A couple recent tournaments

Spent a few days on Lake Erie and the Upper Niagara River prefishing for the Help a Child Smile Charity tournament presented by the Niagara Bassmasters. This was the 14th year running for this great event. It is well attended and with 41 boats, this was its largest field to date. lots of great anglers attend and support this great cause. Myself and my partner, Joe fished it together again for the 2nd year. We had a couple days on the water during the week to try and locate some fish and a pattern. We managed to find some decent smallies, and had some good largies going on docks as well. sadly, come tourney day, a cold front rolled in and shut our fish down and we had a tough day to say the least. Walked away with some good prizes from the event and the satisfaction of knowing we helped a local charity again. Smallies were caught dropshotting with a G Loomis GL2 dropshot rod paired with a Shimano Stradic CI4 and 8lb Trilene flouro and a Shimano Crucial/Stradic CI4 with 8lb trilene flouro. Baits were Powerteam Lures JP Hammershads and Finicky Ticklers. Largemouth were caught off docks using a Shimano Crucial flipping stick, paired with a Shimano Chronarch 51E spooled with 65lb timber brown power pro super slick 8. This combo is amazing to use. its very light and well balanced. I can use this all day long without tiring out. Its sensative to feel the bites, no matter how subtle but has the power to pull the bass from their happy little homes and sling 'em onto the deck of the boat!! All largies were caught on a Powerteam Lures Craw D'ouevre in black w/blue fleck texas rigged on a 3/0 Trokar flipping hook with a pegged 3/8oz ultra tungsten weight. Next up was a joint club tournament on the Hamilton Harbour hosted by the Hamilton Bassmasters. The weather was miserable. Cool morning temps, rain, and high winds. We had 11 boats brave the forecast and show up at the Bayfront Park launch. Fishing in the harbour can be a real grind. But in the fall, the fishing really picks up! Its actually one of my favorite places to fish come fall. Numbers can be good, but quality of the fish really improves! Myself and my partner had a tough day, fishing very hard. we moved around quite a bit and fished several areas trying shallow, mid range and deep areas. We found a pattern of fish holding on the down wind side of rocks. Knowing the fish would be eating minnows we used white baits to do the damage. we ended up getting our final 3 fish in the last hour and 20 minutes of the day. A white swing jig landed 2 fish, including our 3rd of the day, a 4.34lb largie hanging out on a rock/weed transition. fish number 4, which is my new personal best largie, was caught on a strike king KVD 1.5 squarebill crankbait in sexy shad off a rocky island the drops into deeper water. the fish hit hard and stopped the bait, i thought i was actually hung up in the rocks. The fish, weighed 5.21lbs and was good enough for big fish in the event. Fish 5 came on nother set of rocky islands again, on the down wind side off the point of the island dropping to deeper water near a rock/weed transition. A strike king red eye shad in sexy shad stuck that fish. When we arrived at the scales, we knew it would be a tight race. we ended up finishing 2nd overall, with big fish. with 15.73lbs. As mentioned, it was a grind to get 5 fish, but trusting in our ability to fish, and knowing we were in the rite areas gave us the confidence to keep fishing hard and not giving up and it payed off for us. Hope you enjoyed!