Squam lake, September 2

I'm going to fish my first tournament on Squam Lake this Wednesday. That's first EVER, not first this year. Been looking forward to this all season long, and finally decided I've got the money for the entry. The timing is right too, as I'll have all day tommorow to rig my rods and get everything set and be able to get to bed early for the drive up to the lakes region. I live in southern N.H., about and hour and a half away. Registration is a 6 am, so that means I leave at 4:30--yikes!
Hoping to catch at least one fish and not embarass myself, but I do plan on fishing as hard as I can, without taking many breaks. Most of all, I want to have fun--that would make it money well spent--but I would like to learn a lot too. My biggest questions and concerns are about water temperature and depth. This time of year has been very tough for me to figure out, and that combined with Squam being a smallmouth lake (don't get to fish for smallies much) should make things a challenge.

Champion's Choice, Part 4

This is a view from the first spot Brent Chapman fished from on day 2, just before the ride into the fog. Shows how picturesque the entire thing was--not far from shore, sun just coming up, fishing a topwater. Just doesn't get any better than this.

After fishing the fog for about an hour (without a bite), we headed back up the lake to a point at the end of two islands. He went back to pitching the grass (as many anglers were doing) with a soft plastic--a Zoom Ultravibe Speed Craw in watermelon candy. (He also made a few pitches with a junebug colored ultravibe, but stuck mostly with the original color.)

By this time we'd been on the water for a couple of hours and Brent had yet to land a fish. We came across Yusuke Miyazaki, and he and Brent talked about lures and the conditions. Miyazaki said, "Harder today, huh?" to which Brent answered "Yeah, I'd say so!" It seemed like a lot of guys were having a hard time finding the larger fish (and I remember him saying to Derek Remitz later in the day, "How many of the same sized fish can there be on this lake?"), and Brent would end the day with just over 12 pounds, not enough to make the third day cut. But for all the pressure he must have felt, he was a great host. I did my best not to bother him, but he often initiated conversation. Guess he's just a social person. (Remember an interesting conversation regarding a friend of his getting fired from a job at one of the major phone companies and how they set him up to fail, something I see as a chef all the time. Guess there are jerks all over, in all walks of life.)

In all, this was far and away one of the most interesting and funnest things I've ever done. My thanks to B.A.S.S. for the opportunity to do this.

Champion's Choice, Part 3

just a note: I plan on making at least one more post in this series on the Oneida Lake Elite Series event. Call this part 2 1/2 or 3, it will be brief, with more to come on the subject of day two of the tournament.

Day Two began with much better weather than day one--not completely overcast. That is, until you hit another part of the lake. (More on that later.) This is what things looked like at roughly 6 am. I was riding with Brent Chapman, 12th in the AOY points coming into the event. He weighed in about 12lbs of fish on day one, which was about average. (The day one leader, Randy Howell, brought in around 17.) Needless to say, Brent was anxious about having a good day--he would later say how he was worried about just making to the third day, never mind the postseason.

Our first spot was a top-water area. I saw he'd made some notes on his GPS about it being one of the better largemouth spots on the lake, though it also said something about crappie. (He switched views on the screen and later turned the unit off, something I noticed John Murray doing on day one--I think these guys are very secretive about giving up information.) He began twitching a Rebel Pop-R, and got a couple strikes though no fish. This was, far and away, the most picturesque moment of the tournament for me. The sun rose just as we arrived, and I don't think I could have frowned if someone had paid me.

After about 45 minutes of scouring the spot, he said, "Ready to go on a boat ride?" As clear as things were, they got foggy. And eerie. And quiet.

Champion's Choice, Part 2

Months ago I signed up to be a Marshal at the Oneida Lake Elite Series event, and originally I was wait-listed. About a month ago I received a call that a spot opened up, and feeling that I was due for a vacation I jumped at the chance. I was only able to attend the first two days of the competition, but I figured it would be a great experience. And was it ever.

I kept a very detailed notebook of the entire weekend, and rather than recount all the minutiae (the introductory meetings, getting my first glimpse of Alton Jones and the other Elite guys, the thrill of launching the first day in the dark of 6 am), I'll keep things to the fishing. I was paired with John Murray my first day, who was 24th in the AOY standings prior to the event, putting him in a position to qualify for the Classic. He wasn't the friendliest guy at our first meeting on Wednesday, but I figured he was on edge about the event. So we took off, 65 mph at 6 am on Thursday, and came in to a hump somewhere in what I guessed was "the middle" of the lake. He pulled out a spinning rod rigged with a drop shot, and on the second cast caught his first fish of the day. I remember that when he hooked it I said "Are you kidding?" He didn't say a word, played the fish for a while, landed it and put in the well. He hooked and lost fish on his thrid and fourth casts, and within an hour he had a limit. This was exactly what I had hoped to see--bass fishing's best doing their best right before my eyes.

Unfortunately, that first hour would be the day's most eventful. After boating the limit we went "up" the lake (I didn't know where we were), where John pitched a jig for much of the day. It seemed to be a large, grassy flat occupied by a number of other guys (including, I think, KVD, for an hour or so). Other than that there were no distinguishing features to the area, though John motored from one side to the other many times throughout the day. He was able to boat a few largemouth, though none seemed to help his overall weight. After a trip up the Erie Canal, to lock 23 (as far as they were allowed to go), we came in for the day, and John weighed in 10lbs 8 oz, which, last time I saw, put him, unfortunately, next to last, just above Zell Rowland, who came in with a little over 9lbs.

As for what I learned from the first day, I can easily say that while John may not be the household name for a professional angler he was as patient, diligent, and thorough an angler as I've ever seen. His day essentially consisted of 8-10 hours of pitching grass, over and over and over again. He didn't pause, except to weigh and cull his fish (which he did with a culling beam, which seemed cumbersome to me), and during the half hour it took us to travel up the canal (which was a no-wake zone) he seemed anxious. Surely, he's not a conversational guy; yet his demonstration of focus was something else. And it seemed like 9 of 10 times his lure entered the water without any noise or splash. Like nearly everyone else on the water he had trouble finding anything more than a 2 pound fish. That would end up being much of the story of the tournament, as the second day would find a number of anglers struggling, including one poised to make the post-season, with a select few able to find fish large enough to keep them in the top 5.