Unfortunately, I didn’t catch a keeper. In three days of fishing the biggest I could catch was 14.5″. My partner caught one that was 14.75″. I’m not going to say it is a bad lake, but it isn’t a place you want to hold a bass tournament. There are so many fish that were short I couldn’t believe it. I bet I caught 40+ bass on Saturday. I figured out that the bigger fish were relating to the weed patches in the backs of the coves. You could catch a few better fish of off the sandy banks. The places that looked good were loaded with fish in the 4 to 9″ range with a few bigger fish.
Out of 94 anglers total only 38 guys caught a fish and there were 59 fish caught. One limit was caught and I think it was from a guy who fished the docks. Mid morning we went to check out the docks and it was a pretty sad site. Most of them were partially out of the water. We talked to a guy fishing off the bank and he said earlier in the morning a guy caught 5 keepers off of the stretch of docks he was fishing from. I guess we were too late. A lot of guys were disappointed in the lake. Many of them said they would never come back and they hope BASS doesn’t go back next year. I would think if they want to have tournaments on that lake they would adjust the size limits. They could lower the limit to 12″ of 14″ to keep it somewhat competitive. If they thinned out the population a little the fish might start to crow bigger. I can’t tell you how many fish I caught that were less than 6″ but it had to be over 40.
I hate to talk bad about a place but when you spend what we do to fish a tournament you would like to go somewhere where you at least have a chance. After several days of pre-fishing and talking with everyone we all new that less than half of us would even weigh a fish. I spent well over $600 to come back disappointed. I’m not talking disappointed in my abilities or a mistake I made, but in the lake itself. It didn’t hurt my standings to bad since most of the guys blanked. I went from 7th to 19th and am still in the top 30 with one tournament left on Eldorado at the end of the month.
Jason
