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"J"'s Fishing Journey 2017

"J"

Git Off My Lawn
Supporting Member
56,739
274
North Carolina
Well the first tournament for he Year is in the books for 2017, it took place on Lake Erie outta Ashtabula lake shore ramp.

Woke up at 0415 to numerous texts from my buddy Shawn filling me in on a predicament that started around that time, seems one of our buddies partner bailed on him at the last minute leaving him high and dry, Shawn figured he could just fish outta our boat and wanted my thoughts.... I'm ok with it as I've known and fished with him for a couple decades and he's a good guy..... So that took care of that lol....

Shawn's a one vehicle household as he's got a company work truck so we use my truck to haul his boat and I went over (he's a 1/4 mile from me) his place Friday afternoon and hooked his boat up and just walked home....

Shawn pulled up at 0445 and off we went to pick up our buddy Greg, he was waiting for us when we pulled up and we got his stuff all loaded up and off we went.... Pulled into Sheetz for a quick stock up, sandwiches, drinks, and ever important coffee....

Pulled into lake shore at 0630 and was on the water and blasting off @0700 and fishing till 1500 (3:00 for the novices lol) we decided on the way up to start shallow and then go deep since water temps weren't great (52-54) so we pulled up too our first spot and dropped the trolling motor and off we went, we didn't make it 50' when Shawn had our first keeper in the boat, couple casts later and he had another keeper as well.... Good start so far, and I had a keeper a few casts later... By 0900 we had our limit and started cauling which is a great day if your fishing tournaments..... Greg by that time had one keeper and we all had about 10 sheephead combined as it seemed like we'd catch 2-3 sheephead per bass lol.... Some of the sheephead pushed 8lbs lol....

By the end of the day, and after cauling 5 fish and Greg getting his limit we headed in for the weigh in.....

Shawn and I were guesstimating 19-20lbs for us and close to the same for greg (although we really didn't get a good hands on his fish) he had a really good one that I figured was over 5 which he said it wouldn't go more than 4.5lbs....

Well, weigh in showed us with 21.7lbs with a 5.3lb big bass for us.
Greg had 18.8 lbs with a 5.8lb big bass with big bass for the tourney
3rd place was 17lbs

These were all small mouth and none were full of eggs yet....

We had close too 42 lbs in our live well and all were released in good shape....

Great start too our season and hope this momentum into our next one next month down on the river....

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Gern186

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
10,171
201
NW Ohio Tundra
Nice J! What is a good bait to catch those with? I would like to try and get a few in between chasing the walleyes.
 

"J"

Git Off My Lawn
Supporting Member
56,739
274
North Carolina
We use a rig called a "drop shot" and a Yamamoto finesse bait called a shad shaped worm.... Fish the sinker between 18-24" below the bait....


 

"J"

Git Off My Lawn
Supporting Member
56,739
274
North Carolina
Great job, J! Drop shotting is an amazing way to fish for anything. Started using it 2 years ago on my local reservoirs for Eyes, and man it's deadly

Works wonders on pressured fish... we've been throwing it for about 4 years now, started it back in the late 90's but got away from it but it's 80% of how we fish now...


 

jagermeister

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
18,060
223
Ohio
Very nice J! It's tough to beat a good smallmouth bite on Lake Erie. Way to go man. It's good you were on the east end of the lake that day (I'm assuming Saturday). On the west end even the charter boats were being run off the water by 8:30. Lol

 

"J"

Git Off My Lawn
Supporting Member
56,739
274
North Carolina
Very nice J! It's tough to beat a good smallmouth bite on Lake Erie. Way to go man. It's good you were on the east end of the lake that day (I'm assuming Saturday). On the west end even the charter boats were being run off the water by 8:30. Lol

Ashtabula is between Cleveland and Erie and we were glass until 0900 then slight chop and then 3' by 2:00...
Wet ride back to the ramp, but we didn't spear any lol


 

"J"

Git Off My Lawn
Supporting Member
56,739
274
North Carolina
Tournament #2 coming up tomorrow down on the Ohio river Pike Island pool.... We'll be putting in at a different place north and across the river on the WV side of the river as the ramp appears to be much nicer and better parking than Steubenville ramp which for lack of better terms is a shithole lol.... Usually have to clean off debris to put in and parking is a hodgepodge and we figure a change is due....

Stay tuned, as we've not fished the river at all so far this year and just going by the seat of our pants and what worked in previous years lol.... Ought to be interesting....