Fed. Tourn. - Saginaw Bay

[blakstr1]

Good Luck to any of you fishing the Classic Series tournaments on Saginaw Bay this weekend. It appears it it going to be just a hot calm weekend for you. Let us know how you guys do.

[emeryj]

I do know that you posted this a long time ago... but I'm a new member to the site and I just seen this. I fished that Fed. tourney and had some fairly good succes. I don't know if you were up there or not. I gave myself three days to practice and the only Hot flat days were that of the tournaments. Wed. was pretty must cloudy and flat. Thurs. depending on where you went, was either 3 footers or 6+ footers. On that day, I needed to get familiarized with running my boat in "BIG" waves. So I put my helmet on, tightened up my rain gear and went out in the waves that were so big that when I was in between two of them, I had to look "UP" to see anything else besides water, and land was completely out of the question. Friday most of the Bay was 1-3 footers. The only fish I found, I caught on Wednesday,around big Charity. I got out to the Island at 9:30 and it was pretty over cast. I could see about 6 or 7 other boats around me. This being my first time ever in the bay, everything seemed like it should have a big old brown fish sitting next to it. I started on the west side and zig zagged my way around the island going around counter clock wise. I caught my first fish around 11:00, 4 pound sheep head on a jerk bait. then shortly after a 3 lb 7oz smallie on a tube, I thought it was another sheep head at first, beacause I could see it but not quite make it out and it kept hitting the tails on my tube and not hooking up. So I pulled a trick I use on hard to catch bedding fish and bit the tails off of my tube and then threw back at it. I never had a fish stick around like, without being on a bed. By the time I worked my way around to the East side if the island it was already 3:30. I never even started the big motor, too scared I was going to miss that "one" spot. by 3:30 the sun was starting to pop out and I could not see another sole anywhere. I was going along some reefs just being thankful I could finally see farther than 10 feet when I spot one of those big blackies. I threw a spinner bait at it because that's what I had in my hand at the time and I got the thing to follow it up to the boat. but no takes. It didn't really swim away, but it didn't really seem like it wanted to eat. I figured that mabye it was just coming off the beds and not really hungry but a little interested. Finally it spooked off, that's my kind of luck! The area started to show a couple more boulder than usual, so I payed more atention to where I moving than to what I was fishing. As I was manuvering around the rocks, I through out by another boulder and just started to drag it away, not even looking toward my bait... I was just looking at the potential damage that could happen to my boat if I hit the rock right in front of me and was just feeling for a bite. Once I got past the rock and with no bites I started reeling in to make another cast... then I lookied up and there was onther one of those big blackies chasing it down, then it turned and went back to the boulder I just threw to. I through back there again and the tube never hit the bottom. that one was 3lbs 12oz. So I started to cruise around to look for some more big fish holding boulders. I thought at one time I could see the fish I just caught because I hadn't moved very far, but then I seen another smaller fish with it and thought I might try to catch that one. I really don't believe in beeting up fish before a tourny, but I had only caught 2 smallies all day. Let me just say that these fish aren't a long cast away, in fact I really didn't have to cast at all. So I just more or less flipped my tube by the smaller fish, guessing that if it was with the one I just caught it would be about a 2 pounder. the tube never hit the bottom and yes the smaller one did eat it... the smaller one did weigh 3lbs 5oz. If that was the case... then the other fish was not the one that I just caught, It was much bigger. For the next 2 hours I trolled around marking fish after fish and spot after spot thinking that I just found the mother load. I had to call my partner and a couple of other buddies just to let them know what was going on. I couldn't believe it, I could catch a fish, let it go, it would swim down underneath the boat, and then follow me around and accasionally pick up a couple of his buddies. At times I had three or four 3lb plus smallmouth following my boat around and all I had to do was drop my tube down and they would eat it.
Now, I have only been tournament fishing for 4 years... and it has not been easy, I have to work harder at fishing than most just to get to the same level. AND THESE FISH WERE SWIMMING AT THE BOAT!!! I only caught a grand total of 8-10 fish, and I would estimate that I spotted around 70-80, of the ones I did catch I only caught one that was under 3 lbs and none that hit 4 lbs, I weighed every one on my new Normark scale. It was EXTREMELY difficult to hold myself back and not just go to town on these guys, I've never been fishing for bass and had a day where I can honestly say I "wacked em" and the only day I get a chance to... I can't. Well... I should have, because the only thing that was there the first day of the tournament was one two pounder, a sheep head and a 3-4 pound cat fish. that's all we caught in 3 and a half hours. So we went to my partners spots, some rock piles out in the middle of the bay, of course the water was so bad in practice that we never had any real time to fish them, and EVERYBODY was saying that they weren't finding any fish on rock piles out in the middle of the bay. My partner had 22 rock piles that his friend had given him GPS coordinates to. But something was not "exactly" between the two units. The coordinates would only get us in the general area, and with four out of the four sonar units between both of our boats in non working order, we had to drive around in circles until we found them. We only found three of them in practice and that's all that we had to fish, not wanting to waste our time in the tournament to try to find more. We only fished 2 of the piles on Saturday and only caught five fish on them. But... those five fish landed us in 18+ pounds and 3rd place with second big bass, and to top it all off we won the 50/50 raffle. It was a great day after it was all said and done. This is my fisrt year fishing the federation, and I have already taken a piece of lumber home. That's something a lot of guys in my club have been trying to do for years. I feel real lucky. The last day of the tournament ended like this, we had four bites, we caught three fish for just over 9 lbs. I hope this is what you were looking for and isn't too long winded.

[blakstr1]

Wow, what a great report, took me a while to get back because it took me that long to read!! ;D just kidding that was exactly what i was looking for. good job on the tournament too, my partner and i have been kicking around whether or not to get into the classic series, stories like yours might help our decision a bit...

[emeryj]

Well if you have any other questions about fishing the Fed. I'll be more than happy to share any more information about my first year fishing it.