Oakland Lake

[fishon1219]

The WCBA had its second event of the season on Oakland Lake. Here is how my day went.

Arrived at the ramp at 5:00am for a 5:45 start. My partner was supposed to meet me at the launch, but he is notorious for showing up late.

Everybody draws a number and we launch the boats and are getting ready for blast off when my partner calls another competitor and tells him he will be at the ramp at 7:00 if I would come up there and get him. I tell him OK. I dont want to see somebody miss a day on the water so off I go to spot number 1. It is the large bay to the northeast of the ramp. I head almost to the back of the bay and grab my pop-r and catch keeper number 1 on my 3rd cast. Put him in the box and cast out again and I am now reeling in Number 2. A few casts later and a short fish grabs it.

I keep doing circles around this bay and can only catch shorts so I move to the very back of the bay were the lily pads are thinking a big one may be laying in there. I is to weedy up there for the pop-r so I tie on a horny toad and fish it a liitle bit when I see a rather large swirl up by the pads. I cast the horny toad and then I see the tell tale "V" of something coming to eat it.

The water explodes and I keep reeling to come back with nothing on the line, but line. I am guessing a very large pike. 20 trilene XT cut cleanly. Buy this time my partner calls and says he is at the ramp so I head up to get him. He loads all 300lbs of gear into my boat and we start fishing right in front of the ramp were I see Langer and we exchange cordials and he tells me he has 3.

I pick up my jig rod with a Blk/Blue Exodus jig and go to work. I start at the Island just to the north west of the ramp and catch one real quick that is 14 1/2" now I have 3. I continued to follow this braek line all the way around this bay dodging water skiers and all the other pleasure boats and catch my limit farily quickly.

The rest of the day I just circled around this bay and caught keeper after keeper, but nothing bigger than what I already had. I quite checking fish on the beam after a while and I think this cost me 1st place. I was a little bit hung over and really lazy so it is my fault.

When it was over 1st place had 9.02 and I had 8.52 for 2nd and langer had 8.25 for 3rd. My lazyness almost cost me 2nd place as well.

My co-angler managed 1 fish for himself after I gave him a Rod with a jig tied on. All of the stuff he brought and he didnt have any jigs.

Well congratulations to Langer for his 3rd place finish in his 2nd  WCBA event. Very nice and I hope to see you as Angler of the year this year.

[Langer]

Pre-fishing: I went out to fish the lake on Thursday after work, I had never been to this lake before so I just want to get my bearings on the lake and have my buddy from work show me some spots to try. We started off fishing the docks straight across from the launch working our way east. My 2nd cast of the day I caught a nice 3.2 on a Yum Dinger. Two docks later I had another keeper close two 2.5, we hit a few more shorelines and fished some more docks catching lots of 13 3/4 fish and a couple 14's. after beating docks we moved out to the large bay on the west end of the lake and started fishing, I only managed a couple fish out of here, before we called it quits for the night. Well after pre-fishing the lake my plan was to head straight across to those docks and fish the stretch of shore because that is where I caught the best fish.

Tx Day: I got to the ramp around 5:15 and started re tying all my lures. I could of saved my self some time and slept in and only re-rigged one rod, because it was the only rod I caught keepers on... I drew boat # 6 out of 11, so my initial game plan was shot as I watched the 1st 4 boats head straight across from the launch and set up camp on that shore. So I headed over to the large flat on the west end of the lake and started fishing. I started fishing a pop-r up around some of the docks, but with out so much as a short strike or a dink I quickly abandoned the pop-r for the drop shot, I have had great success on the drop shot this year just casting it out with a finese worm on it and bringing it back to the boat slowly but steadily. I moved out away from the docks to a little deeper water and instanly started catching fish. I caught fish all the way around the same break line Kevin was fishing, out of all the fish most were 13.5 with only 3 keepers, one just over 2 and the other two just barely 14inches. I knew the flat in front of the launch was a pretty good area to pick up fish so I wanted to head over there fish it quick before more pleasure boaters started showing up, so we headed over to the flat and started fishing, nothing but shorts, talked with Kevin briefly, found out he had 2, before heading over to see if anything was left at the strecth of docks I did good on in practice. Nothing but rock bass. Tried a couple more spots that we thought looked good in practice, but quickly reverted back to the flat and breakline that was producing. I fished this break and flat the rest of the day. I picked up my 4th keeper about 11:30, unlike kevin who was catching alot of keepers I was just catching a lot of fish, short fish. So with only 20mins left I finally got my 5th fish. My dad had already accepted defeat (he zero'd) and was putting his stuff away so I headed towards the launch. I fished the flat in front of the launch again before heading in and caught two back to back right away, but both were 13 and 3/4. I decided to call it quits when the large ski boat went flying through between all the boats sent waves over my bow. I was happy with my finish, I know there are some good fishermen in our club and knew that some had been pre-fishing heavily, so catching a limit on a day when most guys struggled felt good. Congrats Kev on your 2nd place finish, looks like I am going to have to learn the Jig next, I bought a couple of those jigs at the wonderland fishing show.