Deer Creek Tournament Practice

After traveling a quarter of the way around the U.S. and not catching any fish we finally got into 'em last night. Mizike and I headed to Deer Creek after work to find some good fishing spots for some Sunday morning tournaments we will be fishing there.

Mizike got his first bass, a 1 3/4 lber shortly after unloading. I was still getting things ready to start fishing and on his first cast towards the boat ramp he gets a solid strike on his crankbait. I tied on a crankbait as well and we worked up towards the river on the shady bank.

I cast towards a brushy fallen tree and just miss hanging up. Right as I started reeling a bass busted the lure and the fight was on. He made a flying leap right away, then I pulled him closer. About halfway to the boat he skies out of the water again and I see he is only 1 hooked. I attempt to keep him down in the water but the bass at this lake were extreemly aggressive and he jumped again right at the boat. I lifted him into the boat and realized that 2 hooks in the treble hook had went throught the lip and hooked the other side. He was not getting loose.

We drove up the river a ways further and spotted some isolated structure in 10 foot of water. We did not catch any bass there but Mizike did catch a descent saugeye and a huge crappie on his crankbait.

We traveled further and saw a rock shoreline. It was only about 2 foot deep but we fished it anyway. I cast out a plastic craw and had a small bite. I cast it back to the same area and had a fish slam it. I pulled back and reeled in a 11 3/4 inch largemouth.

The 3 hours we had to fish last night went quick and we only had a little time to stop by the isolated structure before returning to the boat dock. We didn't get anything at the isolated structure but as Mizike was backing down the ramp I cast to where I saw a bass surface at the corner of the boat ramp and the rocks. A fish slamed the worm on a shakey head I was using. I set the hook and then there was no pull. I got the worm back to the boat and saw it was half missing. I tried a quick cast back as Mizike was half down the ramp. Nothing, so I pulled around and loaded the boat.

One thing I noticed is that a lot of people take a lot of time to load a boat. There was a trailer that was backed down when we started backing down. We hooked up the boat, strapped it up, secured all the fishing gear and were on the road before they had the boat on the trailer. Glad they had 3 lanes to load and unload.

One other thing that was a little frustrating was the size of the boats on Deer Creek. There were Lake Erie sized boats that were like mini yachts driving all around creating huge waves. I had to sit down when they would pass because the 3 foot waves would really tip the Nitro. The waves could have been what was turning on the bite though. To me it seemed like a lot of pleasure boaters and there was not much area to get away from them.