It's been awhile since our opening tournament on Silver Lake, but over the weekend we had our second of four points tournaments, and it was held on Chautauqua Lake.

With the weather we have had, and not really able to work in it, I was able to get down to the lake Thursday and get on the water about 2 in the afternoon. I fished mainly the north basin this day, and found some fish both in the weeds, and on the docks. I spent until 6:30 or so on the water. My best fish this day was a 3 lb. smallie out from under a dock. I had a few other largemouth in the 2 pound class as well. Lures consisted of texas rigged tubes and Senko's.

Friday I launched in the south basin, and spent the entire day there. The water was extremely green and slimey due to recent algea blooms. From the launch I was only able to go a short distance, as the fog was VERY thick. I started out throwing a spook over shallow weeds and catching a decent 1 1/2 pound smallie. Once the fog lifted, I was able to move around, and hit fish on past areas both on weeds and docks again. I never caught another smallmouth this day, but put several nice 2 1/2 to 3 pound largemouth in the boat. Lures of choice were texas rigged tubes, Senko's and my best came on a tournament frog in the scum/pads.

Even though I had my best fish prefishing in the south basin, I made the decision to start the tournament in the north basin. I felt I could get a nice shallow smallmouth pattern going in the first hour or so. I was wrong, kind of. My first fish in the boat was a 14 inch smallie on a spook, but was bleeding badly for some reason (must have gotten the line tangled in the gills on the fight) After 10 minutes in the livewell he was not looking good, but still alive, and I made the decision to release him before he died in the livewell on me. Once dead, I was stuck with it, as we cannot cull dead fish. It was another half hour before I got the next fish, a 3 pound smallie caught in 6 feet of water on the inside weedline, on a Senko.

I worked that area for a short time more, then decided to hit a stretch of docks a short distance away on the opposite side of the lake. I worked that 75 yard stretch of docks for nearly an hour before I caught my first fish there, but it was a 2 1/4 pound largemouth, also on a Senko.

I had 2 decent fish in the well, but realized the north basin was not really working for me. I caught that 2nd fish at 10:00, and that was when I decided to make the run to the south basin. I started in that scum/pads area where I got the nice one the day before. Second cast I got a blow-up on a frog, but missed. I threw right back, dragged it to the opening, twitched it, and got another blow up. This time he was hooked good and I got him in the boat, and was about 2 1/2 pounds. I worked the rest of the scum/pads but only had one missed blow up. I put the trolling motor on high and cruised to two nearby docks (skipping many other docks in the process) that I caught quality on the day before. First one I got a 2+ largemouth. Four fish in the boat now for a little under 10 pounds.

I fired up and went to a community hole further south, but no one was there. I worked the area for about 20 minutes before Rob Jackson and his partner came through. They asked me which way I was going, but it really didn't matter to me, as I was just fishing this weedy "area" working back and forth. Rob caught a nice keeper smallie in the weeds before they moved out of the area. Although that was a fish I needed, that one incident kept me in that area for awhile longer because it told me there were fish there. After working very slowly for another 1/2 hour I found myself in that exact spot Rob caught that smallie, and popped a 3 1/2 pound smallie on a Texas rigged tube. Cool, a limit, and decent quality to boot.

I decided to spend the last one hour plus of fishing time right in that area working the edges of the thick "gacky" shallow weeds very slowly. I missed a couple bites on both tubes and Senko's, but finally connected with another good smallie (weighed 4.66 pounds at the scales) on a Senko. This was a great upgrade!!!

After a short while I caught one more largemouth on a Senko that I needed to use the balance beam, but was good for a slight increase in weight. Time to go. I put 8 keeper bass in the boat all day, one I had to release right away, and had two cull fish. I really did not know what kind of weight I had at this point becasue I weighed nothing on the water, but thought I was in the 13's for total weight.

I weighed fairly early, but there was one bag already weighed in at 17 1/2 pounds. Surprisingly, mine weighed in at 15.92 pounds, nearly two pounds better than I thought!! Unfortunately, I watched that slip away slowly as two more bags weighed in over 16 pounds (one was our own jiggin-n-piggin)

I ended up in 4th place out of 33 members that fished. Prefishing was the key for me in this tournament. I had to use everything I came up with to catch what I caught tx day!!