Spent the last 4 days at Clear Lake for the US Anglers Choice Pro/Am - finishing 26th on the Pro side in the 90 boat field, with 18.96 on day 1 and 18.27 on day 2. But first, a rewind.

Last Friday I fished with Jason Diamond (from the Stardust) to practice. I go to Clear Lake once or twice a year when I can, so I wanted to get in some decent practice for this tourney. We found the regular fishing to be very tough. In fact we didn’t land any fish at all doing regular fishing. Sight fishing was pretty good with plenty of fish up on beds but no size. We caught around 20 bass with the best 5 in the 16 to 17lb range.

Jason and I always have a good time when we fish and there were plenty of laughs and horsing around. We didn’t fish too seriously and I spent a lot of time driving around the south end of the lake. Water was mostly clear and ranged from 58 to 66 deg. We tried a new (to me) route to the lake, going 680N, to 80E, to 505N, to 16 to 20 and launching at the keys. It takes a hair longer to go this way from Dublin but it’s a much straighter set of roads than 29.

The quagga inspection was… a joke. They do ask you where your boat was last so there’s that, but they don’t actually look at your boat. It feels like the people running this program are just fleecing boaters for money because they know they can. My .02 on that.

Thursday last I drove up early and launched the Champ out of Lucerne to run the north end of the lake. I spent most of the day exploring, looking for patterns - fishing new places and old places and running the trolling motor on high. There were plenty of fish on beds but still no size to them. Regular fishing still sucked.

I did have one cool moment as I was checking some dirty shallow water and heard a splash. The back of my mind was telling me it sounded awfully like a bass so I fired a long cast on it and didn’t get bit. There was a small bird on a rock by the shore where the fish splashed. A minute later I saw another splash in the same place and saw the same bird dart to the next rock. I fired on it again and watched a 5 pounder rush up and engulf my bait :) That bass was trying to get the bird off the rock! Too funny. Never seen that in my life. I caught one bedfish Thursday for sport but those were my only fish for the day.

It was disappointing to not find any good fish on beds but I felt it was still my best shot for the tourney so I got up Friday and was fishing by 6am. The morning bite was junk for me still. I ran the trolling motor on high all day again looking for beds, finding tons but still no size, just a few 4 to 5lbers. I never caught a fish on Friday. The weather was hot and calm and the water temps were hitting 70 in the afternoon in places.

Did have a nice chat on the water with Dan Sansome, San Diego legend from the old days of double anchor craw fishing. Just having the chance to talk with guys like Dan is awesome.

We got a vacation rental near the casino for this derby and I stayed with Nico, CV, Long and Shawn. Great crew. Cris made ridiculous food. Veal tri-tip, chicken, ribs that melted off the bone. It was off the charts eating! We stayed up rigging tackle, gorging, and telling fish stories.

Saturday I drew John Thompson as my co-angler. I had no morning spot and was 85th boat out so I literally drove past the blast off boat and picked where to fish. I went for the spot with the warmest water temps, hoping that would pay off. Turned out that was a great area on the lake for several guys, but my timing was off. We didn’t get any morning fish.

At 8:30 I started sight fishing and we had our limit by 9:15. John caught two casting around while I was working beds, it was cool. The rest of the day was a mindless exercise in bass hunting. I realized by around 10:30 that virtually all the fish I’d found in practice on beds were gone so I started just going to areas where I’d seen a lot of fish cruising and it turned out that many of them had come up overnight to spawn.

I don’t know how many we caught but it was around 25 fish. I culled for ounces all day and had good execution, losing no fish. Our small fish was 3-5 and the largest was 4-3. Never found anything of good size on beds. Trolling motor batteries got tired with 20 minutes left in the day so I picked up a senko and caught 2 immediately but they didn’t help. Weighed 18.96 and was in 24th place. The weights were real tight in this tournament.

Day 2 was overcast. My draw was Steve Polenko. I started offshore and Steve caught a small keeper. It felt fishy for like 15 minutes. I had two bites on a swimbait but they didn’t connect, they were just head butting it I think. Didn’t feel big. Then that fishy feeling went away so I went straight to sight fishing and we had a limit by 8am I think, don’t remember exactly, it was a fast limit of small ones.

Off to the races once more we went. Saturday I had fished north mainly so Sunday I fished south. I culled up a few times and found one nice pair, a 4 and a 6. But they weren’t quite ready so I left them. Finding fish was no problem so we just whacked away at the bedfish culling along. At one point I had 4 fish that were all identical on the balance beam at 2lbs 12oz! Talk about an annoying cull.

I found a 5lb+ fish, deep, by itself. Just sort of relating to a bed. She bit 3 times and all three times I missed her, like never even felt her on the set. Tremendously frustrating! She got spooky after the 3rd miss and I had to leave her. I picked up two 4lbers. It was getting late in the day and we were due in at 3pm. I ran the entire lake on Sunday…

I went back to the 4 and the 6 from the morning and there was another boat one dock over. I could have been a dick and pulled straight in on those fish but decided to turn and leave. They should have been ready to bite by then but I just couldn't bring myself to cut those guys off. It was a tough situation.

Running a stretch where I’d seen good fish 2 years ago I found one about 3 and 3/4lbs cruising. Made a brilliant cast and it bit and I missed. Followed her down the bank and she bit again and again I missed. Agony. With 30 minutes left I found another nice fish, easy 4 and a half that was relating to a clump of grass. She bit once and I missed, then refused to bite again. All of these fish were easing up to my bait, sucking it in and blowing it out in one motion. It was nauseating.

Raced back to the dock and made it with 30 seconds to spare. Weighed 18.27 and finished .7lbs out of the money. A disappointment to be sure, but still a great 4 days on the water. Sunday, in spite of missing those 6 bites, I didn’t lose any bass that mattered. If they got hooked and they were cull fish I caught them.

My main bait for this tournament was an Assalt Ringer worm. Any of the green colors were fine, I actually just mix them up in a tray in my box. in #40 worked as well for a few better fish on day 1. I learned a lot about Clear Lake this past week. Something about having your own boat and making your own decisions teaches you infinitely more than backseating like I’ve always done there.

So it was real, and it was fun, and when the time comes I’ll do it again. Nico summed it up best, he said, “at Clear Lake it’s not fishing – it’s catching”.