NationalProStaff.com - Tournament #3: June 23rd

This has been an event that I have been looking forward to since Mike Nabulsi convinced me to fish it at the Spring Fishing and Boat Show, the First Annual Quinte Bass Champs hourly weigh-in tournament! I was fishing this event with another teen angler, Matt Due. We were really excited to get out and fish together this day.

The opening hours of the event were a little frightening, we were fishing out of an aluminum boat and there was lightning all around us! At one point I had to put my rod down because there was too much static and I was shocking myself. As soon as the rain stopped, Matt hooked up but unfortunately lost the fish. I quickly picked up my senko and casted in the general area. As soon as I reeled in the slack in my line, the fish was on! The next couple of casts with a D&M Custom Baits Sniper Spinnerbait around some isolated cover up shallow produced another good fish! Both fish were around three pounds. We were not sure what other anglers would be doing so decided to weigh a fish in each of the first two hours. While we did not place in either of those hours, it was fun to just go up and weigh a fish!

As the clouds cleared out and the sun came out, we were struggling to catch decent fish anymore. We decided to try fishing some docks, thinking that because of the sunlight the bass would look for some cover. As we approached a marina we pulled up to our first dock, Matt quickly hooked up, and not too long after him I had a fish on! They were both around three and a half pounds. I caught my fish on a Black 3/8oz. Arkie Head Jig tipped with a Black Flappin' Craw by Bass Magnet Lures. The Flappin' Craw has a segmented body making it really easy to turn into a jig trailer. You do not need to use scissors, you can either bite or wrip it off at the splits in the body! I was throwing my jig on the 7'2H Crucial Jig and Worm rod, paired up with the Shimano Curado 200E7 reel. The line that I had spooled up on my Curado was the High-Vis Yellow 50lb Power Pro Super 8 Slick. I really do believe that the high-vis Power Pro makes a difference! Sometimes when the fish dont thump the jig, they softly pick it up. With that high-vis Power Pro you are able to see the line swim away or jump! At the end of the day, I am confident that the Power Pro made the difference for me that day.

We caught about four fish from that one dock, all on the jig. They were not fish worthy of weighing in, especially in a big bass event like this one, but if it were a 5 fish limit tournament, you would want those fish in your bag. They weighed about two and a half to three and a half pounds.

Overall, I had a great day out on the water! Although we did not cash a cheque in any of the hours, this being my first time fishing here, I learned a lot about the Bay of Quinte. This event was a terrific learning experience and I look forward to returning in the coming years!

A huge round of applause goes out to everyone who organized and helped put withj this event! It was an extraordinarily well run event!

- Patrick Zajdel