D&R Sports Series 2025 Hardy Dam - Tournament Day

Here we go, it was time to see how it was all going to shake out. Luckily we didn’t waste a good boat number with no where to go in this one. Because we were boat 52 out of 54 boats. That meant we were going to have a nice smooth ride to wherever we decided to start. Based on our practice there was no spot that we felt really strongly about. It was more just an area thing but we still wanted to make a calculated decision on where the best place might be. These are the situations where you don’t think about it much at all and you just let your gut feelings guide you in the right direction. We purposely tried to find a lot of stuff in one section of the lake so regardless of where we actually started, we would be fishing close by for a good portion of the day.

We got to where we were going and of course there was a walleye boat sitting right there. However these things are never a cause for panic especially in this situation. You’ve got 3 choices in that situation. Roll in there like a clown and make all guys fishing bass tournaments look stupid, pull up and politely say “hey I’m in a tournament today, would it be ok if I fish around you?” (and accept whatever answer that you get), or wheel to the next spot. We quickly wheeled to the next spot and spotted a nice one with the MEGA Live 2 right away. I think it was Trevor’s first cast of the tournament and we had a 3 pounder in the boat. I’ll take a start like that and we only needed 4 more now. Once again it proved that even though you might not get to fish exactly where you want, if you go with the flow it often works out. The next 40 minutes or so were a bit concerning. We caught some walleyes, lost a fish or 2, and overall were not seeing many bass. We got pretty good at recognizing bass vs walleyes vs all the carp swimming around out there. These are things I could never do with MEGA Live 1 and it really shows how good MEGA Live 2 is. We finally put another one in the boat that was bigger than the first one. Less than an hour in and we were already on that just 3 more bites program.

We hopped to the next stretch and set down right on a little school of them. There were 4 of them out there and they weren’t that big but we got keeper number 3 in the boat out of it. Unfortunately they disappeared and the area just up from there was empty. I had felt really good about getting several fish there so it was a letdown when no one was home. We weren’t committed to anything though so we just kept expanding and searching. We already knew that the stuff we put waypoints on in practice didn’t mean much. We slid up a little shallower and bombing a swimbait paid off. You could tell it was one of the right ones and he just needed to get in the boat. Every single fish we had jumped right at the boat during the day and I think we caught them all with the net. The long extendable handle on the Clam Fortis net was key today! This one was around 4 pounds and our day was trending in the right direction. It we could get one more fish then I’d be very confident we were getting a check and some good points. Not long after we picked up number 5 in the form of a 14.25 incher. We had a long time to get rid of these 2 dinks and it was time to make it happen. We were noticing some fish closer to the bottom and I just picked up another fish that didn’t help ticking bottom with a swimbait.

I hadn’t intended on doing it this early in the day or maybe at all but I dug a finesse jig out of the rod locker and sent it out there. It took somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes before one snatched that jig and it felt like I set the hook into a stump. That one felt good, 15 pound line and a TFO 746 Resolve (7'4” heavy action). It wasn’t a monster but it was around 3 pounds and a huge upgrade. If we could get rid of one more fish we would have a dang good bag. We absolutely hand enough to get paid at this point. We had 3 more areas still that had potential and the next one was one I felt really good about.

We pulled in and very quickly after dropping the Ultrex Quest spotted one. Another fish over 3 made it to the boat and we were styling now! Within the next minute or 2 we spotted another that almost looked like a carp on the MEGA Live 2. It was a brown carp and it did not hesitate to bite. This one did a good job of coming at the boat right up until it didn’t. It made a jump and then just dug in the opposite direction, it was intense and terrifying to watch in the clear water. I had tons of confidence in my 8lb test P-line Tactical that I was using for a leader and the TFO Resolve 713 had been doing a great job absorbing the pressure. When this one made it on board it was cause for some high fives and excitement. We had a real nice bag now and plenty of time to make it bigger.

I had 2 big concerns other than catching the next bass though. Number one , keeping deep and extremely postspawn smallies alive on a day with 82 degree water temps and 90 degree heat. Number 2 was making sure I never had any battery issues due to running my pumps non stop all day long. Either of those things could be catastrophic to our incredible day. We also were going to be running a lot of new water the rest of the day and trying to get one big largemouth bite. I’ll save you a lot of brutal fishing the rest of the day but that next big bite we were after never happened. Our lack of experience in where fish live on the fishery hurt us as did really understanding what happens when the boat traffic gets crazy and fishing gets tough. We have a lot to learn to make a full productive day happen out there but we avoided both of the potentially catastrophic events.

Regardless of where we ended up it was a great day and mission accomplished for surviving that place. We got to enjoy the lead for 1 whole minute with our 17.01 pounds before Randy and Miles knocked us down with 17.2. We would fall one more place to 3rd thanks to Neil and Luke which was no surprise (nice work guys and here are the full standings). I’ll be honest it stings a little bit to have such a nice bag there and be in 3rd. It would have been special to win one on that pond. But I’m not going to complain about getting out of there with a 3rd place finish and our 2nd top 5 of the year. We are barely leading AOY because Randy and MIles won’t stop catching them! One of these days we’ll get that extra bite we need to put us over the top.

I will add it feels weird to rely on forward facing sonar for an event. I’m always using mine but usually it is more to pick up structure vs individual fish. It was difficult with the previous version of MEGA Live to track your bait. Not anymore with MEGA Live 2 and that gave us the capability and confidence to make it work. MEGA Live 2 deserves its own blog and that’s coming next.