White Lake D&R 2025 - Practice
Usually I like practice, I like how it can be challenging, tough, and boring. But it can lead to great rewards and when that happens it feels good to see the hard work pay off. It doesn’t always translate to tournament day but there is always something new to learn. However, I don’t like practice during lake flips in late August when there are much more fun things to catch then bass. I’ve got kings on the brain and despite the importance of our tournament that was about to take over.
We came prepared with all the jigging stuff; I did leave the skein rods at home (which I regret). We stashed a cooler, some ice, and a fillet knife in the truck just in case it was game on. Montague has an awesome fish cleaning station that we could make use of if need be. Somehow we resisted the urge to head to where we expected a good jigging opportunity. We had never actually jigged for salmon up there before but Lakemaster mapping showed the most likely places. It was obvious that the bass were biting and we had caught 10-15 keepers in no time. Just covering water with a spinnerbait and a Bass Mafia Zaldangerous swimbait. You could already feel that fish were just hanging out all over the place and our biggest hope was making the right moves on tournament day.
Time to put the bass stuff away and go check on the kings. It started off pretty slow but as soon as I spotted the first group on MEGA Live, I knew it would be tough to go back to bass. It didn’t take long and Trevor was hooked up and bass weren’t even on the brain. We figured out the zone to be in and went to work. There’s just nothing better than big kings crushing a P-Line Laser Minnow. They were all over the new Chartruese Shad UV color. We took a break to fill the livewells with some of that cold lake Michigan water and the action kind of slowed down. I do regret leaving but we needed to get those fish cleaned and on ice. Having the cleaning station right at the ramp was huge.
Back to the bass fishing and it was really pretty uneventful. We never found anything to get excited about but we did at least get a good lay of the lake and what we might fish on tournament day. I was also hoping some of the grass would change up a little between practice day and tournament day. I felt really confident that we could catch them if we got around the right looking grass with the right looking water clarity, no matter where it was on the lake. We would be going into this one with an open, hopes for a little luck, and no regrets about having more fun during practice than anyone else.