Dartag and Cheetams weekend adventure.

[dartag]

We started the week off pre-fishing Cass lake on Tuesday.   We caught fish in all the normal places I fish.  Lots of smallies still on beds.  We then pre-fished on Kent on Thursday and found some fish but nothing really big.  Saturday found us on Cass with 43 other boats.  Everyone was fired up about the first tourney of the year and opening of bass season.  We started off on some bed fish and it seemed like half the boats had found the same fish.  We had our 8 fish limit in a little over an hour.  Then the culling started.  The balance beam got a food work out gaining ounces at time.  We probably caught 50 fish all day.  We finished with 15lb 8 oz for 3rd place.  I think 18 something won with 16 for second.  Sunday it was off to Kent lake.  When I got there I was amazed at how many more boats were there already with a line still coming in.  68 boats showed up to fish.  We were boat 15 and were able to get to some fish we found in practice.  We caught 4 nice ones right away.  Then things slowed down.  Jeff got our 5th keeper on a crank bait but it was slow going.  We made a decision to head to a different part of the lake and it was a good one.  We pulled up and had a double header with keepers to fill our 6 fish limit and cull a squeaker.  We worked down the shore and Jeff noticed a little change in the bottom color and caught a 15 inch largemouth probably on a bed.   We caught 4 or 5 more all 15 inchers that helped a little.  More balance beaming.  We weighed our fish for 12.6 and had to leave for family commitments.  We finished 13th.  The weights were way down from last year with 17.65 winning.  Last year there were 4 bags over 20 lbs I think.  It was a great weekend of fishing.  My hands are raw from handling fish.  Great turnout for both events and everything seemed to run smoothly.  Thanks to both organizations. Avid Angles and OCBM

The good thing was my Smart Craft showed we only used 4 gallons of gas all weekend. 

[Cheetam]

It was a good weekend.  We lost a couple good fish in both tournaments that would have helped, but hey, that's fishing.  Taking third was nice on Cass since it paid our entry fees both days, and put a couple more bucks in our pockets.  Kent was interesting with 68 boats.  Some areas had three, four or five boats sitting real close, and some areas, like the ones we fished, were pretty wide open.  Anyways, thanks for letting me tag along, it was fun!

[fishon1219]

You guys think you still have money left over. Each bag of those special baits are going to cost you $10.00.

A whole log of kodiak should do the trick though.

Glad you guys had fun and hanks for being my pinch hitter jeff.

[smbassman]

I noticed the last name Cheetam on the board at the Kent lake tournament and assumed it was you.  I fished the same tournaments this weekend also.  Cass Lake was a last minute deal since the NBAA at Lobdell was cancelled.  I haven't been to Cass Lk in 3yrs and had only been there right after ice out.  Luckily I remembered an area that would be a good spawn area.  That was confirmed when I saw the number of boats fishing it.  My wife and I just started working fast through the shallows looking for areas that looked a little different.  There were fish everywhere but they were all 14.5"ers.  We then found what I was looking for with a different bottom composition in the 3-4ft range and started catching 15.5-16"ers.  We would catch the a couple and move away as the other boats closed in.  Swing around and move back through and catch a few more.  It was definitely a key area for the slightly better fish.  On one pass, as soon as we hit the edge of the area I hooked another 16"er and was yelling to my wife to get the net.  She informed me she also had one on and told me to get the net.  She had been blindly casting so I assumed she hooked another 14"er... Until it jumped!  A nice 3+lber had ate her grub right off the drop off.  I fed mine a bunch of line to let it swim around while I netted hers with one hand.  Then swung around and netting my own.  Talk about an exciting first tournament!

Around noon things slowed down and the sun was up.  I decided to try some cuts for roaming largemouth.  Ended up trading up 1.5lbs including a 2 3/4lb largemouth and weighed in 16.98lbs for 2nd.

On Kent (with my regular fishing partner) we spent way too much time on bedded largemouth that were questionable and ended up with only two quality bed fish and three 1.5 lbers.  While I was working a 2.5 lber on a bed my partner hooked a 3+ on the inside weed edge in about 7ft.  That keyed us into giving up looking for beds and were able to cull out some smaller fish by fishing the rock gravel shore to weed transitions for the rest of the day.  We ended up with roughly 13.5lb's and most of those that weighed in before us were in the 15# range so we left.  Apparently the bags got smaller cause we ended in 10th place.  Not as bad as I had thought!

This was a very good weekend to say the least.  The weather was perfect, my thumbs were raw and bloody, and like you said - I didn't have to burn too much gas in the boat.  I might have to do more of the inland lake fishing!

[Cheetam]

Yep, not to many Cheetams floating around...lol.  I believe Steve and I were fishing near you and your wife on Cass when you had the double header (the white ranger moving off the flat when you were moving up onto it).  I remember looking over to Steve and saying "looks like they got a double..."  You scooped up your wife's fish and then brought yours in.  You should have come up and said hi afterwards...it's always nice meeting more people from the board.  Congrats on the 2nd place!

[fishstick]

I fished both tournaments also and ended up taking 5th in both of them with the exact same weight 15.2 weird huh??

On Cass it was all bed fish for me went through atleast 5 limits but usually could only cull ounces at a time. I even had to catch one fish twice because my partner dropped it out of the net!!! I'm not going to let him forget that one . The bed fish were extremely cooperative I threw a fluke at them first and most I would either catch or get them to show themselves so I could tell if they might be worth fishing for. After that it usually took less than 3 pitches. I was surprised at the numbers of fish left on beds we would go into areas that we had watched several boats work over and continue to snatch them. I actually almost left without my check until someone told me they were paying 5 places Thanks Jay!

Kent was more bed fishing our weigh in fish were 3 nice smallies and 1 nice largemouth off beds, then 1 smallie and 1 largemouth that were post spawn. At one point we put 7-8 keepers in the boat in about ten minutes off a post spawn spot. I lost our biggest fish of the day that I think was looking to make a bed as it would hang out in the same area but never lock down on anything we found 2 like that within casting distance of each other and spent 2 hours on them because we knew it was over if we could get them to bite. Man was that boring!!!! but it almost paid off. Overall it was an alright weekend though and I'm pretty happy to be in the top 5 on 2 lakes I've only fished a couple times.

Congrats on your high finishes guys!

[Cheetam]

I fished both tournaments also and ended up taking 5th in both of them with the exact same weight 15.2 weird huh??

Crazy!  I would have gone and played 152 in the daily three lottery on Sunday!  Awesome job on the 5th place finishes!