Ok, the tournament is over at New Melones and sometimes even the best laid plans can be full of holes. My suggestion is to fish those holes. We took a sixth place for the northern region and a thirteenth for the over all tournament. My plan was to go to this lake that I had never seen before and attack it with big swimbaits, big topwater, and reaction baits notorious for catching larger than average fish. What happened next was really unpredictable.

PREFISH
Went out on Friday to see the lake and feel it out for a possible pattern uh none to be found. The lake was around a hundred feet low and it appeared to be dropping. I started by throwing top water in the form of a wake jr then switched to a Huddleston fished near the dam letting the hud fall to thirty five and forty feet but never got a bite then went looking for visible structure. I did this in the back of bear creek with small vertical trees so I fished them out with spinner baits, Zara spooks and frogs. Caught what was to be the size fish that would rule the day. It didn’t seem to matter what I threw there was not going to be a keeper fish caught for the rest of the day.

TOURNAMENT
I didn’t have a single solid pattern going in to the next day so I did what I do. I started by picking a nice looking area an island top with early morning wind blowing on it I picked up the wake jr then the spook and last but not least the hud but all to no avail so I tried an old stand by I took out the finesse rig a smoke and purple pro worm found some bait fish and dropped the drop shot down on them in about twenty four feet of water and put my first keeper in the boat. Now I must tell you this was a huge load off my chest but I didn’t get another keeper till I went threw about fifteen eleven inch fish it came on a drop shot so I put everything else away and stuck with the drop shot for the rest of the day. This is where fishing the holes in your plan really comes in handy in a game plan. Around noon we put a six pound fish in the boat to anchor our ten pound limit. She came on a four and a half inch margarita mutilator number three from under a mud line in the Stanislaus river arm just a spot I thought looked like Oroville so I felt at home and was rewarded. See you next tourney the delta in august.

~ BIG ED