My ABA DVL touney story/report from this past Saturday .5/10 LONGGGG
So Ive been looking forward to fishing this tournament for about a month. This was round #5 of the ABA Diamond Valley region.
I fish this series with my wife Carissa. We started the season off in in January and we finished a respectable 5th place that afternoon. Then the next round was in February.. although it was a tournament of changing conditions we adapted well and managed another respectable 5th place finish. That finish pulled us into 2nd place in the seasons point standings.
I was pretty happy to be sitting in 2nd place in the series at that point because I knew that once Spring got here we'd be able possibly gain some ground because I usually do pretty well during the Prespawn, Spawn and post spawn months.
Then came round #3 of the series in March. I was on a really good bite, as I had hoped Id be on, so going into that event I had a lot of confidence.. We ended that day with a 2nd place finish and I actually had the winning bass hooked but I made a mistake and lost it next to the boat..:Embarrassed: I knew it would come back and bite us and it did but we still finished in 2nd place. That finish pulled us into 1st place in the series point standings. We were excited to say the least but I knew that we still had some work to do if we wanted a chance to win the Angler of the year Title.
Then came round#4 in April... Again I knew I would be on a good bite so I couldn't wait to get the event started. We were on a great bite first thing that morning on reaction baits but all of our fish were on the small side so I made an adjustment and we started catching bigger fish worming. My first big bite that day came at about 10am. I set the hook on a stout 7lber and fought it for about 2 minutes. I had it next to the boat just below net level and snap...It broke me off!!:Embarrassed: I remember saying again..."That fish may come back and haunt us". We went on to catch some more big bass that day but sure enough as I expected losing that bass hurt us badly and we ended up in 2nd place AGAIN for the day.
That made two 2nd place finishes in a row.. most people would think of the positive about that but all I could think of was that we should have gotten 1st place at the last two rounds had I not lost the winning fish. Some may call that greed, I just call it extremely competitive..
The biggest positive was that we extended our points lead again by 2 more points and we had banked another high finish. And I couldn't wait to fish Round 5 in the series because I really wanted to make up for the bass I lost.. Some way some how..I knew I needed to make up for it.
Fast forward to this past Saturday... This was Round 5 in the series and I had spent a month thinking about it. I really couldn't wait to fish this round because I knew that We were getting closer to our goal of winning Angler of the Year. Winning the Angler of the Year title is something that has eluded my wife and I.. I mean we've finished in 2nd place in the standings together 4-5 times.. One year we lost the title by a mere 2 points. We've won a good amount of tournaments together but we've never ended the season on the top step of the point standings so my goal this year coming in was to stay consistant and hopefully that would put us in contention for the title.
So all I did the whole month before this tournament was go over and over what we needed to do and how we needed to do it. I knew Id need a Plan "A" , a Plan "B" AND a Plan "C" if I was going to give us a shot at winning this tournament. I even went as far as trying to figure out the point standings on what could "potentially" happen.
See in the ABA series, a series is 6 rounds long...BUT you get ONE "throw out".. what that means is at the end of the series you HAVE TO throw out your worst finish. I knew that in the first 4 rounds we got 5th, 5th, 2nd and 2nd. So I calculated that if we finished 1st in round 5 and the team in 2nd finished outside the top 7 then that would win us the Angler of the year title because the 2nd place team had a 6th place finish that they would have to count if they finished outside the top 7 at this event. I was literally doing the math on Thursday night and finally my wife told me...It doesn't matter what happens if we don't win so we needed to just concentrate on winning and let the rest of the cards fall where they may. So at that point I stopped thinking about the points and put a game plan together for the tourney day.
I went out on Thursday and tried to figure out the bite... I ran about 5 patterns (3 reaction and 2 worming)... One reaction pattern (Swimjig)was literally a waste of time..as I got zero bites and zero followers.. I knew I wouldn't bother using that technique in the tournament. (at least not this time)
The next reaction pattern (swimbait) had me get about 8-10 followers but no takers.. BUT it made me aware that the bass were there! At that point I made 2 casts using the 3rd reaction pattern (Alabama rig) and I caught a bass on each cast but they were only 2 1/2 lbers. But at least I got bit I figured..
Then I picked up the Niko rig and started firing it out.. I instantly started getting bit in 5-15 ft of water but they were all under 3 lbs.. I was looking for 4lb class fish. My goal for the tournament was going to be 20lbs so Id need a 4 lb average to get there. Finally after about 5 hours of mediocre fishing I decided to leave... I Wasn't feeling very confident.. But heading back to the ramp I decided to check out one of my favorite post spawn spots in deep water. So I headed over there, put the troller down and the graph lit up with bass in 38 ft of water. I dropped my dropshot down to them and my line loaded up and I set the hook on a good one... I get it up and in the boat and its just under 4lbs..nice so I leave the spot alone and hit one more spot that fishes the same in post spawn. I drop my dropshot down and its game on and I lip a solid 4lber. Time to go home..
I called my wife on the way home and told her what I had found and the patterns I eliminated. She told me to just relax and that we'd be okay if we just ran our patterns and had confidence. I then called my other team partner and I told him I didn't have a lot of confidence because prefish didn't go so great.. He too told me to relax and just go fishing and grind like we always do and we'd do fine.
So on Friday I did my best to get the tournament out of my mind..In fact I went a played in a charity team golf tournament to get my mind off it.. By the way I AM HORRIBLE at golf. .but my buddies a really good so "we" did great..lol
I literally didn't get home till almost 8:30pm Friday night. When I got home I quickly got the boat ready and it was relax time about 10pm... then lights out at 11pm..
Finally Saturday morning gets here... I go to the lake sign in..Boat 6.. I go over the plan for the day with Carissa.. The plan was simple...fish shallow with reaction baits first thing and hopefully wed be able to get it going early. There was a lot of cloud cover so I figured we'd be able to stay shallow longer with the reaction baits.
We blast off.. We get to our first spot and Carissa is throwing the Alabama rig and Im throwing the Swimbait.. Shes looking for keepers and Im Donkey hunting!!
Within 5 minutes Carissa says IM ON...and I net a solid 3 1/4 lber..we're on the board... Then shes on again ..2 1/2 lber.. Then about 3 minutes later yep shes on again..My girl is rolling!! As I net another keeper. That's about all I needed to see so I picked up the Alabama rig... one cast Im ON!! keeper number 4. Then Carissa gets bite but the bass misses the bait so I pick up the Texas rig and fire it to the spot she just got bit at.. and Im on again! That's our limit and it took about 20 minutes or less... Not a big limit just about 12-13 lbs... Then the bite died... ugggggg!!! It was like the switch got shut off...I mean it went dead... Just as fast as it started, it was over. Time to start worming I said....And literally it started again...I was on, She was on, we both were on..double hooks ups... But all 2-2 1/2 lbers.. I knew we needed bigger bass..
So after about a couple hours of catching about 16-18 bass I decided it was time for a move...Guess Where?? To my post spawn deep water spots.. We get there I drop the troller and we fire out into 40 ft of water.. Our lines reach bottom and we're both on DOUBLE HookUP!!! I net Carissas fish and I reach down and lip mine..both are slightly over 3 lbs but both are upgrades. Then I make a drop on some good marks and as my bait is falling I tell Carissa that these fish look like big post spawners by the way they are sitting suspended above the bottom.. As my bait sinks past the fish one follows it to the bottom.. I click over the bail tighten my line and my rod loads up...IM ON AND ITS A GIANT!!! As the big bass surges towards the surface I fight to keep it down...but try as I might this big girl wants to jump. As it breaks the surface it became clear that I had a toad... We both got quiet as I fought to get control of this big bass. After it jumped it surged back down to 25 ft of water right under the boat..We could see it on the graph. My hands were shaking as I tried to be "perfect"...All I could think about was the 2 giants I lost the previous 2 tournaments.. Finally She tires and I begin to make up ground... I get her just under the boat and lift her to the surface and the waiting net.. YES!!!!!!! Its a good one we weighed it and it weighed just a tad under 6lbs.. 5.90 lbs to be exact.. :Wink:
3 quick culls and one of them is a donkey.. We couldn't be happier..
We fished it a little longer but the spot died. I told Carissa that this spot need a rest after we caught that big one so we make a move... Another 38-40ft spot We catch a couple more but they don't keep.so we make a move.
At DVL the quickest way to get bit is to keep moving so we make a move.. We hit spot after spot for the next few hours and we keep catching fish but not many..in the mean time we are culling ounces at a time. We aren't getting a ton of bites but the ones were getting are nice grade fish so we stick with it..
We head to another post spawn area with a high spot in about 43ft of water. This may be too deep I say as we pull up.. I put the troller down and there are fish on it... "They don't look like giants but we'll try anyway", I say. We both drop down and its game on and We both set the hook..Double again... both fish help us by about an ounce each. Then we both catch 2 that didn't keep and the fish seem gone.. Im about to tell her "lets go try somewhere else" when I look at the screen and another fish moved onto the spot.. I say that's a good one as I drop my bait down.
My bait gets to the bottom and I shake it lightly and my rod loads up..IM ON... At that moment Carissa was stuck on the bottom so she didn't see as my bass came straight up and swirled on the surface.. It happened so quick that I didn't get a great look at it but I knew it was over 4lbs FOR SURE...I say get the net as my bass surges back down to the middle of the water column. Then I quickly get control of it and its directly under the boat.. I say It has to be close..Just then my fish comes from directly under the boat into view (I still hadn't seen it) Because Carissa was standing right there with the net.. I hear her make a gasp as she nets it... She doesn't let me see it. She puts it on the scale and I caught a glimpse of it..
I ask Is it 5lbs?? And she says nope...6.05 lbs... YESSS!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't realize it was that big.. :Big Grin::Big Grin: And that killed that spot.... So we made a move and the bite seemed to die in deep water so we hit several areas in the next few hours but nothing we caught helped. We fished Rawson, the dam, the rock quarry area and a few other areas but to no avail. Finally with about 30 minutes left I say lets hit that high spot again where I caught that 6lber.. Because I knew there were more bass there.. So off we went. I pull up and put the troller down and there they are again... We both drop down..IM ON!!! And Carissa nets a nice bass that weighed about 3.79lbs.. WE'LL TAKE IT.. Now its 15 minutes left and I decide to head back to the ramp. I didn't want to take any chances because I knew we had a good weight.. So we get there about 7-8 minutes early and we make a couple last minute casts to the deep water under the store...No luck... So we head in.
Everyone I talked to said it was a tough day.. Then I ask one guy how he did and he said he had an 8 lber and maybe 20 lbs.. I said, AN 8 lber..THATS A GIANT". I tell him I "think" we had about 21 1/2-22lbs... So we put the boat on the trailer and head to weigh them in.. Our big bass was 6.09lb and our total weight was 21.71 lbs. As it turned out that was enough on this day and we got the win... :Dancing Banana:
And when all was said and done our nearest rival struggled a bit and ended the day outside the top 10 which means we will win the Angler of the Year title regardless of what happens at the final round in 2 weeks... It will become official that day even though we don't need to fish the tournament we are anyway because I want to try to end the season with another win.
Once the last round has finished and its official, My wife and I will finally have our first Angler of the Year Title together after it has eluded us for so many seasons..
The reason we don't have to finish well at the last event or even fish it for that matter is because that event can be our throw out and we will count our 5th 5th 2nd 2nd and 1st place finishes.. If we don't even fish the last event and the team in 2nd place wins the last event, we will still win the Angler of the Year by 2 points.. All our hard work has paid off and the stress is over.. And you know what? Im GLAD!!! lol
we caught about 40 bass... most came from 2-20 ft of water we had about 8 big bites ( 3lbs or bigger)and they all came from the deeper water with the exception of 1 Alabama rig fish
Guys if your ready for a fun day on the lake or if you want to go out and expand your horizons and learn a couple new techniques call me and book your trip to go to Perris or DVL... Both lakes are fishing differently but both pretty dang good so call me!!!
Pete:Cool:
PeteMarinoguideService.com
(909) 510-5679 office
(909) 241-8283 cell
