The Tournament Trail
Follow our results by clicking on the BadBassChamps dates below! It should be good for a laugh!
Nice brisk cool morning for our first qualifier of the season. Beautiful sunrise peaking through the trees. Nice turnout, somewhere around 60 teams.
Before we started this year, my partner shared his thoughts on what we could do on each tournament so I have been looking at that as our goals for the year. We both have low expectations for this time of year, first weekend of April in NE Ohio.
We launch to the area we decided we would camp out in all day. Last year I had a lure that worked well for me and I ended up tying it on after about 1/2 hour of fishing. Three casts later and we boat our first keeper of the day!
My partner decided to tie on a lure he has never used before shortly after we boated that first fish and within a few minutes he is on a nice one. Two fish in the live well! We make another pass and he lands another keeper. Two more passes and he lands our 4th and biggest keeper of the day.
Check out the tournament results by clicking on the date above!
Another brisk spring morning in NE Ohio! Our decision to start in the area we started was confirmed when we saw who else was in there. Ed Hankins of all people. Now, Ed normally finishes in the money and wins more often than most others.
This gave us a confidence boost in our decision, but someone forgot to tell the fish about this. We caught at least 3 short ones and missed a couple solid hits. One short one was short by less than 1/8 of an inch!
Thank goodness my partner is on top of things. In April he boated 3 of our 4 keepers and today he boated our only two keepers! It was a rough day - click on the link above and check out our the results!
Launch was was promptly at 6:00 am. We draw second flight and still manage to get to our starting spot by about 20 after. By 6:23 am we have 4 keepers in the boat! A couple of minutes later, I get a hit and my 40 lb. braided line snaps on the hook-set! Never saw the fish, but if it was a bass, that may have been that elusive kicker fish!
A couple of minutes later we are deep in the weeds and all of the sudden my partner says his trolling motor steering cable broke. around 6:35 a.m. he is doing some intense emergency surgery on his trolling motor. It can't be fixed at this point and he rigs up a make shift steering system and we are back in business. It is 7 a.m., we have boated 4 keepers, lost a nice one and - through clever improvisation - have worked through what could have been a disastrous turn of events.
We end up culling a couple of times and had a decent weigh in - not quite what we wanted, but we'll take it anytime. Click on the date above and check out the results!
Running to our first spot was pretty chilly, but that chill factor didn't last long. We stop at our first spot and fish the area hard. In practice, we got a 3 1/2 pounder there. She must have still be asleep since she wasn't biting this morning. We fish for over an hour before we get our first keeper.
Things are pretty slow and the water level is up about 2 foot from where it was when we practiced. We run to our second spot and finally get our second keeper for the day. These first two keepers didn't bite hard, just took off swimming with the bait before anyone realized there was a fish on. In fact, we had to cut the hooks since they were so deep.
We ended up with just 4 keepers. Not the weight we had in practice either. While we did not place as high as we wanted to, we did move up in the points standing. We are now in 13th place with three qualifiers left.
Click on the date above and check out the results!
It was a cool brisk morning on old skeeter lake this morning. Launch was at 6:30 and I'm not sure Mother Nature realized it was July rather than October. Cool or not, a limit by 9 had us a little worried. We should have had a limit long before that. But then again, a limit is a limit no matter how long it takes!
We did manage to warm up a bit when the clouds would let the sun peek through once in a while. As the day warmed up, the bite cooled down. We did manage to cull a couple of times, lost a few decent ones and missed a bunch of short striking fish.
All said and done, we finished in the middle of the pack and only moved down 1 place in the standings - down to 14th place overall. Two more tournaments to break the top 10!
Click on the date above and check out the results!
We made a quick stop on our way to where we wanted to concentrate on and never saw any signs of life. We moved on to our main spot and there was a couple of boats already there. We worked the area pretty good without encroaching on the other guys and was beginning to question our decision. Both boats moved from the area and we worked out way over and worked the area hard.
We picked up a 3+ pounder there plus one that measured about 12 1/4". We fished the area a little harder and never got another bite. Time to move.
We moved on to our second and third spots without luck. Lost a keeper smallie at our third spot. Ya lose one and you have to keep going and not worry about it.
We get to our main spot that we were originally going to start at and picked up 5 more keepers. It turned out to be a pretty good day, but it was hot beyond hot. Glad the day was over. Time for shower to cool down.
Click on the date above and check out the results!
Portage Lakes Sun. 09/13/09
There are days that you think are going to be great and there are days that you are not quite that upbeat about. Today we were hoping for at least five bites. We pull up to our first stop and within about 5 minutes we boat one about 12 1/4".
We work the area pretty hard and not another sign of life to be seen. Move on to our second spot and and get just 1 short strike on a topwater. We try several other things to get the fish to bite, throwing stuff we hadn't thrown all year. No luck.
Move on to our final spot and see a couple of signs of life, but no takers. We tie on a couple different lures and my partner connects with about 20 minutes left. Time runs out and we head to the weigh-in. As I check in, a team is weighing in their bag of 16+ pounds! What the heck!
On a more positive not, last year we finished in 27th place over all in the point race for the season, this year we finished 12!!! That is a 225% improvement!!!
We have two weekends to get ready for the 2 day championship. The first weekend in Oct. is going to be cooler, the water will be low in the reservoirs here in Ohio (they already are!) and that should make the championship a good time!
Portage Lakes Sat. Champ. Day 1 10/03/09
West Branch Sun. Champ. Day 2 10/04/09
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*** Buckeye Sports Center has added Triton and Lund to their already impressive line of Tracker and Nitro boats! ***
Check out these links for other circuits and opens!