St Jude Day 2

We knew we could not win after blanking on day one, or catch enough to cash a check. But we had our sights on the comeback award (silver lining). Which goes to the team with the biggest improvement from day 1. The wind laid down and the sun was suppose to shine for most of the day. We figured our best shot to catch 8 fish was to head out to lake Pepin. We started throwing jerkbaits and covering water looking for an area where the fish were concentrated. We knew the first spot we stopped at had some fish around it because it is a somewhat popular area and Brian had done well there not to long ago. I hooked a 2# fish right away and we had the skunk out of the boat. We continued to fish that area were Brian caught one more fish on a prototype Outkast Finesse Jig.

We moved up lake a little bit and hit another area that was holding some fish. We caught two more fish on jerkbaits and were halfway to a limit. Still no big fish, but they were weigh fish non the less.

We headed to a marina on the lake that I have fished quite a bit in the past and we were able to get another fish there on an Outkast Tube. We then went over to another marina and a small cut where we had a few smaller bites but were not able to boat anything that would keep.

We then headed back to the area where we caught two fish earlier in the day and caught one right away to give us 5 fish. We kind of decided at that point we need to work this area better and try to get the rest of our limit out of it. We caught another weigh fish shortly thereafter and now we only needed one more to have a limit. With about 20 minutes left Brian caught our eighth fish on a jerkbait and we thought we may have a shot at the comeback prize of $500.

We got back to the weigh-in and talked to a few other guys who did poorly on day one and they had all struggled on day two. Our hopes of saving face were soon thwarted when Dean Capra and Pat Martin (7 pounds day 1) brought in a 30 pound bag of smallmouth. We weighed our eight fish for 15.5 pounds and went on our way.

We learned a few things from this tournament. We learned that the river is not what it use to be. Two years ago if you were able to bring in a limit of two pound bass each day you would probably cash a check. Last year it took 46 pounds to win and twenty pounds a day to cash a check and we thought maybe that was a fluke. This year it took nearly 53 pounds to win and 43 pounds to cash a check. The river is getting better and we are not adjusting. The other thing that we realized is that we need to allow more practice time down there. There is no way we can cover that much water in 2 days and do it effectively. Here's to next year.