Smith Mountain Lake 10/17-10/24 report and SBRKA tournament recap

Misty Smith Mountain lake morning

   I've been lucky enough to be able to put a lot of time in on Smith Mountain Lake in the last week and the only thing I know for certain is how uncertain I am in what the bass are eating.  I've fished mornings and I've fished afternoons and heck even mid-day but with swings in the weather and bait moving constantly I can't say how best to produce fish consistently.  The only disadvantage to kayak fishing I have found is that on large reservoirs like Smith Mountain it is hard to cover enough water to stay on the fish.
   With the migration of shad in the lake to the warmer shallows of coves and creeks this is typically the time of year that shallow crank baits, spinner baits, and flukes shine, but so far that hasn't panned out for me.  I have caught some on pearl flukes, and a few on crank baits but only small fish below 14 inches and never consistently.  I believe that back to back cold fronts have turned the fish off so here is to hoping for a week or more of consistent weather. I have found that what fish I can coax into taking my bait have all come from wood structure, specifically blowdowns, and more specifically blowdowns near deeper water on sunny banks and points.
   I fished hard all week trying to prepare for the last Southern Blue Ridge Kayak Anglers tournament of the year, but my confidence was faltering since I couldn't find a solid pattern.  I went into my final day of prefishing with the idea that I was going to try a few things outside my comfort zone and outside of the usual patterns for the lake this time of year.  I spent the Friday before the tournament targeting extremely shallow flats and points with a couple different models and colors of square bill cranks to no avail.  I switch plans to dragging a jig around brush in 20ft of water and again nothing.  Finally with an hour left to prefish on the final day I tied on a Texas rigged worm and started working blowdowns all the way from 1ft of water out to 15ft.

Smith Mountain Lake sunrise earlier in the week

   I will confess I'm not a big Texas rigged worm guy.  In all honesty I have 2 pack of 6 inch Zoom U-tales and that makes up the entirety of my collections, amongst the hundreds of packs of other soft plastic baits I own.  There is something to be said about going outside your comfort zone when all else fails because it wasn't 5 minutes after I tied on that green pumpkin with red flake worm and I was hooked up with the best fish I'd caught all week.  That 15 incher wasn't huge but she flipped the light switch on in my mind and I knew I was on to something.  I checked my depth finder and saw I was sitting in about 18ft of water with a steep bank dropping from the shore, and that fish hit about half way down the tree I was fishing, 10ft deep about.  Bingo!

The fish that keyed me in while pre fishing

   I took that knowledge and worked over every single snag, blowdown, brush, or tree I could find that  was situated on a steep bank in at least 15ft of water.  In that last hour of the last day before out tournament I caught more fish than the entire week prior, and lost even more.  I was on it and my confidence had been regained.  I left that day thinking "I may not have the winning pattern but at least I have a pattern," and all I could hope for the next day was that the weather would hold and the cold front they were calling for wouldn't hit until later in the day. My hopes for the weather didn't pan out unfortunately as I found out the following morning.
   I woke up early on the morning of the tournament to a pleasantly warm breeze blowing and high hopes for the day, but by 8 A.M. my hopes were dashed as cloud cover thickened and cold winds started blowing.  Out on the lake I wasn't having much success with only a few nibbles by what I can only imagine were sunfish, but I had decided to live or die by my worm bite so I kept plugging along.  I was pulling that worm through trees out to about 10ft of water and working each tree thoroughly without so much as a sniff!  By about 11 A.M. I was starting to lose heart and again trying a few new things when out of sheer luck I had tossed over in a tree and the wind started blowing me out to deeper water so as I fought it my little Zoom worm fluttered down to about 16ft of water.  When I regained my position and picked up my rod I noticed my line was moving off against the wind, FISH ON!
   With that little piece of luck the puzzle started to come together, and never in my life has a 10 inch fish been such a joy to catch.  I found what I assume was a small shift in depth the fish were holding in due to the cold front.  They had moved from the 8-10ft contour out to 15-20ft just off the end of the blowdowns I had been fishing.  After a little searching I found the right structure and depth in various coves and main lake points with almost every tree producing at least 1 fish.  Again the size I was catching was not mind blowing, 9-10 inches mostly, which was disappointing, but after talking to a few other folks nearby I found out that catching any at all was a blessing so I stuck with it.  I learned the hard way though that fishing in the thick stuff has its drawbacks as I hooked 2 solid fish that I lost to submerged limbs, and by the last couple hours my supply of terminal tackle was sorely depleted.
   I only had an hour left to fish before needing to leave and head to work (yes I couldn't even go to the weigh in, but I had okayed it with the tournament director to send my card with a fellow angler) when I pulled into a cove loaded with bait.  The shad were so thick in the back of this cove that my sonar screen was full from the surface to the bottom in 18ft of water.  I started tossing up to cover and dragging my worm all the way out and quickly hooked another dink.  I slowly made my way toward the last blowdown on the bank and chucked my bait out still hoping for a last minute miracle fish that might put me over the top.  As my bait slid out of the last branch of the tree and slowly sank to the depths I felt the subtle tap-tap that I had felt so many times before and that usually heralded a 10 inch fish.  I waited for a moment until I felt the weight and laid into the fish with little expectation it would help improve my stringer when my rod loaded up.  I knew right away this was a better fish, at least better than what I had gotten all day, and jubilation set in.  After a short fight and some choice words I hauled in what would be the big fish of the tournament at 15.75 inches. I have never been so happy to haul in a 15 inch bass in my life!

Never before or probably after will a 15" fish make me so happy

   That last minute fish was enough, as I found out later, to secure a victory.  This was the most hard fought tournament win in my life.  I struck upon the right combination of what to throw and where to throw it with a little luck and a lot of determination.  It was an honor to compete against a great group of anglers on my home water and a great source of pride to be able put together the winning formula in such tough conditions.

Tight Lines,

Damian



 

Never stop learning

   I've always said that the day I stop learning is the day I'll stop fishing.  Fish always have a way of teaching you a little humility just when you think you have them figured out and at the most inopportune time.  This is a lesson I learned on the New River this weekend along with a few other tidbits that will help me in the future.
     I woke up Saturday morning to pouring rain and a cold front moving through so I knew it would be a tough day on the river.  The water was running higher than normal with about 1 foot of visibility and the section that I decided to fish was less familiar looking once daylight set in than I had hoped.  My game plan was to throw big spinnerbaits, jigs, and tubes to the edge of eddies formed below a river wide ledge.  Well this plan failed for me.  Why it failed only the fish and god know, but it failed miserably.  It could be that I lost my patience and moved around trying different spots too quickly.  It could have been my reluctance to tie on a different color or different bait more quickly due to stubbornness.  I can say that the section of river I fished was not the issue since the person that won this particular tournament was within 500 yards of me all day.
   So what did I learn after sitting in my kayak for 8 hours in the cold and pouring rain with only 2 tiny smallmouth to show for it?  I learned that being wet and cold sucks, especially if you aren't catching fish, and I figured out what the fish didn't want to eat.  After the tournament though, when I finally got to dry out and warm up, I did get a few helpful bits of info while sitting around and chatting.  It seems that my original plan had some merit in that the smallies were choking a spinnerbait pretty consistently and jigs were also on the menu.  What I didn't foresee was that my color of choice and the spots I targeted were completely off base.  In my aforesaid stubbornness I had assumed that even though the water was still a bit higher than normal with falling water levels the fish would be well off the banks and that was wrong.  My choice of color was white and chartreuse, and that color did produce for some folks but darker more natural colors seemed to be ticket on this overcast day.  I also assumed that with the cold front moving in and water temperature in the upper 50s presentations needed to be slowed down, this also led me to believe crankbaits would be off the menu but again I was mistaken.  At the conclusion of my lesson I felt that I had a better grasp of how to approach the river if ever I have to deal with similar conditions in the future, and learning from my mistakes will definitely stick with me.
   The competitor in me hates that I couldn't put it together and have a stronger showing but the lessons I learned are more important in the grand scheme of life and fishing than winning any single event.  Every day on the water I hope to learn 1 new thing and after this weekend I think I filled my quota for the next year.

The New River