Lake Norman – for me, more of the same…..

We’ve been to North Carolina’s Lake Norman on multiple occasions now and Norman and I have never really gotten along. Despite that fact, I still went into this tournament with a great attitude, ready to practice hard. I’d thought quite a bit about what the fish would be doing – I did my research and kept an eye on the weather, but the one thing I couldn’t prepare for is illness. I spent two days of practice with the flu and I feel like that really hurt my chances. Getting bites wasn’t a problem but finding bigger fish, particularly largemouths, was tough. I needed all the time on the water I could get.

I knew going into practice that I was going to spend a fair amount of time up river. I normally don’t go there all that much and I felt like maybe I was limiting my chances unnecessarily as a result of that decision. That would still give me plenty of time to check on some old places down the lake. The strategy was well laid out, but it didn’t go according to plan.

The first day of practice, just two hours in I’d caught two really nice largemouths, but then (how can I put this politely?) “physical difficulties” took me out of commission for the next day and a half, and those first two days turned out to be the best two days of practice. On the third day, it was completely different, cloudy with sustained 25 mile per hour winds. I could get bites, but size was a concern.

 Heading into Day One, I planned to start in an area I had confidence in, then move on up the river once I had a decent limit. As planned, I had 8 ½ pounds by 10:30, and with a long day on the water I tried to expand, but once I went up the river I only got three more bites and none of them helped me. The temperature up there was right, but the water was lower and dirtier than I wanted. The bottom line is that I ended the day with what I had early on.

On Day Two, I planned to stay down lake a little longer, but again my plans were affected by forces outside of my control. We had clouds and a little wind and I watched another pattern develop in front of my eyes. The bait was moving back and it produced a schooling-type bite. I was catching some of those fish on a 3 ½ inch Lake Fork Tackle Magic Shad and it produced my best limit of the three days. Not substantially larger than the first and third day, but at Norman every ounce makes a difference. With that little boost I moved up over 20 places in the standings. Of course my co-angler had one bite all day and it was a 3 ½ pound largemouth. I really needed that fish, but it also told me that there were some quality bites doing what I was doing and if I could just expand my new pattern into 3 or 4 more areas I knew that I’d eventually run into a big bite or two.

My limit deal was fishing docks with a Lunker Lure Limit Series jig in the Cumberland Craw color. It was happening pretty quickly in the morning and more fish were moving that way. Once again, though, the weather pulled a u-turn on us on Day Three, resulting in clear skies most of the morning. I caught a fish right out of the gate, but then I rotated through several more spots and couldn’t get a bite. I made the decision to head upriver at 11 o’clock, targeting the backs of coves. I’d been catching mostly spotted bass, but once I made this change I dialed right into the largemouth bite and over the next three hours I probably caught 25 or 30 bass, but the one good bite I enticed was under a dock and I lost it.

Even though the stats don’t indicate that I had a good tournament, I’m not terribly discouraged about this one. It didn’t cripple me terribly in the Angler of the Year standings. More importantly, I’ve learned that I can find enough fish to last three or even four tournament days – now I just need to get to that fourth day. It’s just a matter of time. When you’re a slow learner like I am, sometimes it’s even better to have a longer event. I can keep refining my knowledge as the tournament goes on.

My one regret is that I didn’t step up to a full-sized jig. After the tournament, the dock talk indicated that some of the high finishers were using a big jig. I know I can catch limits on the limit-getter, and it attracts its fair share of big bass too, but there’s a time and a place for a bulkier offering and this might have been it.

We only have three FLW Tour tournaments left and I like the way things are setting up. I’m in position to make a run at a slot in the championship and in terms of patterns and seasons, everything seems to be running a little late this year, which I believe works in my favor. Next up is Ft. Loudoun/Tellico and I did well there when we fished those lakes at this time of year. Guntersville is the one that worries me – it’s going to be a slugfest. The wild card is Ouachita. It’s the type of lake where you’re either on them or you’re not. There’s no in between. I’ve been there a couple of times and feel like I have a pretty good handle on the place. With a little more due diligence – and hopefully an ability to avoid another bout of the flu – I feel like things are set up to go my way.

77^th Place   -   15 fish, 25-10

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