Crappie USA - Regional
- Lake Dardanelle, AR 06/05
Our first Crappie
USA Regional Tournament. Wes and I qualified for this
tournament by finishing in the top-10 of the Amateur Division
back in October, 2004 at Lake Fort Gibson, OK. This Regional
was held on Lake Dardanelle, AR...a 50 mile long lake
formed by the damning of the Arkansas river. The lake
actually serves as a waterway for barges that navigate
all the way in from the Gulf Coast. The tournament hosted
over 110 teams from 19 different states. This was a 1-day
tournament...weigh your biggest 7 fish...and the top-10
finishers in the Amateur and Semi-Pro Divisions would
qualify for the National Finals Classic to be held in
September, 2005.
Neither of us
had ever fished this lake before. I have some family that
live in the area, but were not familiar with the crappie
fishing on the lake. So, Wes and I headed off on another
road-trip to try and conquer new waters again.
We had read some
reports about crappie being caught up in 6-8' of water,
but have come to take those reports with a grain of salt.
The drive was about 6.5 hours. Wes drove, and I tied up
trolling rigs to be used the next 2 days. All the rigs
were tied up with the new
Jigum Jig Trollers (not on the market as of today).
This jig is a weightless jig that we tip with a minnow,
and works great for crappie. We planned to get to the
lake with about an hour of daylight left on Thursday night,
so that we could at least get a few minutes on the water
before dark.
We did end up
getting on the water Thursday evening for about an hour.
We headed up one of the creek areas, and immediately found
plenty of lay-downs and brush...but no fish. We ran into
another boat up in there, and they had only caught one
good fish. We ran around the creek area until dark...put
the boat back on the ramp...and headed for the hotel.
Jerry
and Paul had called and said they would be in town
by about 11:00 pm that night.
We decided that
for our pre-fishing on Friday, we would start out at the
weigh-in site, and work our way up the lake. We headed
out that morning...only to find that there are no bait
shops around the lake...ANYWHERE. We killed a good hour
of daylight looking for minnows. We finally came upon
the only bait shop around...and there were many a crappie
boat out front, so we knew this was the place for minnows.
We got the boat
launched...graphs fired up...and GPS ready to mark...so
off we went. Lake Dardanelle is truly a river-lake. You
can be in 50' of water...and 3 seconds later...be in 3'
of water. There are boat lanes marked for the barges that
come through, but that is about it. We marked a few places
pretty quick, but there were no fish home. We headed over
to some rock bluffs and started fishing lay-downs. We
found one that gave us about 7-8 fish pretty quick. We
marked the spot and left. We kept an eye on some locals
that were on the lake, but they were all catfishing.
We then headed
up into a bay area off the main lake and found a good
looking brushpile in about 16' of water. We only yanked
one small fish out of there, but at least we had some
brush marked. We then noticed a local guy fishing over
brush. As he left, we eased over there and marked what
he was on...and moved on up the lake. We decided to go
back out and try the bluffs and lay-downs, and this produced
very little. We were beginning to wonder why they had
picked this lake to host a Regional tournament, as others
were having the same difficulties as us.
From there, we
decided to head up into a popular creek that we had read
about. We had not seen that many boats in the area so
far, so we knew that there were still a lot of boats in
areas of the lake we had not been to. We made about a
9 mile run up the lake, and headed off into a feeder creek
that lead to a large bay area. We now knew where a lot
of the boats had been hiding. We fished some lay-downs
on the bluffs in the area. Wes hooked up with something...could
not turn him/her...and broke him off. We also landed one
other crappie. We ventured on up into the bay area for
a look around before dark. The area looked good...we just
had not spent enough time in there to find the fish.
As we headed
back down the lake toward the ramp, we noticed a couple
of areas with standing timber. We remarked to eachother
that we outta give that a try during the tournament. We
got the boat back on the trailer, and headed to town for
the seminar/dinner that started about 6:00pm Friday night.
The whole way
to the seminar, we were trying to figure out how we were
going to put together a plan of attack for the lake, when
we had only caught about 2 fish worth putting in the livewell,
and only about 10 fish all day.
The seminar was
great, the food was great, and we met a lot of guys from
previous tournaments. But still, we were trying to figure
out what in the world we were going to do on tournament
day.
Saturday morning
starts about 4:15am. There was a Pro-Am bass tournament
going out of the same ramp as the Crappie tournament...only
the bass tournament had 200+ boats, and we had 100+ boats.
They had moved the crappie launching area to a parking
lot, and we would leave in numerical order via truck/trailer.
That went pretty well, and off we went.
We had received
a tip at the seminar the previous evening about some areas
that had brush and fish on them. We knew it was a reliable
tip, and with no better fishing than we had the day before...we
decided to start our tournament morning off fishing in
a place we had never even seen.
You could not
have a line in the water until 6:30am. We were at the
ramp by about 5:30am, and up in the general area we wanted
to fish by about 5:45am. We spent the next 35 minutes
or so looking for brush in the area we had a tip on. Sure
enough, we found one good pile and several stump areas.
So, we got our B'n'M
Pro Staff Trolling Rods all out and ready for the
clock to hit 6:30am.
At 6:30 we dropped
our 8 rods in the water, and awaited the first fish of
the morning...and we waited...and we waited. There were
a couple other boats in the area, and they were doing
the same thing. After about 20 minutes of absolutely nothing...I
noticed a small stick above the surface of the water.
We trolled over there, and BAM...fish on. We ended up
pulling about 12 fish off that stick (there was a ton
of brush right next to it). Only about 2 of the fish were
worth anything, but the skunk was off. We ended up pulling
one more good fish off that area. Before we left this
area, I figured we better go back and hit that original
brush pile we started on one last time. We did...and it
gave us one more good fish. We felt pretty good about
things so far. We had 7 fish by about 8:30am...but only
3-4 of them were worth taking to the scales.
We headed back
down the lake to the standing timber areas we had seen
the evening before. Mind you...we did not fish them at
all. As we pulled into the first area, there were already
2 boats in there, so we decided to hit the second area.
There was one boat in there already, and another tried
to cut us off on the way in. That boat went to the back
of the timber. We stayed out front and trolled stumps
and standing timber in 5-8' of water. The other boat was
vertical jigging very quickly through the stumps, and
was gone in about 10 minutes. We decided to follow the
creek channel of 7.5' all the way to the back of the cove.
We did, and caught about 10 crappie...one of which was
a really good fish. The boat that had just left did not
catch a single fish.
So, now we had
5 good fish, and 2 smaller fish in the livewell. We had
about 2 hours left in the day (You had to stop fishing
by 3:00pm). The wind had kicked up a little, but we decided
to make the 9 mile run back down to a lay-down we had
caught the fish on the day before. We got down there and
bam...fish on...but it was a little one. It was all we
could do to keep the boat on the area to fish. Wes hooked
another state-record "something" and broke him
off. I swear, if Wes ever lands that 5-pound crappie...we
will be set!
We just could
not stay on this area, so we decided to hit some stumps
in 3' of water that we had found the previous day. Nothing
was on there. We had about 45 minutes left in our day...with
5 good fish...and 2 shorter fish. I suggested that we
go hit that brush we had fished the previous day. It had
only given us 1 small fish, but that was a different time
of day. I could tell Wes was hesitant about the idea,
but we went anyway. This is where the fireworks came alive!
We pulled up
to the brushpile at about 2:40pm. I motored over it...through
out the buoy, and proceeded to turn the boat back around
to get us in position for the trolling motor. As I did
this, Wes was getting the B'n'M
rods in the rodholders up front.
As soon as I
cut the motor off, Wes already had the first rod in the
water. We look back up front, and the rod was bent over
2' into the water. Wes yells "GET THE NET"...and
up comes a 1.81 pound white crappie. We can't get her
in the livewell fast enough...and FISH ON...another good
1+ pound fish. We proceeded to yank about 8 fish out of
there in about 12 minutes...including a nice blue cat.
3:00pm hit, and
we pulled the rods up. We had replaced our 2 small fish
with close to 3 pounds of new fish, and were feeling GREAT!
So, off to weigh-in.
You had to be in the weigh-in line by 4:00pm. We got to
the ramp area in plenty of time. Below is a shot of the
bank area where they let us tie our boats up:
We walked up
to the weigh-in line feeling very good about our chances
of finishing in the top-10...a feeling we thought would
not have been possible after the poor pre-fishing we had.
As we got up to the scales, the tournament director announced
"Team of Wes Belcher and Brian Carter...7 fish...total
of 7.75 pounds. At first, we both thought we had a heaver
stringer than that...but we went over to the computer
standings and saw that it put us in 7th PLACE OVERALL
in the Amateur Division...so we felt a lot better! There
were a few more Amateur teams that weighed in, but nobody
had more weight than us.
So...there you
have it. Somehow, we were able to make something out of
nothing...and finish 7th out of 60+ Amateur teams from
across the country...and qualify for the National Finals
Classic to be held September 14-15 at Lake Patoka, Indiana.
Below is a photo of us with the tournament director handing
us our Classic Qualification!!!
If nothing else...this
tournament taught us to never give up...go with your instincts...and
always remain optimistic!!!
SEE YOU IN INDIANA!!!!
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