2nd tournament win this year

[carolina-rig-01]

Britney and I won our club tournament today with 15.88lbs and I also had big bass with a 4.53lb largemouth. The bite has been pretty tough lately with the fish in an in between pattern. They aren't in a summer pattern but haven't really got into the fall swing either. I put together a little pattern while pre-fishing and I found some fish in a few areas that were already in a fall pattern and relating heavily to baitfish. We flat wore them out today. We culled 3 or 4 times and had several keepers that didn't help us. One thing I noticed is that our fish were all fat and full of shad while most of the other fish weighed in were skinny. That tells me that we are on fish that are feeding heavily on baitfish making them more predictable while other people are not fishing around baitfish. We caught a few on buzzbaits early but Firetiger crankbaits were the deal. I caught all of my bigger fish on a Firetiger Bandit 100 crankbait and I also culled once with a swimjig while fishing some docks.

Credit where it's due:

1. Thanks to Kevin (Pro Reel) for the help in getting my Prolite reels tweaked for maximum performance. I can honestly say that we would not have won today without his help because I used to refuse to throw the Bandit 100s because they were so light and hard to throw in wind. With his help I was able to throw those baits a country mile today and that was the bait that accounted for most of our fish that we weighed.

2. Also I owe a thank you to Jrob and Cassidyta because I was needing some advice on swim jigs and they were a big help. Usually on this lake you can flat cave their heads in with a spinnerbait around shallow wood but the fish that I found have just started moving up and are still spooky so a spinnerbait was too much flash and thump and was actually scaring the fish rather than triggering bites. I figured that a swim jig would be much more subtle and the fish would probably respond better to it. I have very little experience with a swim jig. Although I have been wanting to bear down and make myself learn the technique I just hadn't got around to it yet. So I texted back and forth with Jrob and Cassidyta and seeked advice from them. With their help I was able to catch several fish today on a swim jig (Thanks Ryan for the swim jig present you sent me) and even culled once with it.

We have another tournament tomorrow so we are jacked up about the possibility to run the table this weekend.

[Bubba_Bruiser]

Awesome Kory! I hope y'all lock on tomorrow. I am sure the fellas appreciate the shout outs too.

[Jrob78]

That's awesome Kory! I was wondering how y'all did today when you sent me that pic this evening. I could tell you sounded like you were on fish yesterday. Glad everything worked out and you guys got the win! Hope it goes as well tomorrow!

[woody]

Congrats Kory with your win! Keep it up!


-Mark

[bamabassman]

way to go kory and britney!!!! fantastic ya'll won.

[Tavery5]

Sounds like you guys had an awesome day, hope everything goes a well tomorrow. Gotta love those swimjigs.

[carolina-rig-01]

Thanks guys. We were second in points but as long as we beat the guys who were first in points we would retake the points lead. Having two tournaments this weekend I was trying to decide how I should approach the big picture. Should we catch everything I could today and hope that our best 5 would be enough to get us back in first in points or should we leave the productive areas and try and save fish for Sunday in hopes that we could maybe sneak a win out both days? I decided that I would rather get beat Sunday after using up all our fish in a win on Saturday than to possibly leave our productive area to save fish for Sunday and maybe end up not having enough weight to win on Saturday either. So we beat the tar out of our fish today just to make sure we left nothing on the table and hope that Sunday will take care of itself. Honestly I think the areas will replenish themselves with enough fish for both days because the fish are still moving up throughout the day and especially over the cool nights. We'll see if we made the right move tomorrow but at least we have them figured out so we can run some new water tomorrow if we need to. Lets hope that we didn't wear our areas out.

Originally Posted by Tavery5

Sounds like you guys had an awesome day, hope everything goes a well tomorrow. Gotta love those swimjigs.

Tony I was going to pick your brain on the swim jigs as well but I lost your number. When you have a minute could you please IM me your cell # again?

[WaffleJaw]

Congrats to ya'll on the win! Thats awesome,and best of luck on tomorrow!

[WatterBoy]

Hey Kory, congrats to you and Britney on the win yesterday! That is awesome. Hope today goes well also and will look for the update when you post it.

Dean

[Bassboss]

Sounds great kory! Glad y'all figured em out good.

Congrats on the win!

[carolina-rig-01]

Thanks for the congrats and well wishes for today. Man what a difference a day makes. We ran the same pattern today that we ran yesterday and we struggled in a bad way. I have no idea what caused it but the baitfish in our areas left and we never could re-locate them. We were catching them towards the mouths of creeks, coves, and pockets around balls of shad yesterday but when I seen there was a big lack of baitfish today I though maybe they got pushed towards the back of these places as the wind was blowing into the backs of our areas. We went to the backs of our spots and there was no sign of baitfish anywhere. We were able to find some very small balls of baitfish out in some deeper water but there were no fish around them that we could see. I lost a giant this morning on a buzzbait and we managed 4 barely keepers on buzzbaits. I did lose a keeper on a swim jig as I was getting her up out of a brush pile my hand slipped of the reel and she got all the slack she needed to make me cuss. A lot of short fish and one more keeper lost on a Spro Little Johns MD and that was our day. We weighed in 4 fish and missed a check by 5 ounces.

On a side note I am becoming a fan of swim jigs.

[WatterBoy]

Dang, man. Sorry to hear about the tough day, Kory. Thanks for the report, though.

[oglejust]

wat swim jig are u using? congrats on the win!

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by oglejust

wat swim jig are u using? congrats on the win!

Here is the swim jig I was using. It's a Strike King Tour Grade swim jig and the color I was using is Bluegill. I was also using a smoke/black pepper 4" grub for a trailer.

[bamabassman]

dang kory, sorry buddy. you'll get em the next time i know.

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by carolina-rig-01

Here is the swim jig I was using. It's a Strike King Tour Grade swim jig and the color I was using is Bluegill. I was also using a smoke/black pepper 4" grub for a trailer.

Man I am so tired from not getting any sleep lastnight and from spending two days working my butt off on the water. I forgot to attach the pic of the jig and I forgot to include a Tpbm question in the True/False game we are playing in the nonfishing forum lol.

Anyways here is the swim jig I was using.

[pro reel]

Well at least you had one great day. Glad to hear that the pro lites worked good for ya.

[keithdog]

Congrats Kory on your weekend and the successes you and Britney had. Day one was awsome and day two was tough. But it was all a good learning experience and will only make you a better fisherman and stronger competitor. All in all a pretty good weekend. That swim jig is a pretty darn good one. I've used it here myself with pretty good results. The Optimum Double Diamond Swimmer has been a prety good trailor for me.

[66KingFisher]

Congrats on your tournament results...thats great guys......Sounds like I need to look into swim jigs now...lol

[Tavery5]

If you guys are serious about swimjigs, I would take the time to look into these, they are as good as I have found




They are made by a guy in Harrisburgh, Arkansas his name is Ashley Tippett, they are very nice.

[Jrob78]

Those look great! Very similar in design to the jigs I use!

Here's a link to the swim jig thread Tony started awhile back.

http://www.bassfishin.com/bassfishin...ad.php?t=28245