First Tournament of the Year

On May 1st I competed in my first tournament of the season with Niagara Frontier Bassmasters which was held on Conesus Lake, NY. I was getting anxious and worried since I've never fished this lake before and I would be going as a boater. I pre fished the day before the tournament and I really believed that the lake didn't hold any fish... I caught one tiny largemouth bass early in the morning and it seemed that my tournament the next day was going to look the same. I decided to throw one more cast before I was going to head in for the day and I felt the strike, set the hook and I caught myself a beautiful smallmouth bass. I was getting hopefully that there were fish in this lake after all. The next morning was tournament day, I have never met anyone at this club and I wasn't sure who my co - angler was going to be. I was hoping that I drew a local guy and he would be able to guide us through the tournament...Unfortunately, he was not a local guy and never fished the lake in his life. I took a chance and followed what I did during pre fish, I went to 3 ft of water and threw a jerkbait (Shadow Rap). This is how I caught my big smallmouth and I figured that possibly her friends would be around as well. My co-angler and I spent the morning throwing a jerkbait in super shallow waters and he had 2 fish landed and I had zero. I was starting to get upset and frustrated so I decided to move further down the lake and I discovered this flat with a huge drop off. I stationed myself in 30 ft of water and changed my lure choice and threw a 4" soft plastic swimbait on the flat and dragged it down the drop off. I was thinking outside of the box and it totally worked! I landed a beautiful 4.5lb largemouth bass right off the drop off, I was super excited! I tried this technique for a while and it wasn't producing... I went back to jerkbait and managed to get two smallmouth by doing this. My gut instinct told me to go back to the spot I started at earlier in the day and I was super happy I did! I ended getting the rest of my limit on the shadow rap and was able to weight in a full limit! My co-angler happened to catch another fish and was able to weigh in three fish. The tournament was a paper tournament... So it was definitely a new experience for me, so I couldn't actually physically weigh the fish. We took the measurements and the chart had the measurements and weight ratio. My co-angler and I loaded the boat up and handed in our measurement sheets to the tournament director. I was super happy to catch my limit for my first tournament so I wasn't expecting a good placing result. The tournament direct added up everyones weight and announced the top 3. I looked at the result sheets after he announced the top 3 and I was in shock that I managed to place 4th ! I was super thrilled and proud of myself for doing an excellent job for my first tournament of the year on a lake I've never fished before. I managed to place 4th our of 16 anglers and I'm looking forward to hopefully keeping up this top finishing placing for the next tournaments!