looked decent and there were bluegills around so I had high hopes anyway. Shortly after arriving I found a nice patch of coontail and flipped in. I wasn’t prepared for what was about to happen next. Felt the bite and bowed up on something that I just couldn’t move. A few seconds of struggle and the hook just pulled out. It certainly could have been a pike or a dogfish but I’m sticking with a bass and a very large one at that. Opportunity number 1 missed but there’s nothing you can do but straighten your bait up and make another flip.
Nothing else happening in that area so it was time to get on the move. I mentioned we had one place that we found Monday but we were never able to get on that all day. We just kept exploring and poking around at this and that. Did some side imaging with the Humminbird in old areas hoping to find something. Even when we found something it didn’t produce anything good. I think we scraped up a couple more dinks doing that and at least had a limit of fish that didn’t count for anything. Somewhere along the line Trevor caught a dogfish that got us excited for a moment. Time to go poke around the narrows next even though it didn’t look that great. We finally picked up a nice fish by accident. We just happened to be fishing near a dock and Trevor made a cast over there and caught a suspended one. We tried repeating that pattern but I guess it was just going to give us that one lucky bite and we would happily take it!
More checking around trying to make something happen after that. We were really just fishing all sorts of stuff with little success other that a few small keepers here and there. The time was getting right for the afternoon program and we hoped it wouldn’t disappoint. The first afternoon spot yielded nothing but things weren’t really happening there so I wasn’t too concerned. The next yielded a fish right away but the rest of the school was uncooperative. Before leaving I fired in there with a reaction bait and it was too much for one to handle. It was one of the right ones and I don’t know if I’ve ever used the words “5 pounder” with one I’ve lost but I will this time. It came all the way out of the water for both of us to see and promptly threw the bait out of its mouth. That one hurt worse than the first one.
At least the next few places showed out and we got to do some fast-paced catching and culling. We went from not much to a solid bag in no time but we really lacked a kicker. Despite how hard we tried the rest of the day we never found it. However, we came in 12th and got our money back so the day was still a success especially going on no practice.
It was definitely beneficial for the big stack tournament that is coming up this weekend. I think without those 2 lost fish (if the other one was a bass) we would have been right there around the winning weight but it’s hard to say for sure. I feel like that was one of those rare opportunities to win one of the big weekend events around here. Losing them is part of fishing and at least I can say it wasn’t anything we did that made them come off.
As far as looking forward to big stack, I don’t really know what to expect. There are so many variables especially when you can run from lake to lake. It’s a great way to hero or zero and it will be interesting to see what this field does. I’m not sure what I’ll do yet but I’d be ok with a small craft advisory to lock everyone into Muskegon. As of right now it doesn’t look like that will be the case but the weather forecast is constantly changing. Hopefully I can get out there and find something reliable on one of the lakes but if not I’m comfortable just going fishing and seeing what happens out there. It is going to be exciting to fish for 14 Grand on a lake I’m very familiar with and it might be one of my last opportunities to fish for that much! With the current costs of things, I’m not sure another year of Big Stack is going to be in the cards for me. So I’m going to enjoy fishing that format while I can and hope for some good finishes in the next 2 events!
