Won a tournament yesterday (long)

I took part in a 1 day, 7am-4pm multi-specie fishing contest today. I
partnered up w/ a guy I know (Lloyd) from Mankato. This is the first
contest I'd fished, with exception of the 2 NWC's I've been at.

You could fish for N. Pike, LM or SM Bass, Cats, Crappie or
Sunfish/Bluegills. The lake was Zumbro. Zumbro is a 4000 acre
impoundment. Its a heavily used lake by the jet-ski/water ski crowd,
so we expected the worst. This was the third event of a 4 event
series. I missed the first two due to schedule conflicts. These
tournaments are small - max of 15 boats - designed to avoid the hassle
of having to register w/ DNR, etc. Walleye are also permitted by
the rules, but Zumbro doesn't have them.

We had pre-fished it two weeks ago - he got three bass, I got two blue
gills, Lloyd prefished again Tue (got 6 nice bass out of 10 docks he
tryed and some sunfish), and he & I did it again yesterday afternoon -
he again got bass - I had hits, but missed them all ( I see a
recurring theme here ). We both spotted a log w/ a fork that just
plain looked fishy - Lloyd got a night crawler in to the - and out
came a huge SM bass - he jerked too quick - and missed - then the fish
beat feet! Would have easily went 4#. We went back to that spot this
morning - but no one was home ....

Zumbro was really tough. This morning it was very foggy - and cold -
40F, water temps about 69F. The lake had been more clear, but some
rain last Monday gave it a tinge of murky green. We'd been having a
series of cold fronts go thu - water temps are 5-10 degrees below
average for this time of year. We were wearing jackets and wind suits
until about 10.00. Then we were pealing layers off. The weather
matched conditions Lloyd had on Tues, so he had high hopes for us
hitting the bass. We were concentrating on Bass and N Pike. All
methods (short of dynamite and hand grenades) were legal for all fish,
as was live bait. I got a 25" 3.5# NP right of the bat - fishing
weeds off some docks w/ a white spinner bait, while Lloyd concentrated
on fishing the docks w/ soft plastics. He got a SM right after me on a
Junebug color worm (wacky rigged), but it was short (12" minimum). And
that was it until about 1pm. We bounced plastics off rocks, logs and
any other place we could see that looked like it held the potential
for bass. Also tryed jigs and plastics in the rock bars, cranks. Nada!

After the break for lunch, during which we found that we were in the
lead, as no one was doing much - one other boat had a NP, but it was
shorter than mine. We decided to try trolling after lunch - to see if
we could pick up an insurance toothie or two. By this time, it was
in the mid 70's, w/ S wind and about 15-20 mph and mostly clear skys.

We trolled Blue-chrome / orange deep diver shad raps in about 20ft of
water, and Lloyd got a 14" LM (trolling is legal in the rules we
were using) - so we had a little cushion. I had really strong hit -
and then the line went slack! A NP had cut me off - it had swallowed
about 6-7" of lure to do so. It was a floater, and it didn't come up
the surface, so we figure it stayed in the fishes mouth. Lloyd had
also lost a NP on a jig and twister tail in the morning this same way,
as did one other boat. This is the first time I'd lost a lure to a
toothie - although I've heard of it many times, and generally use a
a leader when fishing them.

We did docks & boat lifts some more - had some hits on soft plastics -
but missed them. He was trying differant color worms wacky rigged, I
was tossing a grape Cool Lures senko clone and also tryed some Exude
worms wacky style. We were feeling the hits - and sometimes seeing
them - on one poonton dock, we both had a hit from the same fish, in
the same spot. They were short strikes - and it didn't occur to either
of us to try adding a stinger hook. Dumb!

We decided to troll the last 65 min. Went back to deep shad raps, and
13-17' of water - but the twist this time - was speed trolling. We
bumped the speed up from 2.6 mph (GPS measured) to 4.2 mph. I didn't
take a chance this time - I added a leader. I got strong hit - fish
on!! It stayed down and deep - I thought NP, but it turned out to be a
LM - 17-18" and 2.2#. We went in at 4:00 w/ three fish, wondering if
it was good enough - we saw lots of long faces at the dock/ramp (we
were the last boat in), and we were suspecting we had it - and we
did!!!! Our total weight was 7.0# We got $150 (split between us) and
some tackle - mainly a large assortment of soft plastics and some
rattle jigs (sized for bass and walleye). Also got some free samples
of a new style of in-line spinners from a tackle dealer who was there.

These spinners - as best I can describe them, are a hybrid - take a
blade and treble off a Mepps spinner, a body off an Erie Dearie, and
a break away shaft like a SW uses. Instead of bucktail on the treble,
they have long strips of mylar foil.

The nearest competition was the other NP (a little over 2#), two boats
who had entered a crappie and sunfish (to say they weren't skunked -
..8 & .7# respectively), and two boats had zip! (6 boats entered) The
boat that got the other NP got $50 for 2nd place.

So Lloyd is back in 1st place (he has fished all events so far), I got
big fish (actually two). I had told Lloyd early on - when we decided
to fish this - that based on past expericene, the team that got on
fish early would win - but I was expecting trouble w/ the skiers and
jet skis. Weather probally had a hand in it - just don't know.

The bass were released to fight another day, and the NP got released
in to oil today for lunch - sure was tasty.

Jim