Grand Lake BFL Results and Moving Into the New Place

View from my camp at Grand Lake

Grand Lake is different than I expected.  Most of the lake has rock shorelines.  At least the areas that we fished.  It forced me to go out of my comfort zone and try different styles of fishing I have wanted to try but had not yet.

I fished with jigs, creature baits, and shallow running cranks most of the day.  I couldn't use most of what I normally use.  The water was clear and shallow with rocks that would catch any hook.  You had to cast far from the boat if you wanted a bite.

The first fish I caught was 13 1/2 inches but was a chunk.  It was a 1/2 inch short of keeper size.  Shortly after that I had my keeper.  Both came from an area that I was able to use my go to baits.  I had a big bite in the same area on a rubber worm and when I set the hook my line broke.

The boater I drew was great.  He has been fishing for many years and helped me to try some different techniques.  I didn't catch any fish on them this time.  (He was picking the water clean before I got to it.)  I will use some of the techniques going forward.

Towards the middle of the day I had my biggest opportunity.  I was casting a shallow crank in a foot to foot and a half of water.  I twitched the crank and right as it stopped a fish hit it.  I set the hook and started reeling the fish in.  As it got closer to the boat I could feel it was a good size fish.  At that point the crank pulled free.  The hooks were small and the bass was big.  Not a good combination.  Next time I will not pull as hard on the fish if I have small treble hooks.

I caught some fish late in the day on a top water pop-r.  They were smaller.  I was hoping to get one big one to try to catch up to the competition.

At the end of the tournament I had only 1 bass at 2 lbs 14 oz.  I finished 51st out of 108.  There were a couple missed opportunities that could have put me in the money.  It took a little over 5 pounds to be in the money and move on to day 2.

My boater had a good day and was able to cull a couple times.  He finished the first day in 6th.  His second day he did not do quite as well and fell to 19th, still cashing a check.

I look forward to the BFL's next year, where I will be trying to make it to regionals again.

Monday night we were supposed to get into our new house.  We stopped by to set up our beds and move things around.  The couple moving out were not quite finished so we just moved a few things into the bedrooms and didn't move in.

Tuesday, I was expecting sort of the same thing, but was hoping we could stay the night.  I got home from work and loaded the truck to take some things over.  When I got there the door was locked.  My wife called the couple and they said I could come get a key to get into the house.  They told me they were done over there and we could officially move in.

The house was completely empty and I moved the rest of our belongings.  My niece helped me move boxes around and dig out the bed frames.  We ended up sleeping in our own bed last night.  The boys slept on an air mattress but will have their beds set up soon.

Leo and Gavin got to work on their toys first thing.

Our pile ready to be unpacked into the new house.

My niece helping me move boxes and dig out beds.