Hardy Dam revisited

Before the club moves on to bigger and better things I wanted to give a few of my own opinions on the second catch and release tournament of the year. First off, I love being up north and love catching bedding smallmouth. Hardy provides both of those so I can see why everyone likes going up there. But I now remember why I disliked it for a club event. Sight fishing is a difficult thing to do and finding beds somethimes is even harder. I love tournament fishing but having my partner fishing against me on fish we can both see is tough. Not that I don't want my boating partner to catch fish, or even beat me, but I don't like the pressure of having to catch ten fish as opposed to just my five.

Secondly, I thought Hardy fished extremely small for such a big body of water. With high winds all week in practice, lots of water that produced in the past was either unfishable or devoid of fish. I pulled up to one stretch of bank where I found clear, calm water with some good beds on it in practice. There were 5 other club boats playing bumper boats along with another local guy all catching the same fish. I know a few of those fish were caught multiple times and I decided not to get into the rotation. Probably the wrong decision if I wanted to compete but I wanted to find greener pastures, which I did not. Usually you can go just about anywhere on this system and find good beds but it made it quite a bit tougher this year. I still like the fishery but not sure how I feel about the club going there.

And one more thing on bed fishing. Bill Maurer used a chartruese tube, I used brown and pink tubes, other guys used grubs, worms and drop-shot rigs. The point I'm making is that I really don't think it matters what you throw on a smallmouths bed, as long as you are persistant and rotate your lure selection. If a fish can be caught, you will probably catch it eventually. The mood of the fish is a lot more important than the bait. I see this every year bed fishing but it was even more evident last week at Hardy.

Overall I had a great time at the tournament and felt the club as a whole all got along great. I was only able to come up late Saturday night and wasn't able to spend as much time with everyone as I had wanted, but the time I was up there was awsome. I really felt there were a lot of positive things that came from everyone camping together and with a few new members, probably a few new friendships as well. Those are the things that this club should be about and I am encouraged by that. Well, catch and release is over and Goguac is right around the corner. I cant't wait to put my first fish in the livewell. Hope to see a big turnout June, 14th because that lake is known for big fish. There are also a few new names at the top of the AOY race so the competition for classic invitations should make things interesting as well. Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day.