It was late August in Ontario and I had been preparing for a little bass tournament on Rice Lake that the employees like myself at the Bass Pro Shops had organized. Since I had only been on Rice Lake two times before, I knew that in order for my fishing partner Bobby and myself to be successful this tournament, we had to do our homework and study the lake even before hitting the water. We looked over paper depth maps and the Navionics Chip of the lake and picked out what we thought would be high probability areas for big bass. Now we were prepared to do some Pre-Fishing. I had only one day off during the week previous to the tournament, so we knew that we had to take advantage of this precious time and work our pre fish areas quickly. We got to the lake at the crack of dawn for our only pre fish day and got right to business. The first spot we hit was a small rock hump that I knew held good amounts of big smallmouth bass in the fall. We fished this area with tube jigs for about 45 minutes with only one small fish lost as a result, and knew that it must have been too early in the year for the fish to be holding on or around the hump, so we took off to our second area we had marked before coming to the lake. The second area we had explored had been a sunken railroad that generally holds good amounts of bass all seasons according to alot of veteran anglers. We threw soft plastic worms and tube jigs for about 1.5 hours with only a few small fish to show for it. My partner and I talked it over and decided another change in location was definitely needed. Our third spot was a 5-6 foot weed flat that alot of tournament anglers pound the daylights out of(community hole). We fished this area for about 1 hour with texas rigged weightless senkos with a couple of bass around the 2 lbs mark to show for our effort. I noticed that 100% of the boats that were out there along with us had been fishing right on top of this flat. I have read alot of articles over the years about fishing weed edges and how big bass roam these edges and wondered if maybe the big bass were spooked by all these boats in shallow and found these deeper weed edges to be safer havens for them to feed on, so I put the trolling motor on high until I came to the end of the weed flat. The edge was a slight bit deeper then the flat, around 7-8 feet, and looked like a very promising area. I positioned the boat right tight to the edge and casted ahead of the boat, working the edge slowly with my weightless senko. My first cast was intercepted by a 4 lbs largemouth!! We both knew that this was the type of area we needed to finish high up in the rankings at the tourny with several other big smallmouth and largies caught within the next 30 minutes of the pre fish. We decided to leave early and hoped the fish would still be on that weed edge pattern the upcoming week at the tournament.
It was finally Tournament Day, and our nerves were shot. We knew that for this tournament we were either going to fair well or not fair at all, so we were a slight bit skeptical. We blasted off at 7am and gunned it right to the spot in pre fish. 30 minutes had gone by of working the weed edge with both of us without a fish. We were getting nervous to say the least. We thought it may had been the weather seeing as it was overcast on tournament day and bright sunny on pre fish day. On my next cast I get a hit, I set the hook and right away can tell it is a big fish. I get it close to the boat and see a slight bronze flash in the water. At this point, after not getting a good look at the fish and still fighting it, I figure it is a big walleye, since Rice Lake is known for its great walleye fishery. After netting it, we are relieved to see a nice plump 4lbs smallmouth!!! What a way to break the ice. We now had confidence in the spot, so we threw the smallie in the livewell and continued to pluck away at the weed edge. 10 minutes later, Bobby hooks into another fish that appears to have some weight to it. We get it to the boat and net it. Another smallmouth that must have been a clone of my last one. We placed that one in the livewell, kept our focus and continued what we were doing. An hour goes by after our second fish, and we have nothing to show for it. We were getting nervous again. My next cast is a long one out the right side of the boat away from the edge. As my weightless worm was sinking slowly my rod just about got ripped out of my hands. I set the hook and the game was on again. After a little tussle I get the fish into the boat....a nice 3.75lbs largemouth!! The action seemed to heat up after the big largemouth I landed. We caught about 10 other fish around the 2 lbs range with one decent fish around the 2.5lbs mark. We were nearing the last half hour of the tournament and knew that we had to upgrade our fifth bass in the well at 2lbs to have a chance at getting top 5 in the tournament. We kept our cool not worrying about it and it payed off. Bobby hooked into a good fish with 20 minutes left in the tournament. He gets it in the boat. It was a short, but real fat largemouth that weighed just shy of 3 lbs. We now knew we had a decent bag and gunned it to the weigh-in hoping for the best. We were the 3rd last team to weigh-in and very anxious. By the time the weigh-in got to us the leading weight had been 15.86lbs, which we knew would be tough to beat. We put our fish on the scale and we were relieved with the end result. We had 16.92lbs for our 5 bass limit, which had been enough weight to win the tournament at the end of it all!!!!! It was my first tournament win and one that I will never forget!!!!!
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