Whitefish Practice Day 3

I started the day with the intent of covering water and finding some healthy thick weeds. I started on some humps and caught a few fish on a Outkast Money jig with a Berkley 4" power worm that were actually fairly decent. They were not tournament winners by any means but the average was better than the last couple of days. However, after spending a couple more hours in that lake I cam to realize the weeds were worse than the other lakes and found no substantial coontail growth which is the key on that chain. I made a short run to a couple other areas in a nearby lake that I just wanted to make sure they weren't on. Again, the weed growth was very poor and there were no fish to be found. It was about 11:00 and I had to make a decision, I would either try and find fish here, which is quite a ways away

Whitefish Practice Day 2

I really wanted to check on those smallmouth from day one early so I could see if they were worth going to. I started casting a Lucky Craft Sammy on top of the flat. I had a couple follows but no takers. Not sure if they couldn't find it or what the reason they were not eating it was. I left there knowing there were some fish there and if I could get one or two they would be better than average. I checked a few other spots in that area but had little to no luck finding bigger fish. I could literally catch as many as I wanted to but not what I needed. I then went and checked a flat with a good weedline on it and caught a bunch of fish on a Outkast RT Jig and actually had a couple better fish in the 2.5# range. This gave me some more confidence to go keep fishing the weedlines in hopes that I could find that one spot with good weeds where they would be stacked. However, after fishing the rest of the day and not getting any better bites I started checking shallow on docks and some slop. I was not able to connect with any good fish there either and was getting a little frustrated. I knew though, that all it takes is one good area and I will have 5 good fish. So I went back to the cabin and made some changes in gear and mindset. I needed to start covering water or I would never find those better areas and better weeds. I was heading north to some of the other lakes in the chain on Friday and had confidence that I could find them there.

Whitefish Practice Day 1

I was very much looking forward to this tournament as I have been on the Whitefish chain before and have had some success. I have not ever won here but I know what it takes to win and I was looking forward to finally fishing some fish that were in their summer pattern.

I arrived at the lake Wednesday at about noon and just started driving around looking to see what the weeds were doing as I heard that they were nowhere near where they should be for this time of year. After about 30 minutes of driving around I could already tell that this was the case. I was not able to find any weeds where they normally would be. That pretty much told me that I needed to find a better concentration of weeds and that would be a good start of where I could find some fish. I checked out a main lake area that can hold some smallmouth and had a couple smallmouth follow my bait back to the boat, they were not huge but I knew there were some bigger ones around there. From there I went to check some weedlines nearby that had some scattered weeds on them. I was catching a bunch of fish but nothing too big, which is typically the case on this chain of lakes. I pulled up to an inside turn that typically holds some better fish and had a good bite on a Berkley 4" pro tube on my third cast. I set the hook into what felt like a better fish and barely moved the fish before it came unhooked. I made a few more casts into that area and caught a smaller fish and another one about 2.75 pounds. I had confidence in that spot as I had caught fish there in the past and although it's not usually a spot that will hold a large school of fish it can hold a couple better ones. I fished weedlines and flats the rest of the evening but never caught another good fish. I caught probably 40 fish that afternoon but only a couple that would be worth keeping.