Sunday, October 12th was the third annual Avon Anglers Dash For Cash event held on Conesus Lake. If no one has fished a format like this, you are missing out. I fished the first 9 Dash's held on Black Lake each year, but the last few I have missed due to Federation conflicts. Rob and I fished last years Conesus Lake Dash, and subsequently missed the money by a pound or so.

Basically, a Dash For Cash is a normal bass tournament with lunker honors being paid on an hourly basis. One can run to the weigh-in site at any time with a potential lunker for that hour and have it weighed (receiving a receipt for that fish), not knowing what else has been weighed for that hour. At the end of the day you find out if you won that hour or not. You can run in as many bass as you like during the day. At the end of the day, only your best 5 fish (receipts and/or actual bass weighed at the final weigh-in) count towards your total for the day. Kinda confusing at first, but really simple after you do one.

Meg and I ended up prefishing on Saturday. We met up at the launch and got out on the water very shortly after daylight. Weather was beautiful, no wind and clear skies. The first spot I stopped at I really didn't plan on fishing during the tournament, but wanted to "check out" the activity level of the smallies. First cast with an 1/8 ounce tube jig pruduced a 3 pound smallie. Very shortly after I hooked another decent fish, but elected not to land it because of another boat close by. So I acted "natural" and lost the fish. These fish are on fire!!! ....or so I thought We spent another 20 minutes there without a bite. Maybe these fish aren't on fire???

We moved south on the lake to some historically productive smallie areas of mine. A slight breeze was picking up allowing us to drag tubes. I caught a couple quick ones, both decent and not so decent. I was amazed Meg has never dragged tubes like this before and briefly gave her some instruction, she already had the right bait Not much time passed and she hooked into her first nice smallie, about 2 1/2 pounds or better. A few more smaller ones followed.

From here we went back north to target some largemouth. A few areas were looked at, but only a pound and a halfer was caught. Not looking good for the green fish, but my heart was already set on the smallies anyway. Back to some smallie areas again, and we got into them in another area. Meg caught another dandy here as well


At the end of the day, back at the launch, another local club was having a weigh-in for their top ten classic that was going on that day. The only limit weighed went 10 pounds even, but the winner had 4 fish for 11.1 pounds. This convinced me that the fishing was as tough as I thought it was. Meg and I had about 12 1/2 pounds for our best 5, and for Conesus that is not the greatest of weights.

My dad is going to be my partner for the tournament, and he also was out there prefishing out of his Skeeter. He actually had a better day than us, having 13-14 pounds which included a 4 1/2 pound largemouth. Most of his fish were smallies however.

At the registration dinner meeting Saturday night, it was evident that many guys struggled finding fish. My spirits kept getting higher and higher about the "mediocre" fish Meg and I found. The meeting was great, Avon Anglers put on a "free" meal consisting of home brewed Garbage Plates and beverages. We drew boat number 34 for the next day, out of 52 teams. Yuck!!

Tournament morning, winds were still calm, and temps were cool. The winds were supposed to be out of the south 10-20, and skies clouding during the day with a chance of rain in the afternoon. I was actually looking forward to the stiff winds which would hopefully make the smallies bite better. I still wore shorts and sandles that moring, not wanting to give in to fall (it really wasn't that bad, I think it was at least 50 degrees out)

My dad and I headed south, to the area he caught his best fish on. It also happened to be a good spot of mine as well. After 15-20 minutes, nothing, so we headed to a spot a bit further south to a good area of mine. A south breeze was moving us along on a good drift. I was dragging, he was throwing in front of the boat working his tube with the rod. About 20 minutes went by, still nothing, both of us starting to grow concerned. All of a sudden he sets the hook on a nice smallie close to 3 pounds. Ahhhh, that felt better!!! Almost immediately he sets the hook on another that was a twin to the first. That's more like it. By the time my dragged tube made it to the area, I caught a small keeper. It was ten minutes to 8, and we made the decision to run the bigger of the two to be weighed for lunker. We got a reciept for 2.77 pounds, and back to the fish we went. The second drift through the area was not nearly as good. In fact, no bites at all. We drifted past where we caught fish, and started picking up some more in "fresh" water, completing our limit by 9:45, but smaller fish than those first two.

The rest of the morning we bounced between a couple spots, only picking up the occasional small smallmouth here and there, and a couple cull fish that helped a little. While fishing near the weigh-in site, we decided to weigh in that second smallie we caught early in the morning, and got a reciept for 2.68 pounds. The last 4 hours we only had a couple bites, and nothing that helped us at all.

At the final weigh-in we weighed our 3 fish in the livewell for 6.03 pounds. That, added with our two reciepts, made our total 11.48 pounds. At the time we weighed, that was leading, but knew we couldn't hold on to a money spot with a low weight like that. We needed a couple more good cull fish to place, I'm sure!! A few more good bags went through, but we only slipped to 3rd place, and that's what we held onto. We did not receive any of the $360 hourly lunkers, but did take a check for $610 for third place. First was $1400 and 12.68 pounds, Second was about $1000 and 11.98 pounds. Jiggin-n-piggin and partner was 4th place, and also took the 2nd hour lunker with a 3.25 smallie. Gregg Seal (nybassfan) and son, Zack, took the last hour with a 3.86 pounder. Another Southern Tier Bassmasters duo also took the 4th hour lunker with a 3.08.

Thanks to Avon Anglers for putting on another fine tournament. These guys really do put on a good show!!