BFL Season so far!

[rufus]

Man, it has been a busy summer. Last year I was able to post each tournament story after each event. I have not had the time to sit down at the computer for more than 10 minutes a week all summer. things have finally slowed down and hopefully I can get back into posting and reading more of GLB.
My BFL year so far has had a lot of ups and downs. I started with a downer at Burt/Mullett. I decided to make the 2 hour trek to go after a monster sack on Burt and let a big fish get to me. The long run left only 4 hours of fishing time. I decided to make a quick run through a topwater area and to my amazement, what had been strong all week completely died. I then went to my bedding fish. I pulled in to the first one and a boat pulled in front of me while I was trolling towards the fish. I then decided to head to another area where there were more fish. I had two marked close together and when I pulled up to the first one the other was gulping mayflies off the surface. I decided to catch him while he was hungry and this proved to be disastrous. I pulled up to the fish and proceed to lose him on the second cast about ten feet from the net. To make a long story short I ended up losing that fish a total of 4 times and after over an hour and a half I finally put her in the boat. While I was messing with this fish a friend of mine (who was the only other to find these fish) was able to catch the other 4 big fish around me while I stayed on this one. I felt terrible for my coangler who was a real good guy and I did not check another bedded fish the rest of the day. We only had 1 1/2 hours to fish so we just went fishing. He ended up breaking off a 5+. My single fish did end up big bass at 5'11".
We then went to St. Clair and after a great 4 days of prefishing was able to find an area with some "top 5" fish in it. My coangler and I pulled into it and both had limits in under a 1/2 hour. We both ended up culling many times and never put a fish under 3'1" in the boat. I ended up with 19'8" and 5th and he ended up in 7th with 17'3". They were all nearly clones and the balance beam came in very handy that day.
I love St Clair, but the next tourney is one of my favorite places to fish (believe it or not) the Grand River. Prefishing revealed that the Grand was not going to be as friendly as last where I finished 4th and my coangler won after we sorted over 25 keepers!, so I decdided to leave the Grand for better water. I had an incredible prefish (even better than last years) and was really stoked for tourney day. After a two hour run I pulled into my area and found the bite to be much slower. After three moves I finally put a couple 3 pounders in the boat. With a shortened day due to a late start I started to get nervous about the slow deep bite I had found and ended up leaving to go "finish a limit" with 2 more hours of fishing time. My coangler only had one and he was all for it. I ended up with two more fish and my co got 1 more. I ended the tourney in 15th and cashed a check, but was very disappointed with my decision to leave my primary area. My buddy who followed me up stayed a little shallower than me and whacked them all day, althought they were just 2 pound fish. He squeaked in a check, but had a lot more fun doing it after culling 2 limits. He even told me to come on up and finish a limit, but i just couldn't do that.
Then on to the Detroit River. We were able to prefish for three days and spent two of them on RED HOT St. Clair. It was a decent practice and we caught some really nice fish on St. Clair. They were very scattered and we really found no concentration of fish, but the ones we found were all 3 1/2-4 pound fish. On Friday I decided to hit Erie and see if the bite had gotten better (I fished Wonderland and the bite was as slow as I have ever seen it). I was pleased to find that it had gotten much better. We caught many fish in all size classes including a 5'8" TOAD on my second area. We also caught a ton of short fish, which is very unusual for Erie, but I was pleased to see the next generation is down their. My deicision to fish Erie was made. I drew a great coangler and we headed to Erie. It was the absolute worst BFL I have ever had of not being able to put fish in the boat. My co and I literally each lost the first 5 fish that bit and all of them were within 3 feet of the net ARGHHHHH! The day did not get much better, but the bite was incredible. We did somehow manage to put 5 in the boat each. We each lost 7 fish over 4 pounds and had 2 others in the 5 pound range. We also lost at least 10 other fish in the 2 1/2-3 pound range. I ended up with 15'3" and my co had 14'2". I ended up in 35th and I believe he was  around 20th. All the fish were lost on drop shots and I can honestly say I have probably not lost that many fish total on a drop shot in my career.
I am now in 9th in points and hope to have revenge on Erie in the upcoming Super Tournament.
God Bless and Good Fishin'!

[SethV]

Heath-

Nice write up.  Not a bad season for you so far, but with a couple of breaks it could have been a really great season.

Mine has gone much the same way as your has.  At Burt/Mullett I think everyone experinced the same thing that fish changed on Friday.  We could actually see the fish behavior changing on Friday afternoon.  I was lucky to scrape out 14 lbs on Burt lake.  Figgured something out later in the day, and thought it would take me 1:30 to get back, so I left with plenty of time.  Took 1:05 so the time wasted cost me.

On LSC, I was also on shallow fish....or more precicely, my co-angler was on MY shallow fish.  Weird day, we caught the same number of fish, but I would catch a 14" dink and he would get "another" 3 lb fish.  He finished 4th (i think) and i was mid pack with another 14 lb bag.

Next was the Grand.  I love, love, love the Grand.  Too bad I hear it is not on the schedule next year.  I love that place.  Finished 6th and caught a ton of fish all day.  My co was 2nd on the no boater side.

At the Detroit river, I found fish to the south, and fish to the north.  The south fish were much closer than the 55 mile run to the north, so I decided to hit them for an hour and then run north if nothing was happening.  After an hour, I had not even had a bite.  I was getting ready to leave, and BOOM they turned on.  Had a limit in 20 minutes and it was pretty steady all day after that.  20 lb 10 oz was 2nd place.

I am sitting tied for 1st in the points with Modrak.  The last one on the river will be interesting for sure.

Still not sure if I am going to the regional.  Long way to drive for the locals to just walk away with it.  I am no good on muddy rivers....

Seth

[Team houston]

Thanks for not mentioning how your co-angler stunk it up that last tourney. It was however a pleasure to fish with you and I hope to do it again sometime. Told you ,you would move up in the points.