Southern Tier Bassmasters had their 3rd points tournament (out of 4 for the year) this past Saturday out of Isle View Park on the Upper Niagara River. With this location, Lake Erie is also available, weather permitting.

Preparations actually began for this event last weekend, when Rob and I went out on Sunday to look around a little. I was determined to catch largemouth in the river because I have never done that before. Always a menu of smallies for me when in the river.

We covered many areas on the river and ended up catch a fair number of largemouth in the "short" to 2 1/4 pound range. No monsters, but fun catching green fish.


After a quick lunch on the water, we headed out to the lake to check the activity level in some of our favorite spots. The action was not that great, not many fish and nothing over three pounds. After a couple hours we returned to the river to chase smallies, and caught several small keepers with one close to 2 3/4 pounds.

The day before the tournament I was not able to hit the water until almost noon. I had to pour a little concrete at my house before I could head to the river. I launched the boat and headed right out on the lake. I bounced around from spot to spot, catching fish here and there, but only caught two real decent smallmouth about 3 1/2 pounds on one particular hump. I returned to the river after a few hours and caught a few small ones there as well.

My game plan for the tournament: Head out to the lake if it is not "off limits" due to the weather. I know better fish are out there and would take my chances with them. I felt it would take 18+ pounds to win based on what I saw (and heard) in practice, but weights would taper off quickly after that. The fishing was rather tough for Erie, as it usually is this time of year.


Tournament Day:

The weather held off for us. Marine forcast was calling for 1-3 foot waves which is pretty good. The lake was available. I made the 9 mile run to the mouth of the river and 5 more miles out onto the lake I went. Well, out on the lake they were a little more than that. I would say 3-4 footers with an occasional bigger wave. Pretty slow going and I even had thoughts of turning back several times. I tredged on though.

I elected not to go to the hump I caught the two 3 1/2's on the previous day, but to a spot that Ted (jiggin-n-piggin) and I fished a couple years ago. I knew he was not starting there, and thought I would. It is a very specific spot that requires MANY (like 30 or more) repeated drifts on windy days.

Once there I crawled up to the deck and got my "sea legs" working again. The first drift produced a nice 3 pound fish that came up to the surface and spit my spoon out. The next drift I landed a nice 4+ pounder. I knew they were there pretty good at this point. The next drift, a nice fish close to 5 pounds came up and came unbuttoned again. That was a real heartbreaker, but again, I knew they were there and more drifts were required. Over the next few drifts I caught more fish on the spoon and dragged tube, then I got my first cull fish, another nice one close to 4 pounds on the tube. Cool!!

Between 9:30 and 10:00 I felt the wind was really starting to get worse. At times the wave heigth increased for awhile then came back down. I had 15+ pounds and made the decision to start making my way back to the safety of the Niagara River at about 10:15. On the way back in I wanted to stop at that hump I caught good fish on the day before but there was a guide boat working the area, so I stopped by an adjacent hump for about a 1/2 hour. No bites.

I had one smallie that was about 2 pounds I needed to get rid of and I knew of one spot in the river I thought I had a real good chance of doing that. I made one drift in that area and caught another limit of small keeper smallies but one went a little over 2 1/4 pounds. My final cull fish for the day. I caught another 4 or 5 keepers after that, but none helped.

I had what I had at that point. The last couple hours I noticed the wind really died off, and started to think I made a bad decision coming back to the river. I knew I could have upgraded on the lake if I stayed.

Back at the weigh-in, things started looking brighter for the bag I had. Many guys struggled that normally do quite well on the big water. I ended up pulling off the win with a bag of smallies weighing 16.00 pounds. That was not expected at all, I thought for sure larger weights would be brought in.