White Lake D&R 2025 - Tournament Day
Tournament day brought some clouds and quite a bit of wind. It was going to be vastly different than our practice day. The good news was that it would keep most of the salmon fisherman off the big lake. Parking is tricky there when you have 60 bass boats and a ton of salmon fisherman all using the same ramp. The biggest issue is that the overflow lot gets totally taken up by cars without trailers meeting up to salmon fish. I saw plenty of bass guys guilty of the same thing on Saturday too. No matter which group you are in, it is always worth planning ahead in situations like this. If you can meet up with your boater somewhere else it opens up another spot for someone to enjoy the lake for the day. I realize that often isn’t an issue but on busy Saturdays it can be at that ramp.
We somehow got another decent boat number with 22 and no where really to go. We wheeled in on the big flat where we had 4 or 5 bites and started chucking. I assumed it would be a 10 minute limit type start, but something was off. You could see it in the water color that it just wasn’t right. But if we kept moving we might find that group of fish that could carry us through the morning. The first keeper came on a spinnerbait like we had planned, the second came on a crankbait, and the third came on a swim jig. All of them were in different areas with no real friends around. They were also all tiny, could we just get lucky at White Lake one time and catch a random big one?
It just wasn’t happening but the hope was maybe instead of being scattered they had grouped up on some places in the grass. Trevor hit keepers on back to back casts to fill our limit. They were a little better quality fish and despite poking around the area with some slower stuff we wouldn’t catch anything substantial. Our main program was flipping though and there was some isolated stuff nearby. It was really hard to see with the wind but I could find it with MEGA Live 2. I got a bite on the first clump and that was inspiring. I think the next one I caught a small fish but it fizzled out quickly. Flipping the isolated stuff was just part of the gameplan and there was plenty of other stuff to flip that was more water color and what stage the weeds were in. I had a lot more confidence in this based on what the isolated weeds looked like.
We pulled up to the first stretch and set the hook on one that didn’t move much. Fast forward a couple of seconds and I was picking the weeds of a 3.93 in the net. 3 flips later and we set on another strong fish. That one unfortunately escaped us. We still had the makings of putting together a big bag if they were going to bite this way. I was excited for what the rest of the day might bring. As fast as it started though it fizzled out and we struggled to connect with quality. We were still catching some fish just none of them were the right ones. We just kept moving and hoping to connect with some more good ones. We were able to get in on some stuff while bypassing other because of the boats. This was the time of morning where you are always fishing behind someone except for the super sneaky stuff. Unfortunately, the sneaky stuff wasn’t working for us on this day. That stuff almost always gives us a couple on a weekend tournament but we never got a single good fish off it on that day. We were in the vicinity of the area that Trevor filled our limit in the morning so we swung through there again. We got 2 quality culls there in about 5 minutes on a spinnerbait. Not big ones, but it would at least get rid of the couple rats we had in the livewell. Up until now we had been in the main lake the entire day but the narrows had some juicy looking stuff. It was kind of slimed up and we struggled in it. Catching one that didn’t help us and maybe missing another couple bites. These kayakers planning on breaking some silly world record had buoys all over the place, coast guard auxillary driving around, house boats playing music. It was too much to handle so we got out of there and went back to grinding on the main lake. The struggle continued out there but we did make one more nice cull flipping grass.
The rest of the day was as boring as it can be. There were a couple times that we were fooled with fish on lighter tackle. But they all ended up being worth nothing. It was disappointing, frustrating, and just kind of a in tune with how the last couple of tournaments went. It’s hard to watch another year pass without winning a major weekend tournament. Today would get better though as we would miraculously finish in 10th with 14.57. The weights were so tight, especially behind us as there were 13 bags in the 14 pound range. A half a pound either way would have drastically changed our standings. Usually, we get the raw end of the deal but today the teams with 14.56 and 14.55 did!
I also had the hydrowave in the boat this time so I didn’t miss out on the contingency money when our name got drawn again. So really in the end, the day didn’t turn out too bad. We also finished 3rd in the AOY standings which felt good after that disastorous Muskegon tournament. Congrats to Miles and Randy for winning it and Carlos and Dustin for finishing 2nd. They had great season, hopefully they will bring back angler of the year prizes next season.
That’s all I’ve got for bass fishing for a little bit. I do think I’ll do a little bit of it this fall but I have salmon fever right now and I want more of that action. I’d love to get the girls out for a banner day of king fishing. They did get a taste of it Sunday after the tournament and Mabel caught one on skein. It was just a little one but it was full of fight and a good test of the TFO Steeldriver rods. If you are looking for a rod for floating skein check out the 9 foot medium heavy Steeldriver. You won’t be disappointed and expect more details about the kings soon.