My Day on Belleville

I like reporting how everyone did during each individual tournament but I havn't really discussed how I approached each event. Probably because I havn't finished very high but I love reading how the pros prepare for tournaments and I thought I could pass along how I prepared for Belleville. Not that I'm a pro by any stretch of the imagination, but it's interesting how guys fish differently and maybe I did something that worked that may help someone else later in the year.

Practice: I only had one day to practice on Belleville but what I wanted to do was to target largemouth mainly because I thought they would be more predictable. But I also thought I could hit a quick smallmouth early in the day tournament morning before I honkered down with the largies. I decided since Belleville was a river system, I would concentrate on the areas where the main river channel swung close to shore and where there was also rip rap present. I found several of these areas and caught fish on topwaters and crankbaits. Nothing big but I did get 3 keeper bites so I thought I had my early morning spots dialed in. I then went to the far west end of the lake where there is more weeds and flats and after getting a couple bites on a frog, I figured I would fish the west end slop for largemouth. Great plan.

Tourney Day: I had a boating partner, Craig Deck, fish with me on tournament day and I let him know we'd run and gun a few spots early for smallies and then lethargically fish the pads for largemouth for the remainder of the day. My plan was off and running as spot one was a point that contained rock and had the main river channel sweeping close to it. I caught two 13 3/4" smallies on a topwater and lost three that all may have kept. I also caught several smaller fish, mostly on the cranks but failed to boat a keeper. As luck would have it, Craig was also getting bites but he was able to land a small keeper on a crankbait so at least he was on the board.

I ran to several more of my early morning spots and kept getting bites but still wasn't able to land my first keeper. As the bite slowed I decided to fish a small piece of structure I found in practice down by one of the bridges in about 15 fow but never got bit. Time for the largemouth stuff. Unfortunately, there was another tournament fishing Belleville this day so as I went to the west end to fish the few pad fields that there were I encountered lots of boats that had the same idea. I then decided to change gears a little and flip some of the wood and laydowns located at the backs of the bays but only landed one small fish after about an hour.

With the pad fields crowded I fished the weediest, gangliest slop I could find and got in there real deep but only Craig had a hit on a frog and I was still fishless. At 12:30 now it was time to scramble. I decided to head up river as far as we could and try and find some matted vegetation to fish our frogs but could find nothing of the sort. Only one thing to do, go back and crank our smallmouth stuff but we only had a few bites and our boat brought one whole fish to the weigh-in. This was the first tournament I had zero'd in in five years and I was very frustrated. Craigs fish weighed in at 1.29 pounds, good for 6th place and one of only 6 guys to weigh in anything.

Summary: I liked my gameplan and the smallmouth were biting but I just couldn't land a keeper. My biggest mistake I believe was not targeting the largemouth but the way I approached them. There are not many weeds on Belleville and even fewer pad fields. But the wood is plentiful and even though I could not get many bites on it in practice, I believe the laydowns were the primary cover and I should have tried to develop some sort of wood strategy. I didn't think Senkos would be a good bait in the dirty water but all the top finishers were throwing it so I guess not throwing it was another big blunder. If we were to go there again I think I would try and expand on my early morning smallmouth crankbait bite and then flip jigs and senkos around all the wood until my arms fell off. But I learned a few things and that's what the club is all about so I'll be ready next time.