Junior World Championship
It is crazy to think that it's only been 28 days since the event. It’s been 28 days since The Junior World Championship Bass Tournament that is. I had earned the opportunity to advance to this level because I won the Ohio TBF State Championship earlier that year. Honestly, before the Mississippi, I had never Bass fished a river before. Some may call it a disadvantage, and in some ways it is, but I was excited to get to experience a different type of fishing. And that is exactly what it ended up being, a completely different way of fishing. Unlike a lake or a reservoir, you have to constantly be thinking about the current. I quickly figured out that the fish's behavior was in direct relation with the current. This is because the fish want to use the current to their advantage to obtain food, but also conserve energy. It was crazy to see how the smallest piece of standing structure in the river would hold so many fish. I learned that this was called a current break. The fish gathered in this area because they did not have to fight the current and use up all of their energy. The current breaks were a great place for fish to sit, wait, and essentially ambush their prey. The Crayfish and baitfish end up getting dragged down the current and once a Bass or predatory fish sees something in front of them, they quickly shoot out of their hiding spot like a cannon. By the time their culprit realizes what is happening, it is too late. Knowing this, a lot of our success came from fishing Tubes and Ned Rigs down current. This simulates a baitfish or Crayfish getting dragged down current, while helping us not get as hung up in rocks or whatever we were fishing.
The first tournament day we ended up finding a school of Smallmouth on a rock bank that dropped off pretty deep. Although we got a few keepers from that school, we couldn't seem to catch a “big” fish. We probably tried 20 different color combinations of baits in that particular spot before we got a hit. When my boat captain pointed out a school of baitfish next to the boat I knew what I needed to try and throw. A silver Strike King Bitsy tube looked exactly like the baitfish and it turned out that's exactly what the fish wanted. It made sense that the baitfish were stirred up knowing that about 8 minutes before we began fishing a huge cargo ship went by, stirring up smaller creatures. This created a feeding frenzy for the Smallies.
Almost as soon as the school appeared, they were gone. We continued fishing rocks the rest of the day and didn't get a single bite. That day we ended up with four fish at 7.4 pounds. This placed us second place in our division and the top two teams in each division advanced to the championship round so we were feeling pretty good about the day. Our decision that night would make or break everything. We had one more day to fish. We could have fished rocks again, with a small chance of finding the school of Smallmouth, or we could fish weed edges for Largemouth. On the practice days we had a little luck on the weed edges with Senkos and Senkos only. After talking about it with my captain and partner we decided to go fish weed edges for the second day. I mean it seemed like a knowledgeable decision knowing that the top teams had more Largemouth than Smallmouth.
The next morning was like a nightmare for me. It stormed, and it stormed bad! I felt that we finally had sort of a pattern to go off of and I knew that this would change everything. The water was muddy and rough because of all the wind. We ended up with an hour and a half delay which felt like forever.
After finally getting out on the water I realized that I only had two of the color Senko that had been catching fish. It was a PBJ 5 inch worm. I rigged up with a small bullet weight and EWG Worm Hook. The first two hours of the day I couldn't seem to get a bite and on top of that my boat captain had an extremely hard time controlling the boat due to the wind. We literally ended up having to leave our spot and go search for weedlines off of the main channel. I remember him saying, “We can't keep this up! It is brutal on the trolling motor!” We would find weed line after weed line, but none were fishable because they were so shallow.
After over an hour of looking we pulled up to a very small spot that ended up having a small drop off. I took my first cast, and almost instantly a fish started running with my line. I got a good hook set on the fish, (I thought). I realized that I had a pretty big fish on the line and that I had to get him in quick. The problem was that I hooked the fish very close to the boat so we did not have time to get the net. That's when I made the rookie mistake of trying to boat flip a very big fish, and I paid for it. Bye bye fish, bye bye Senko. I was crushed, especially knowing that that fish would have almost guaranteed me an advancement to the championship round.
Once the wind settled down, we decided to go back to our original weed line. We started at a boat slip that I caught 4 fish on during the practice days. Once again this spot produced and I ended up with 2 fish but they were both too small to keep for weigh-ins. We continued to work the bank and I got a couple more bites and another short fish.
There were 20 minutes left in the tournament so we started heading back to the ramp. We decided to stop at “the good boat slip” one last time. I casted a few times and got nothing. “Ok last cast.” my boat captain exclaims. I casted out my Senko, letting it sink all the way to the bottom. I went to bounce my bait when I felt a thump. I had a perfect hookset and landed the fish. It was only about a pound and a half but I was glad to at least be coming in with a fish.
After all of the teams weighed in, the results were announced. I ended up third place in my division, one place away from advancing to the final round. Some would consider that a loss, but that trip for me was far from a loss. I cannot explain how thankful I am for the opportunity to fish that event. I learned so much and became a much better fisherman in Illinois.
Would I do it again? Hell yeah I would! I don't care if I got last place, it was an experience I will never forget.