D and R Sports Grand River 2026 - Tournament

Normally there is a practice blog, but things just didn’t work out this week to get out there for me. Trevor spent some time out there and is just really comfortable on that fishery. Practice really isn’t as important here for us as he has a good pulse on where we have the best odds at getting some quality bites. One of the big decisions at the Grand is always where to fish. There are really 3 different possibilities and they all have different strengths and weaknesses. You’ve got Spring Lake, the main river, and then the many bayous off the river. In this tournament we would visit all 3 of them.

We were going to Spring Lake first and that always means you want a good boat number. Spring Lake is always busy and unlike our other fisheries, it is mostly just a shoreline deal. There are no expansive flats and weedbeds to suck up boats and spread things out. The hope is always get a good stretch and get what you can off of it and then get in a good rotation for the day. Boat number 38 wasn’t a good start to that.

When you are that far back the rule is don’t pass anything good. We were going to start on something good for sure but it was a small spot vs a bigger stretch with a bigger population of fish. Trevor said “I guarantee I catch one of this cast”, which is usually a guarantee cast there. He didn’t and that was the first sign that it might be a more challenging day than we had hoped. We did eventually get one keeper there and a bunch of short fish in the area. I lost a fish that tangled me in some pads next, no idea if that was a good one or not. It is tough to get a read on those ones especially with spinning tackle. We were still battling the short fish and what a pain they are. They tangle up drop shots, ruin soft plastics, and are a beast to remove from lures with treble hooks. All the while we were slowly piecing together a mini limit. We might have had one 2 pounder, a couple 1.75’s, and 2 that would barely measure by the time we got 5.

That morning window is when you really need to capitalize and get a couple good bites. We never got one for whatever reason and were stuck with 5 fish that essentially meant nothing at the end of the day. It didn’t take too long to trade out the line burners for some 15 inchers. But it was just so hard to get on stuff. I’ve definitely seen it worse in there but there were still dudes on everything. We were in a tough rotation, hitting things again, by passing stuff, and just trying hard to get a quality bite. Of course when we finally got a bite over 2.5 pounds it came off and that one absolutely would have added to our bottom line at the end of the day. It was starting to get to late morning when we got on a good stretch and Trevor got a good bite on coike. Finally we had a fish with weighing in to go with everything else that was near 2 pounds.

Spring lake is a wild place, the boat traffic is incredible, and there are people towing kids around on tubes in the middle of it. Combine that with the sail boat races or whatever they are taking and entire cross section of a busy lake. It is just a frustrating place to get around in and to be honest the sail boat stuff is ridiculous. They did not even allow a path to get around on either side and shouldn’t be surprised when a 30 foot yacht is blowing through the middle of them. How there aren’t more boating accidents there, I don’t know? Combine all the chaos, our mediocre success, and just how hard we were working and it was time to make a change. I will say we were working hard fishing that way. There were no grass flats where you are just making a cast. Every single cast of the day was to something and if you aren’t making good casts then you aren’t catching them. It was a lot of focus and a lot of hard work but unfortunately in tournament fishing hard work doesn’t always mean fat sacks of bass. So with a few hours left we bailed and headed to the river (the boat traffic was crazy there too).

Trevor had places we could go where we could catch fish but that wasn’t the goal. We were just looking for a couple bites that could salvage our day. Things can happen fast out here and if we got a couple big bites we would be fine as we already had one nice one and no real rats in the livewell. We would be going to some main river confidence stretches that have kicked out some big ones in the past. We got busy striking out or catching ones that didn’t help us but at least there weren’t as many bass boats in our way. Then we finally got that bite. Of course it came on a cast underneath a bush, around some hoses, and with a spinning rod. It was controlled chaos and the bush was the first obstacle. Steady pressure on it got it out of the bush and the hose was next. All I could do was keep pressure on it from digging further below it, you could see the hose, see the bass, and just hope for the best. I got it over the hose and heading to the boat without any more drama. It was a magnum and a true game changer for us. One of those fish that got us thinking if maybe it was real tough that it could hold up for first or second big bass (of course it wouldn’t). I’ve got to give some credit to my leader line on that fish. I was using P-Line Spin X fluorocarbon leader in 13 pound test. I love that it comes in in between sizes and it has a lot of applications both when you need things a little stronger or a little more finesse. One thing I noticed on that fish was it had been caught before as it had the slice under its chin from either a puncture style cull tag or a hook style scale. I don’t see many fish like that anymore fortunately but I can see it’s still happening.

For the first time in the day it felt like we had momentum on our side. It felt good even though we only had an hour and a half left. If we could make the right moves and get one more solid fish we would be good shape. That was a main river fish and it led us to the bayous next. We culled once in there just by a little bit but with weights usually tight on the Grand it could be a big deal. Time was ticking and we needed to start making our way back through the boat traffic. We made a couple stops along the way but never got another quality bite. Still we had salvaged a brutally tough day and hopefully done enough to at least get a check.

Other than Dave and Kyle’s mega bag weights were down (it took less than 12 pounds to get paid). The 2 older girls had been on vacation with their grandparents/cousins for the week and they surprised me at the weigh in. I did not expect to see the family just as we were getting in line for the tanks. It was a great surprise! We settled at 13.82 with a 4.68 big bass which was of course 3rd big bass and not worth any money (full results). That got us in 7th place which was a huge win for the day, although it is hard not to think about what one more quality bite would have done. We could have finished 2nd to Dave and Kyle again (congrats to those guys). It got us some good points too although catching Don and Brian at this point is about impossible and we would have to beat Dave and Kyle who we are tied with for 2nd. Not to mention the other 2 teams that are within 2 points of us. For someone to have to take over the lead they will literally have to win the tournament to have a chance and Don and Brian would have to struggle which we all know isn’t going to happen. Our White Lake tournament crushed us just like Dave and Kyle’s Cadillac tournament crushed them.

I think this is the first time I’ve ever weighed a fish from each of the 3 Grand River habitats I mentioned earlier. It’s always good to survive a Grand River tournament no matter how you have to do it. Lucky for us it worked out this time despite the day just being overall challenging. But that is how the river works sometimes and you have to remember that you are just one bite away. No matter how tough the day is or how little you have in the livewell that is the place where a 4 pounder just separates you from the pack.