Medicine Lake Greenhorn Tour 7/13/14

I was excited to hear that the greenhorn tour was coming to my home lake for the first time.  I have done well on the lake in the past and figured my knowledge would give me a slight advantage.  That's when fishing slaps you across the face for a rude awakening and brings you back to reality.

Practice

I was able to make it out to practice a couple time before I was heading up to cross lake for a week-long resort vacation.  I wasn't able to put much together during practice except a couple good ones on the first visit on a weedline.  I was out with Kyle and Emma and we had a great time.  We found some feathers on the beach and a couple panfish.

The second time out I only caught one pike but was only out for about 3 hours before I headed up to the Whitefish Chain for the week.  I tried all my spots and a couple new ones but nothing was working.  I tried deep, shallow, topwater, fast, slow, everything I could think of.   Nothing was working.  I just assumed it was a tough day and that they would be biting on tournament day.  I try not to let a bad pre fish bother me much since sometimes a good pre fish day leads to a tough tournament and vice versa.

I was putting my boat on the trailer when a guy was standing on the dock started up a conversation.  The entire time I was thinking "how can I politely get out of this conversation?"  Since I was in a hurry to get home and pack up and head out of town.  He was nice enough but he wouldn't stop talking.  He said he was a fishing guide but didn't know medicine very well.  He also said he was from Brainerd but when I told him that's where I was going he asked me how long it took to get there.  And he was standing so close to me I was a little uncomfortable.  Finally I politely told him I had to get home to pack.  I pulled my boat out and proceeded to strap it down when he pulled up next to me.  I'm thinking "oh great, what does he want now?"  He have me his number and told me to call him and we could go fishing together and if we went far we could split gas money.  I was a little creeped out.  In this day and age it's too bad that this kind of encounter has to be viewed with such suspicion but unfortunately that's the world we live in.  I'm not going on any fishing trip with some guy I just met at the boat ramp that I know nothing about.  Especially a long distance trip.

Tournament

We arrived at the ramp at about 5:15 and drew boat number 6.  Which was pretty good considering our track record. We dumped in and waited to get it on.  One guy in the tour has no tournament etiquette.  He pulled up to the spot where you are supposed to dump your boat in but wasn't ready to go.  He was still unpacking and getting ready by the time we were ready to dump in.  So we just went around him and dumped in anyway.  Didn't the fact that everyone was parked in the lot clue him into what was going on.  Then at the end of the day when all the boaters drop off their co-anglers to get the truck, he dropped his guy off and proceeded to park at the only dock spot available.  Everyone usually drops the guy at the dock, then heads back out a little ways to get out of the way and floats around until they see their truck pulling up.  Not this guy.  I wonder if he doesn't know or just doesn't care.  I'm guessing it's the latter.  Then get this.  After he dumped his boat in, he drove around marking fish like way away from where the rest of us were hovering waiting to blast off.  While not illegal, I've never seen anyone actually do it.  I can't pull for a guy like this.  It's just bad sportsmanship.  Rant over.

We started on a deep rock spot where I have had good success in the past.  After a few minutes I felt a good 'thump' and set the hook.  It felt good if it was a bass.  I played it closer to the boat and of course it was about a 4lb pike.  This was a sign of how our day would go.  We worked the area about 30 minutes before we headed shallow to see if we could get some topwater going. 

We headed to a shallow bay with lots of pads and milfoil and began froggin.  After a few minutes with no blow ups, I switched to a punch rig and let Ron throw the frog.  I figured if they started hitting I could join in but I wanted to figure out what they were biting.  After quite awhile with not even a blow up on the frog, I threw a tube craw to the edge of the pads and stuck a good fish.  It was about 3.5 pounds.  It was just enough to keep us in the area for awhile longer but with no more bites.  So this was a good sign but still it was around 9am and we had only one fish in the box.

We moved to a stretch of reeds with a nice weed line nearby and were greeted with noting but pike and short fish.  From there we ran to another shallow area and tried some docks.  Then back another deep rock area that I knew.  Then finally back to one of the bays.

At this point we were pretty discouraged as it was noon and we only had one good fish with nothing to go with it.  I decided to just keep flipping and eventually I would drop it on a bass's head and they would eat it.  After another short, I finally got a bite in the pads with heavy milfoil around it.  It felt like a good one but once we got it in the next and removed all the salad, it was no bigger than 14 inches.  After working the entire bay, we headed off to do a quick check of our deep starting spot, then headed back to where I caught the 3.5 earlier in the morning.

With about an hour left it was all out panic mode and a was flipping every patch of weeds I could see.  I caught another keeper pretty quickly and then another within the next 15 minutes.  Finally with about 30 minutes left I set the hook on a good one.  I got it closer to the boat and it was a freaking dogfish!  Unbelievable.  I haven't caught a dogfish in a long time and I've had 3 in the boat in the last week.  That would have been our limit fish and at least we would have something to go on after a tough day.  But it was not to be.  We worked hard for the remainder of the day and headed to weigh in.  We ended up in 10th place with 7.39lbs.  The winners said they were flipping weeds in 6-8 feet of water with tube craws and worms.  Also some of the better fish came on crankbaits.  

Overview

To say that I was disappointed with our finish would be an understatement.  I have had very good success on Medicine in the past, and was pretty confident we'd get them figured out at some point during the day.  This also ends my streak of 11 tournaments in a row where I've brought in a limit.  I didn't fish an event all year last year without catching a limit, and here it is early July and the streak is over.  I take pride in at least bringing in a limit, and get very frustrated if it doesn't happen.  

In hindsight we should have spent all day flipping heavy cover.  It seemed the bite was off from the get-go, and the fish were definitely not in aggressive feeding mode.  You had to make them bite by dropping a lure on their head or ripping a crank past their face.  I can say that I worked as hard as I could, tried everything I could think of, and sometimes it just doesn't happen.  That's fishing!  And part of why we love it.  If we could figure them out every time, it wouldn't be as exciting when you do.  But I'd certainly like to figure them out soon and cash a check!  Time to take a break, get the boat fixed (steering cable), and re-group for the next Renegade Bassers event on N/S Center and the final Greenhorn Tour event on Goose Lake.  Ron will be fishing the next Greenhorn event on Coon with a sub as it's my wife's birthday that day so good luck to him.  Somehow we are still only 4 points out of making the Greenhorn TOC and still have a chance.  

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