Bedding largemouth in the middle of June? It sounds crazy but that's exactly what the club members found last Sunday at the Goguac event. Most of the anglers never expected to find spawning fish and with calm sunny conditions, that's exactly what they found. Most were suprised by this discovery and tried to switch gears during the tournament, but Scott Rice targeted bedders right from the get-go and his decision earned him his first win of the season. Here's how it happend:
After a bad tournament at Michigan Center and a DQ at Hardy Dam, Scott had a lot of ground to make up for a classic spot. As luck would have it, he decided to fish with Mike Pritchard who had pre-fished Friday before the event. Mike discovered that largemouth were still on beds and relayed this info to Scott the morning of the tournament. The pair decided to target bedding largemouth first thing in the morning under low light conditions which made catching the leary fish a little easier. "After the sun got high, the fish were very difficult to catch but earlier they were much easier", said Rice. "Later in the day we had to drop a buoy and make long casts much like at Hardy Dam". When the winds died later in the morning the fish were visible to most of the other club members but by then it was almost too late. "It took up to an hour to make the fish bite once they saw you", commented Rice who also caught the big bass of the event at 3.82 pounds. Scott threw mostly a yamamoto grub at the bedding fish and although he did not catch a limit, his four fish weighed almost 11 pounds and jumped him right back into classic contention.
Gear Notes: Scott used spinning tackle, shimano reels spooled with florourcarbon line and a cinnamon/brown grub with a 1/4 oz jighead.
Tourney Facts:
-Only 2 anglers had limits, Jim Rice (4th) and Art Honsinger (2nd)
-Tim Chapman had 2nd big bass at 3.75 pounds
-Mark Dereadt had his 3rd top five finish of the year and leads they AOY race
-Jim Rice Jr. has caught a limit in all 3 events of the year
-There were 18 entries at Goguac and 12 boats
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