After a tough tournament on Medicine I set my sights on Waconia. Along with my poor showing in the previous event, my recent history on Waconia has not been good. In the alternates tournament a few years ago I missed 1st place by the smallest margin because I couldn't fill my limit after catching 4 fish very quickly, then not getting my limit fish for the next 6 hours. My last tourney on Waconia as a non boater I brought in one fish. And my first event here as a boater I brought in 2 fish one which I snagged with my rat-l-trap. It was under 30 degrees at take off that day but still. So needless to say I have a score to settle with this lake. And I need some points in the worst way.
Practice
I was hoping to get a couple visits in to try some different things on different days. My first visit was on July 4th with Kyle Rodriguez, my soon to be brother-in-law. It's been awhile since we've fished together and it was good to catch up. We started shallow and immediately found some fish with swim jigs and frogs. Not much size so we kept moving. We hit some reeds and Kyle lost a good one. I made a metal note and moved on. We hit a couple more shallow areas with some success before we moved out deep. I caught a couple really nice fish out on the humps before the place turned into a zoo and it was time to go. The ramp was a circus and everyone was trying to get on the lake to enjoy the holiday.
I made it out again alone for a few hours later that week. I wanted to expand on what I found on the 4th as well as check my other good areas to see how consistent they were. I started in the reeds near the access with no luck. I slid out to the first break to see if they were there instead and caught a couple decent ones. I moved around and didn't really find much besides one other good area where I caught 3 fish on 3 casts. While I was fishing this spot another boat slid up within casting distance and there was hardly anybody else out there. I couldn't believe it. He just rolled up and started casting and acted like I wasn't even there. Some people... I already had what I needed so I bailed.
Tournament
I was paired with another new club member BJ so it would be another chance to get to know another new guy one on one. We met at my house and headed out.
I was torn on whether to start shallow or deep. I had two good spots one shallow one deep. I figured the deep spots would get crowded quickly once the walleye guys came out, but normally I like to start shallow then go deeper. At the last minute I decided to go shallow. We started catching fish immediately but they were all small. Except one 17 incher that ate my frog as soon as it landed. In 45 minutes I had my limit and BJ had 4. Off to find some bigger fish.
We headed to some reeds and wanted to fish the point but there was another boat (Not one of our guys) sitting right on it with power poles down picking it apart. Great. We worked in behind and around and eventually he left. We came around the point and I flipped in and got hammered. It was a good fish almost 4 pounds. Just what I needed! Now off to find another one. We tried one more shallow area with no luck then headed deeper.
Every deep spot that I wanted to go to there was at least two boats on. That's what I was afraid of by starting shallow. We settled in close to one of my waypoints on a weedline and hoped to wait out another boat nearby. He could tell we were trying to edge in and eventually (after catching several fish) came over and told us we could have at it. We talked for a minute and he was pre fishing for an upcoming tournament and told us there were 2-3lb fish in the area. By the time we got in there apparently they had shrunk. I think BJ got his limit fish and made some slight upgrades. I couldn't buy an upgrade! I tried throwing different types of baits to entice the bigger fish to no avail.
Eventually we left to try to find some bigger fish. We ran back through the reeds but it was difficult to fish because of the wind. I was gravitating towards the flipping bite because that's how I caught my biggest fish. But the bites were few and far between. We tried a deep hump, another reed patch and weedline before we settled back in to our previous productive weedline spot.
This time I finally got a small upgrade to get rid of one of my 13 inchers. I still had 2 left and time was winding down. We were consistently catching fish but all small. At this point I thought maybe I had 10 pounds and that wasn't going to get me a top 5 out here.
We headed to another weedline near the ramp for the last 10 minutes. When I pulled in a crappie on my drop shot I knew it was over. We headed back for weigh in.
I ended up with 10.67 pounds for 9th place. At least I am heading in the right direction for this lake. I finally managed to catch a limit! Watch out next time we fish Waconia. :-) The winner John P, came in with a giant sack and blew away the field with just over 20 pounds and a 5+ big bass. He had more than 7lbs more than the 2nd place stick. Wow!
I had a fun day despite not finding many big ones. We caught tons of fish size just wasn't there. I'm sure I caught at least 25 fish or more, it sure seemed like more.
I don't really know what I could have done differently. I want to say we shouldn't have fished shallow so much but that's where my big one came from. Not sure, I'll scratch my head about this for awhile. Next up is Maple Lake, one of my favorites. I'm off to pre fish...
Water temp 75 degrees
I was hoping to get a couple visits in to try some different things on different days. My first visit was on July 4th with Kyle Rodriguez, my soon to be brother-in-law. It's been awhile since we've fished together and it was good to catch up. We started shallow and immediately found some fish with swim jigs and frogs. Not much size so we kept moving. We hit some reeds and Kyle lost a good one. I made a metal note and moved on. We hit a couple more shallow areas with some success before we moved out deep. I caught a couple really nice fish out on the humps before the place turned into a zoo and it was time to go. The ramp was a circus and everyone was trying to get on the lake to enjoy the holiday.
I was paired with another new club member BJ so it would be another chance to get to know another new guy one on one. We met at my house and headed out.
I was torn on whether to start shallow or deep. I had two good spots one shallow one deep. I figured the deep spots would get crowded quickly once the walleye guys came out, but normally I like to start shallow then go deeper. At the last minute I decided to go shallow. We started catching fish immediately but they were all small. Except one 17 incher that ate my frog as soon as it landed. In 45 minutes I had my limit and BJ had 4. Off to find some bigger fish.
Go deep and stay deep on Waconia
ReplyDelete