Category: Triple Hooked Blogs

Youth Tournament on Hillsdale Lake

On September 7th the twins had their first qualifier tournament of Kansas Youth Team Series. Six teams showed up to fish a tough Hillsdale lake. The day before 35 High School teams fished, and it took 4 fish to win. So, I told the boys it will take about 3 fish to win. We decided to start in a marina pocket with all the standing trees. I figured the twins could pick off a couple of keepers. They only had one bite before the 10 a.m. break. About a hour in, I was thinking this area was probably fished hard by the high school team. We probably should have started somewhere else.

After the break, we moved to a different area of the lake. Twins were throwing square bills and flipping creature baits. Finally while fishing some riprap, the twins saw a good bass flapping shallow.  It was not doing very good. I had heard the week before that Hillsdale had a Largemouth Bass Virus. This bass was probably in the 3 to 4 pound range. The twins were trying to catch the fish. Nick threw his creature bait up next to the laydown that the bass was next to dieing. Nick thought he was snagged, just then his line took off. After landing the keeper, the twins were pumped. They fished hard for the next two hours only catching two nonkeepers. The one keeper was able to take third place with 2.29 lb. First place was around 5.98 lbs and second place was 5.32 lbs. I heard that the first place team caught their fish early. I was very proud of the twins; it was a tough day. There were not very many fish caught by the six teams. Congrats to the winners and to all the kids that fished.  Great job. It would have been a tough day for adults.

Just the Three of Us!

It was a sad evening. Twins choose to go to the middle school football game over fishing. So, Trey and my wife had to go fishing with me. I decided to go to Perry because it is a great lake for kids right know. You can get on any point right now and catch white bass.. They are not big; but a lot of action. Any crankbaits, lipless crankbaits and topwater will work. This evening, River2Sea Whopper Plopper 90 was the best bait. I was throwing the bigger Whopper Plopper 130 which makes a lot more noise then the 90. The twins love it when I’m throwing the bigger one because they will throw the 90 right behind me and hook up. The 130 can of get them to react and to feed. I will talk more about the bait in the coming weeks. If you aren’t throwing the River2Sea Whopper Plopper, you are missing out. Even a 5 year old can hookup. It is a great bait for kids and beginners.  All you do is reel. Trey was awesome in the video. I love watching the video clips of Trey fishing with me. I hope you enjoy them to.

Sunflower Team Series on Wilson August 18th

This last Saturday was the last season event for the Sunflower Team Series. Kyle was my partner for the day. We planned on fishing a lot of water with topwater due to not being able to prefish. We caught a lot of fish, but most were in the 14 inch range. We lost two really good fish. It is really hard to catch every fish on topwater baits. One thing I wish I could have changed is to have started with a walking bait sooner. First cast with the bait about the 9 o’clock, I caught our first keeper and a few minutes later caught our second fish. Then I lost a 4 to 5 pound fish on the bait. It hurt really bad, but if you fish a lot you will lose fish. Just part of the game. We finished the tournament with only 4 fish around 7.87lbs for 21st place out of 46 boats. It really was fun to fish tournaments with my sons. The experience is going to make my sons and I better fisherman. There is nothing like fishing tournaments to help you learn how to catch fish. We ended the season in the top 20 standing. I’m so proud of my boys for fishing 8 hour days 4 times in all different conditions over the season. They fished so hard for me and were great teammates. Thanks Rick and Kip for starting a great circuit. Hopefully we will be able to fish it next year.

The Sunflower Team Series Championship will be on Melvern in October. We will not be able to fish it due to a schedule conflict. The boys will be fishing the Kansas Bass Nation Youth Team Series on Wilson that weekend.

Bassmasters Junior National Championship

First day of the Bassmasters Junior National Championship on Carroll County 1000 Acres Lake in Tennessee, was a foggy morning.  We were the 53rd out of 54 boats to takeoff. Not the best boat number, but it was going to be nice on day two when we are boat number two. Day 1, didn’t turn out like we wanted it to with catching only 4 keepers for 3lbs 3oz. We had to adjust to the conditions to catch what we did. One keeper was caught on schooling bass that came up on us. Nick was able to catch one on a spinnerbait and later in the day one on a senko, but it wasn’t a keeper. Most of the fish were caught on a tube on a windy shallow bar. Kyle did loose one 3 pounder that could have made a big difference. Being a very tight tournament, losing a quality fish was huge. It was the only decent bite we had during the event.

Day two we started on a hump with seven other boats. Using the Motorguide Ultex anchor was very handy. I anchored us down, and we stayed in the area for 5 hours catching 4 keepers and 5 non-keepers. Kyle was throwing big baits like Bullworm and 6″ Senko. While Nick was throwing smaller baits on a Carolina Rig like baby brush hog, Centipede and Finesse worm. We just couldn’t get a big bite.  There has been some huge bass caught off this hump during the practices days. So I figured if we fished it hard, maybe we could get one big bite and it would make a huge difference in the standing. Never could get the bite.  In the last hour, Kyle was able to catch one more small keeper to finish our limit. Nick andK Kyle finished the tournament in 34th place with 7lbs 13oz.

I was so proud of the twins for fishing offshore with a Carolina rig and big worms trying to catch a quality fish. It was their first time fishing a Carolina rig, and they caught most of their fish on it. They have learned so much from fishing this event and tournaments this year. The biggest lesson was how to be patient and not to worry about people around them catching fish. We had a boat right next to us in this tournament, and they never got upset.  They just kept fishing. We watched guys catch fish around us in this event, and they would just go on with their business. Thank you everyone for your support. Shout out to Kansas Bass Nation for all the support and making this possible. Carroll County and BASS for putting the event on for the kids. It was awesome to see so many kids with smiles.

Practices Day 1 on Carroll County 1000 Acres Recreational Lake

In May, the boys won the Kansas Youth Bass Nation Championship on Melvern. They earned the opportunity to represent Kansas at the BASS National Youth Championship in Tennessee on beautiful Carroll County 1000 Acres Recreational Lake. The first practice day was Saturday, June 28, but it was not an official practice day. The lake had been off limits for a month prior.

We decided to get to the lake early so we could fish anywhere on the lake before everyone else showed up. Our plan was to fish deep and to hit any spot the deep water is near the bank. It was a great first day.  We didn’t catch anything big, but we had a limit around 10lbs. We caught 7 fish over 15 inches. I figured this would work good in the tournament if you had 4 bass over 15 inches and one big fish. All the fish were on soft plastics rigged weightless or texas rigged. There was not one pattern working better then the other. The official practice day was on Sunday, June 29, and we hoped maybe would could find something more solid. We decided to try some different areas and expanded on something in the area we found fish. Being a small lake and being around 54 boats, it was going to be really hard to move around on 1000 acre lake. We fished a lot of 16 to 20 feet of water with a Carolina rig. It was the first time the boys had fished a Carolina rig.  They both caught about 6 fish in a hour off a couple of points. That is the best thing about going to this event; it makes you fish out of your comfort zone and try different techniques and baits. Sometimes when you fish the same lake and baits always, you don’t learn anything new. So, get out there and try a different lake or techniques. It will take a little time to catch fish, but you will become a better angler and catch more fish. If fishing was easy, everyone would be fishing. Next video and blog will be about how we did in the tournament.