New Town / "River" Area - Thursday, August 12, 2010

Time for the Tim Sandstrom book report.

Pre-Fish Weekend Before August 7
Wind was out of the south at a comfortable 10 or so mph clip. My uncle and I fished some areas bouncing around. We caught a few fish but found something pretty interesting (to his credit he had fished with a friend earlier over in the Hook). Pitched jigs up underneath cottonwood trees with their leaves still on them. Trees were in about 7 to 13 feet. Caught some fish doing this and a couple were nice (18 to 22.5 inches). I was hoping this would be a pattern dependable on for the upcoming tourney. Other fishing included cranking shallow and deep, baiting with spinners and lindy rigs in depths of 16 to 22 feet and some vertical jigging. Fishing was okay but far from great.

Pre Fish Thursday and Friday (August 5 and 6)
My partner Chris had his boat and I had mine. My uncle jumped in with Chris and they went their separate ways. To make a long story short each of our boats caught about two to three 19-20 inch fish each day. Mixed in with them was a few 15 to 18 inch fish (more 15 and 16s than anything). I was surprised at that given the Cup and DWC was dominated by 18 to 19 inch fish with very few smaller fish being caught. Tactics were from 10 to 21 feet with bait. Cranking brought up very few quality fish for me but there was a bite from 14 to 23 feet. The trees did produce another 20 inch walleye. A pattern was there with a south wind coming into them. Also snuck inside the trees close to the shore up toward the tourney headquarters. Only caught a couple fourteen inch fish and about two billion northerns.

Given the pre fish we had, prefishing reports from others who cared to share and the word of mouth that fishing was so awesome up in the New Town area Chris and I had a plan that we should keep nothing but 18 inch and above fish. Even keeping 18 inch fish was a question mark. Difficult to make such plans when you can only have six fish to play with, well, for the honest fisherman anyway. So that was the plan. I had three spots to catch fish with a couple uncertain backup plans. For the most part I felt fairly certain we would have a chance at competing.

Tourney Friday August 7
The forecast was for hot and calm conditions. To top it off a pretty good storm blew through the New Town area the night before the tourney. Like other anglers, I was a little worried fishing might totally change. It did...

Hit my first spot and was very pleased to find no one else in the area except a cranker further to the south about half a mile. I had about eleven poles waiting and ready including jig pitch rods, six crank rods, vertical jig rods and the bait rods. Chris and I put down the bait and went for about a half hour without a fish in my first spot. Then I caught a 15 inch fish and tossed it over. Worked the point and couldn't get anything to go nor could get anything on the graph. I figured they just moved over a point.

Worked that area and started catching a couple 16 inch fish. They all went right over the side of the boat. Then Chris caught an 18.5 inch fish. We talked about it as he unhooked it and almost threw it back but decided we better get the skunk out of the boat. After all, it was a pretty chunky fish.

After that we caught a few more 15 to 16 inch fish all of which went over the boat. Next decision came when Chris caught a plump 17.5 inch fish. I was dealing with a perch and was talking with Chris on what to do. We debated and there it went, over the side of the boat. It was a fairly easy decision given my graph still had fish on it and we were catching some. Well, a non-tourney boat moved in on me and they popped one they kept. After we caught a couple smaller fish my spot became a ghost town. I started to get worried with one fish in the livewell and it was about 11:00. Moved to another location and the same happened, we caught three 15 inch fish with two pushing about 16. They went over the side.

Dumb move. Wait, I mean, SEVERAL dumb moves. I'll save you all the whining and complaining I gave friends after the weigh in. Long story short, we threw over an estimated 8.7 pounds of fish and that might be on the weak side. Well, only another 5 as we kept two fish for 3.7. I panicked for a reason and it came true. After 1:00 pm we caught only 14 inch fish (if my memory serves me correct). I went the route of "quick" fishing trying to pull cranks in 14 feet of water looking for an aggressive fish. Then put leadcore on and tried out deeper. Our efforts were a zillion northerns, a few 10 inch saugers and one 15.5 inch fish we kept. It was painful coming into the weigh in but I wasn't feeling too bad. I figured everyone would have around ten to twelve pounds and it didn't matter we didn't bring our five to the scales. Boy was I wrong. The 7 to 9 pound stringers dominated and many teams had zero to 7 pounds. My heart sank and my whining vamped up.

Fish report. Best fishing was 18 to 21 feet with bait (spinners and lindy rigs). Cranks varied from 14 to 23. Like I said above though, I had a hard time getting fish to go on cranks (at least good fish).

Tourney Saturday August 8th
The leading teams had 14 and 13 pounds respectively with the next top weight lingering in the 10 to 11 pound range. As tourney fishing often goes half the field will flop. It would require a very big basket for Chris and I to have a shot.

With that in mind we kept zero fish in the morning. Fishing was NOT spectacular. In fact worse than Friday. However, we were doing completely totally different things and fishing areas I had not prefished. Well that isn't completely true, we stopped to fish my one spot and I think that only produced one fish.

Next move was the big run. Ran almost to Skunk to chase an old fishing report. It was a waste of time but who knows, right? We then started doing the scramble fishing and the cranks stayed on for most the day. Picked up a few 14 and 15 + inch fish and of course we were looking for that 14 pound basket. No fish in the well at about 12:00.

Stopped in an area and Chris looked at me and said, "Why don't we just keep fish for your dad?"

He had been wanting some fish so I said okay, the next keepers will go in the boat. So that's what we did. We threw in four fish from about 12:00 pm to 2:20 pm. Yup, my first tourney ever where I wasn't holding the throttle tight wondering if I was going to make it to the ramp in time (day one I made it with 45 seconds to spare...day two I made it with forty minutes). We skipped the weigh in and went directly to the fish cleaning station. We cleaned two saugers just under two pounds and two walleyes that were a little over a 1.5 pounds. Counting the fish we threw back in the morning I added on another 1.5 pounds to make our basket a five fish basket. I estimated those fish at 7.55 to 8.25 pounds. I talked to the team that cranked to the south of us. Said after we left our spot that they trolled through it and popped double 18 inch fish. Yeah, that stung a bit as Chris and I talked about pulling cranks through it after my graph went blank. That team had a good day but day two they skipped the weigh in as well. Here today, gone tomorrow.

So in the end Chris and I could have weighed approximately 16.95 and 17.50 pounds. Obviously not enough but it would have put us at least up in the top 20. Of course, what does that matter if you don't get a check? So I don't feel TOO bad but the pride issue still hurts. Topping it off, my issue though is I would have fished much differently day two if I had my 8.7 pounds to play with. The shoulda, coulda, woulda factor. Welcome to honest tourney fishing when you can only weigh 6 fish. Interesting how some teams seemed to have 6 fish in the livewell yet came in right at the fishing cut off for each day. I think I'm going to suggest we be able to catch 8 (or ten) fish and weigh 5. Just gives people a little more wiggle room and helps cut down the demon thoughts that people might actually be doing a little culling.

In the end, fishing was very slow. Interesting since you hear (heard) such great reports. I think what we hear is the here today and gone tomorrow reports. Folks that get into them one day go and say how fishing is so good. In reality, it was that day but trying to do it on a consistent basis is very difficult. Or out of 61 teams in this tourney fishing was just that bad two days in a row? Don't know, don't care. It's over and my boat is parked. Time to scout deer! Although, might have to get in the Tobacco Garden tourney comping up later. Maybe even the Indian Hills one. We'll see.

With that said, fish seemed to be on the move deeper but there were quite a few teams cranking up fish in 14 feet. My best depths were between 18 and 23 feet with crawlers and leeches. Some reports further toward the boundary and out to the Indian Hills area said fish were slipping much deeper. Tis the season.

Good luck on the water folks and congrats to the placing teams. Very earned tourney with that bite and hot flat water fishing.

Tags: fish, caught, august, area, town, new, time, thursday, river, south

Region: New Town / "River" Area

Categories: Fishing