C.A.S.T - Classic -
Lake Oologah, OK 05/05
Our first Classic
tournament was held on Lake Oologah, Oklahoma. This was
a 2-day tournament (Friday and Saturday). There were rumored
to be over 100 teams in competition for the title of "National
Champion".
Neither of us
had ever fished this lake before. Since it was the Classic,
we decided to invest 2 days into pre-fishing. Man, all
this pre-fishing is really cutting into the vacation days
from work.
We had read some
lake reports in the weeks prior, so we had an idea of
some places we could catch fish. In our first day of pre-fishing,
we pretty much concentrated on areas we had not read or
heard about. With potentially over 100 boats on the lake
at the same time, the chances of getting the popular spots
might be slim.
So, we put our
noses to the graph and started hunting brush. The lake
was rumored to hold tons of brushpiles, and we quickly
found that to be true. The GPS was busy marking spots
for us to fish later. As we headed up around one point,
we found some deep brush in 20+ feet of water. We decided
to drop a couple baits down on our new B'n'M
ProStaff Trolling Rods, and we were greeted with several
good fish over a pound. We quickly marked that spot and
left.
On our way up
another creek, we were doing about 20MPH and we felt the
boat shift. We had run over some submerged timber...in
26' of water. The graph went black with timber that was
underwater. We quickly marked it on the GPS, dropped a
couple baits down and "WHAM"...fish on! A nice
1.6' white crappie.
By the end of
day 1 pre-fishing, we were feeling OK. We had found a
lot of brush, caught some good fish, and a TON of short
fish...so we figured we were on a pretty good pattern
of deep-water brush. Here's a photo of 2 of the larger
fish we caught on day 1:
Day 2 of pre-fishing
greeted us with thunder and rain. The Tulsa area was the
only part of the state that seemed to be getting rain.
It delayed our start until about 9am. As we headed up
to the lake, I shot this photo of the back edge of the
storm:
Day 2 of pre-fishing
was pretty similar to day 1. We concentrated on another
part of the lake, and proceeded to catch another ton of
short fish. We did come across some more brushpiles in
20+ feet of water, but we were catching fish suspended
about 8' above the brush. We also went shallow to 3-5'
of water to see if the spawn was over...and it was. We
caught many short fish up shallow in brush.
So, we headed
off to the seminar/dinner on Thursday night feeling pretty
good about our chances to catch some pretty good fish.
While we had not found large concentrations of bigger
fish, we had found enough spots to fish that would hopefully
put some weight in the livewell...because it's not about
numbers caught now...it's all about weight!
The seminar and
dinner were great. The total number of registered teams
was 83...from 19 different states. Everthing was run very
smooth. Everyone would launch Friday morning from the
same ramp. We were instructed to be at the ramp between
5 - 6am for a "Boat Check", and then be ready
for take-off at 6:30am.
OK...day 1 of
the tournament. We were 46th on the take-off list, which
put us in the middle of the pack. We really wanted to
get to our #1 spot that we had the most confidence in,
but knew that there were 45 boats in front of us. As we
rounded the corner, we found our spot open. We quickly
set up our B'n'M
ProStaff Trolling Rods and awaited the first fish.
Well, we waited for quite a while. Spot #1 was not about
to give up a fish today. After about 1 hour, we decided
to work the rest of the brush in the creek, and came away
with 6 pretty good fish.
We headed back
over to the spot that we had "run over" while
pre-fishing, and absolutely could not pull a fish off
of any of that brush. By now, it was getting to be around
1:00pm, and we had to be at weigh-in no later than 4:00pm...and
weigh-in was at Rogers State University...about 7 miles
from the lake.
So, we decided
to hit another brushpile that we had caught fish off of
a couple days before, and it coughed up 2 good fish, including
our big fish of the day at 1.5 pounds...but that was it.
We headed to the weigh-in with only 8 fish of a 10 fish
limit. Again, we had caught a ton of short fish, but the
10"+ fish were few and far between today.
As we approached
the scales, I noticed that only 45 of the 83 teams even
weighed fish on day 1, so I felt very good about our performance.
Our 8-fish weight was 6.61 pounds, and good enough for
25th place after the first day of fishing. We were only
a few pounds out of the top-20.
Day 2 of the
tournament started off with this sunrise photo that I
just had to snap as I waited for Wes to park the truck/trailer:
We had heard
from some of the top-20 teams that they were catching
their fish in 8-12' of water. Wes and I thought about
changing our strategy from deep water to shallow, but
decided to stay with our plan from day 1. If we could
duplicate day 1's performance, we just might finish in
the top-20.
We started off
on the brush that we ended day 1 on. We shallowed up to
around 8' just to see if there was some brush up there,
and there sure was...and it was full of 8" fish.
So we backed off to our original 20' of water, and could
not buy a fish off that brush. So, we headed back over
to our #1 spot from day 1, and it too was dry of fish.
By this time, I was not feeling good about our chances,
but you never know when that next brushpile is going to
be loaded with fish.
By 12:30 in the
afternoon, our livewell was still empty. Again, we had
caught a lot of short fish, but nothing over 10".
On the way back down the lake, I asked Wes "Hey,
you wanna give that first spot another try?". He
said "I'm game". So, we dropped in on the brush
with 1 trolling rod. As I reached back for another trolling
rod, I looked back at the front of the boat, and the 12'
rod was bent over 2' into the water. I yelled "get
the net" and proceeded to land a beautiful 2.07'
white crappie.
Our spirits were
immediatly lifted and we figured we were on to something
here, and were going to finish strong. We got all 8 rods
down to about the same depth and pushed across the brush
again. A rod tip bounces and we have another keeper in
the boat. But, that was all the brush was going to give
us that time.
I had noticed
a team about 100 yards away from us, and they seemed to
be on some fish. They left the brushpile, and after they
cleared the area, I decided that we outta go give it a
try. They had been fishing just 2 poles with jigs, and
I figured our 8 rods with minnow-tipped Jigum
Jigs would give a different appearance to those fish.
As we pushed
across the brush we found out why they were only using
2 rods. This brush was in about 25' of water, and was
at least 15' tall. It was difficult to keep the rods out
of the brush on the first push, but we quickly had controlled
chaos...2 more keepers in the boat...and a better feeling
about the day.
We were still
dissappointed about going to the weigh-in with only 4
fish, but figured there had to be others that had a rough
day too. Our 4-fish weight was 3.91 pounds...including
the 2.07 pounder that put a smile on our faces. Overall,
that put us in 30th place out of the 83 teams. While not
a stellar finish, we were still proud to say that we
beat out 53 other teams in the National Finals.
Below is a shot
of the weigh-in site:
Below is a shot
of Wes and I, one of the Tournament Directors, and some
of our fish:
Below is a shot
of our 2.07 pound fish. All our fish on day 2 were caught
on the "weighless" Jigum
Jig.
Wes and I truly
had a great time meeting everyone, and competing at the
highest level. While this was our first Classic...it won't
be our last!
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