Lake St Francis = Unbelievable Classic Water for Renegade Bass
Well guys,
I've been beat up pretty good in the past by Lake St. Francis and the week leading up to the Renegade Bass Classic was no exception. I honestly couldn't string a decent pattern together to save my life in prefish and it was only further magnified that my group of buddies and co-cottager teams Robert Greenberg/Chris Lawson and Scott Bullen/Ted Ramsey were hitting big smallmouth in prefish every day.
Going into Saturday I didn’t have much of a plan. Two workable spots that we needed to commit to. One was a deep drift and fast current between varying between 14 and 20 FOW and the 2nd was a shallow sand flat off with access to deep water and plenty of current. Saturday the wind was out of the east and with an east flowing St. Francis that means big waves. Made the decision to go to the deep drift and see if we could put a quick 5 fish in the boat. We hit fish almost right away drop shotting and between 7 and 9:15 we had 6 bites and managed to put 5 in the boat averaging just over 3lbs per fish. Then someone flipped the switch and the bite SHUT down!
We continued our drop shot drift til 11 thinking we bang into a few more but nada. 11am and made the decision to run to the flats and see if there were any big cruisers on the sand. Ran for about 10 minutes and hit the big swells. Knowing it was going to take about 2 hours fishing time off of our day to make the run there and back we stopped, turned around and headed back to an exciting afternoon of drop shot... I figured it made more sense to continue the drift pattern and hopefully they would turn back on and we could put a few of the tanks, I know are there, in the well. That decision made for a LONG 4 hours of drifts with a couple of solid walleye and a few small 2lb smallies. Wrong decision yes, but my spine is still thanking me for a relatively calm day on the water and not venturing out into the swells.
Sunday was a different day, wind was out of the south west which meant calmer water and we decided again to hit our drift pattern even after a crummy afternoon out there on day 1. Again we hit fish right away and unlike the day before it was mostly on my partner Kevin with 4 of our 5 we had in well by 7:30 with maybe 13lbs. We stayed on our drift and between 7:30 and 10 we had 3 more bites, all on me and lost on me and one of them was a tank I lost on the way up. In each case I just couldn’t get the drag backed off quick enough as they were all in the 14ft range and did my best to play catch up on the reel as they raced to the surface.
At 10 we decided the bite had cooled off same as the previous day and made the change in scenery out to the flats. The first flat we hit I know had been hit pretty well already and we spent a half hour tossing jerkbaits and weightless straight-rigged Hatch Match Sticks across the sand. Then decided to hit a smaller and lesser known sand flat off a deep water cut. 4th cast in and we managed to cross lines without knowing (yah, it happens to us all, admit it!) and my partner spent 5 minutes untangling his Hatch Match while mine sat in the water. Finally untangled, I pick up my line and feel weight and “FISH” as the 3.2 jumps and we pull it into the boat – horseshoe up ass lucky but I’ll take it anytime! As we cruise across the flat between grass patches we see a couple of smallies cruising but we’re almost on top of them before we see them (light fish on light sand) My partner is just about to hit the peddle and I say no no, just give them a second to swim off and we let the wind back us off them. We throw at them but typical smallmouth they run from the bait and are gone. We drop down the speed on the trolling motor and continue forward where my partner spots them again but again we’re almost on top of them, screw it and I throw the Hatch Match at them again but this time he turns on it and I set the hook on another 3. 10% skill and 90% luck but I’ll take it!
We carry on through the flat and 5 minutes later I make a long toss to the sand/channel edge and deadstick it, pull up on it about two minutes later and “FISH!” Followed by a jump and “GIANT!” As the giant decided to make a B-line for the weed edge. Keeping the pressure on, we go to it with the motor as the big girl swims out of the weeds into clean water and a minute later and she’s in the net. Catching a tank in deep water is one thing, two feet of water is something else entirely. 3 upgrades and the flat paid off!
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/...assClassic.jpg
We finish the flat and decide with only an hour left in the day to hit some quick largie spots. We manage to bang a few small largies but added nothing to the well.
Needless to say we finished the day ahead of the day before with 17 and change and a 17lb average for our two days = 34.25lbs. Good enough for 20th place on an unbelievable body of water. Duane Clifton and Dave Western pull of an amazing 21lb/day average and take home a new boat and motor for their performance.
Besides luck I’d say there were a few big differentiators –
One was using tungsten for drop shotting on the drift. With the hardness of tungsten we were able to maintain solid contact on the bottom as the weight ticked along and really tell the difference between a bite and a rock. These were fast current drifts with major bottom changes – I think I only had to retie once the entire weekend when I lost a weight bringing in a fish. I was using the new Picasso Drop Shot weights and was really happy with how they performed. I also relied on the IROD Fred’s Finesse Stick and it’s as good as any drop shot rod I’ve ever used for sensitivity and response.
The other technical difference was using a swivel to attach the fluoro leader to the braid main line. This eliminated the typical line twist and also made me a bit more confident that I wouldn’t blow a knot if I went straight leader to braid. I was using the spro swivels and have a lot of confidence that they won’t let me down.
Fun weekend, great end of the day Sunday and Renegade Bass once again put a fantastic championship together both on the water and off.
