It was a beautiful time to be in the Northwood's. The weather was great, the fishing was good and the friends and family up there made for a lot of laughs and good times. I prefished for the two days leading up to the tournament and finally found active fish around 4PM on Thursday after fishing since sun-up with only one in the boat and one lost leading up to the evening and no definite pattern to key in on. At 4PM I found a weed point with a steep break and perch stacked up like crazy against the drop-off. The wind was pounding into this spot and had been for four days straight, so it was no wonder the perch were stacked in like cordwood. Water temps were at 74 degrees. I moved 7 fish and lost a mid-40" fish half way back to the boat by 4:50PM, which is incredible action and an awesome window. I left that small spot with a grin on my face that I had found the place and the bait that would make magic happen on game day.
On Friday I returned to that spot with the same bait and hooked a 40", which I lost at the net, in the first 10 casts. Spot checking is important, but it definitely hurts to burn active fish off of a spot you plan to fish during the tournament. Nevertheless, we had to spot-check to make sure the day before wasn't a fluke and we proved it wasn't, our plan was set.
As we eased out amongst 125 other boats on Saturday morning the pressure was on, that spot needed to produce. It seemed like 75% of the field was trolling, which keeps the bait in the water 100% of the time, however, those of us casting can pick apart a weed bed. There were two other boats on "my" spot, so we had to be patient. I moved three fish right away, but nothing over 34" and nothing showed active interest, just lazy follows. After 8-hours of picking this basketball court sized weedbed apart I had seen 6 different fish and none of them wanted to eat - we moved on...
I slid into a secondary spot and immediately moved a 45-inch fish. As we continued to cast around and interest her into eating, I missed a short strike at the boat by a mid-30's fish.
The day ended and the leader board was mostly trollers, but Jared Adomovich and Mark Lajewski's boats were amongst the top 10 and I know they are casters. The first place team after day one was up by 4 fish, so we needed a miracle on Sunday.
By 7:30 AM on Sunday we landed a fish and got our names on the board.
We lost a second fish an hour later just two feet from the net and that was a tough one to take... Mark Lajewski's boat took first by casting, thank God, with a quad. The day one leaders came up short after losing a fifth fish on Sunday while trolling before it got to the net.
$20K in winnings split between Mark Lajewski and his partner, Jeff Piazza. Well done to those boys!!