Practice Recap
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Wednesday was a lot about eliminating water. I checked some areas that, in the back of my mind I wanted to go see. They didn’t pan out. The wind picked up today and 10 to 20 (mph) was more like 20 to 30. It’s been blowing. Hopefully, tomorrow it will calm down because I think the wind has a lot to do with how they bite. When it blows, they don’t tend to bite. It’s muddied up some areas and from what I can tell that’s not necessarily a good thing.
I found some areas Tuesday where I had some bites so I’m excited to get back out there and see what’s there. It’s amazing how this place feels like two different lakes right now. Part of it feels like it’s already full-blown post-spawn and the other part there are fish that are just moving up to spawn. I’m sure some of us are seeing it as a curveball. I figured there’d be some on bed and some guarding fry, but it looks like bed-fishing will be viable option if the wind cooperates.
A good start Thursday will be key because I think those bedding fish will be picked over pretty quick. I think I’m going to focus on the north end and make the most of it. It suits my style the best and I felt like I got more bites up that way so I’m sticking with that. It’ll fish considerably different than last time.
Brent Chapman
Monday, June 20, 2016
Photo: True Image Promotions
Day 1 Practice Summary
I’m amazed at how different it is now than it was in August the last time we were here. There’s a lot of grass out there, but not the right kind of grass. Because of that, you’d think it’d be better fishing since they have fewer places to hide, but all of my old waypoints all I caught today was pike.
I’m starting from scratch and fishing different stuff. From reports I’ve heard, there have been some tournaments here and it’s taken some weight to win, but it’s definitely different from the last time. Maybe I didn’t realize it because we’re so used to it at home and thinking it’s summertime that it would be further along, but the water temperature was only about 65 degrees on average today.
This is do or die for me at this point. I have to have a great finish here and I didn’t have the kind of day I was hoping for. We had a strong south wind and that made it tough. We’re supposed to get a front tonight and hopefully after that comes through, things will stabilize.
I wish I’d have got out there and gotten on a good pattern, but I have to remember good tournaments aren’t always based on good practices. The fish seem to be really scattered out. It’s a typical post-spawn scenario. It’ll probably be another junk-fisherman’s type of deal here. Somebody’s liable to go down the lake, though, where the water’s colder and find some good fish. It threw me a curveball that way today.
