Pre-fish Big Birch

I am grateful that my partner for the next Bass Snatcher tournament Barry was willing to take me out to Big Birch to do a little pre-fish. It is quite helpful to get a feel for a lake so I can know what to bring and what to leave. Barry fished the lake one other time this year and really got into em, so he was enthusiastic about our prospects. Last night was quite cool and that might have had something to do with the fact that we hardly found any fish in his primary areas. The first few hours this morning were quite slow. We ended up seeing quite a bit of the lake and I'm not really sure how much of what we did today will help us out tournament day. I suppose I should be encouraged that I did catch a keeper, one that might have been a keeper, and I shook off a few keepers as well as seeing some. Unfortunatly we did not crack the smallie code. I will be somewhat surprized if I catch a smallie, but you never know.

One thing I like about the lake is that we will probably be fishing some area's that call for slop frogs. If the fish are in that stuff come tournament day than I think I could do pretty well and have a lot of fun. I am a little unsure just how much the swim jig will come into play but I do plan to throw it. I actually played around quite a bit with a texas rig today but I will not have a rod for this on tournament day.

Barry has a big Ranger walleye boat, so I really don't have to worry about pairing down my equipment to much. Today I only had four rods, but I will probably double that come tournament day because the passenger rod storage area can accomodate it.

We did not run into any pike, dogfish, or carp which is maybe a bit of a surprize cause with the water we covered I would have expected to come across them all.

Based on today, I think getting a limit could come really easy or be really hard depending upon the mood of the fish. Barry assures me there are a lot of bass in the lake, but today did not really reflect that so much. If today had been tournament day, I doubt I would have gotten a limit. Hopefully I learned a few things and can make the proper adjustments.