L.E.T.S Crystal Beach Recap

Yesterday Landon and I competed in the 2nd event of the Lake Erie Tournament Series (L.E.T.S). The conditions were flat and warm. Perfect August fishing weather. Not good for us! Our pattern was hinging on the unseasonably cool temps and prevailing SW winds. We have not had great tournament success on Erie in late summer so we were a little worried. We ran an old pattern that bit us twice last year and managed to salvage the biggest bag we've ever weighed in at a tournament in August. Apparently we weren't the only ones to lose our fish and not everyone was able to adapt. Two teams in particular made the necessary changes and never stumbled. First place was 23.7lbs and second was right behind with 23 and change. That was a lot of giant summer smallies! We were smack in the middle of 3 bags in the low 19's with 19.22lbs. We were proud of our recovery even though it wasn't nearly enough. Here's how it shook down. All last week we had large numbers of 4+lb bass on a particular structure in about 25 FOW. And on Erie there are typically two classes of fish in the summer shallow and deep. Shallow fish are usually longer and skinnier. They are typically dark brown/black and are faster and more aggressive than off shore fish. This is likely due to the warmer temps that they live in and the high level of competition for less food. By comparison, off shore fish are true footballs- short and fat! They are also generally much lazier about feeding because they set up in optimal locations where their food comes to them. Unfortunately, during summer it seems like these fish are more likely to be loners. This means that the bigger your milkrun of prime spots is, the better your odds are because you will likely only get one or two fish per spot. We were having problems with the GPS on the console graph and it was becoming very difficult to pinpoint our offshore spots so we decided after a couple of hours to head shallow.With 3 fish under 3 pounds in the well we moved up into 8 FOW and started throwing jerkbaits and crankbaits. We would cover water until schooling fish followed our search baits to the boat, then we would throw a tube or dropshot into the fray. As you can see in the picture above we filled out our limit and made a few epic upgrades. We were particularly pleased when our 6th fish facilitated a 3 and a half lb. upgrade! After that it was just a matter of gaining a couple ounces at a time. We moved back offshore and then tried some different shallow water but didn't find any real pigs. All in all, 19.22lbs with no kicker fish is a great summer bag for Erie. It was tough to lose our big fish pattern but thats fishing. It was a great turnout with a ton of talent. The L.E.T.S series keeps getting better. If you like fishing for smallies with a shot at a huge payout come on out to the next event at Port Colbourne in September! Imperium Baits is one of many great sponsors so there are always great prizes and new products to see. Thanks for reading! Cheers, Mark