D&R Sports Classic 2025 - Hamlin Lake - Day 2
Day 2 brought some renewed hope. We weren’t going to let a rough day 1 get us down and if we could get a couple of the right bites. 14-15 pounds could be attainable. We had a couple hints from day 1 and at least knew where one big smallmouth that missed a topwater was. We were going to start right there and see what happens.
It was much colder today and it would be interesting to see how the fish would react. It turns out they were going to react negatively for not just us but a lot of the teams. We did catch a smallmouth pretty quickly but it was only 15 inches instead of a good one. Another keeper largemouth came fairly quickly. Instead of blowing through with reaction baits we were picking away at the area finesse fishing. It was working but we just couldn’t get a good bite to save our lives. We fished a couple things we found the day before that seemed fish with no luck and didn’t waste much time getting to upper today. We felt if we just fished around in there that we could put together a decent bag if we got a couple good bites. It turns out it would be much harder today.
Our next bite was a magnum dogfish, it had me fooled. I knew it wasn’t a pike and was super hopeful it was one of the right ones. We did get a couple keepers shortly after that but they were just squeaking by that 14 inch minimum. We hit the stuff that was so good the day before next and it was empty. I have a feeling that someone already got them because it was so isolated and too good to not even get a bite. I was really starting to figure out what sort of isolated stuff would have fish and what wasn’t. It didn’t matter today though because every time I would throw my jig at something juicy, I could only catch sublegal bass and sometimes a couple of them. They just weren’t biting like the day before either and we were in total explore mode. Finally we boated keeper number 5 after just losing a fish on the cast before. I was going old school with an Erie Darter because it can be such a great fall bait. Apparently the big ones were having trouble finding it though.
Things were getting frustrating up there though and a change of scenery might do us some good. Back to lower to ride out the day, just fishing around and hoping to stumble on some greatness. It can happen so fast in bass fishing and if you don’t have anything good to fish. Then sometimes it is best to just keep looking for something new. I hate to say it but that didn’t work either. We probably had 9 pounds in the livewell and just decided to throw those back too. Just nothing clicked over the entire weekend to get a good bite. Overall just a brutal event that will make you question your life choices to participate in tournament fishing. We weren’t the only ones who struggled as most of the top teams failed to catch a limit on day 2 and the leaderboard really shook up. I didn’t have time to dwell on the weekends failure because I had a birthday girl to go see. June was turning 6 and I much appreciated the 3pm weigh in and hour and 15 minute drive home. We did win a pair of Bajio sunglasses on a random draw so that was nice bonus. I sure hope we get to fish there again at some point. I at least have some ideas to look for this time and I think a day of side imaging out there would do me some good. It is a bummer to do so poorly in an event that I thought would be a great opportunity but it just is going to have to fuel the fire for the next one. Congrats to all the winners and thanks to West Michigan Bass, D&R Sports, and all the event sponsors for all their hard work and making this trail a fun one to fish.