Submitted by Pski's Angling Adventures (ip 192.249.47.11)

Date Fished: 4/4/2004
Water Temperature: 44
Water Clarity: 4 feet or greater

Did the Tobbacco Valley "Ice Out" Tournament on Sunday. 48 teams were to brave the weather. Fortunatly for all involved, the rain and wind never came in until just before the end of the tournament at 4 PM.

To say the fish were shut off would be an understatement. Probably 3/4 of the feild did not weigh in a fish. Not because they dumped them, they just didn't get the bites. Water temp on the X-87 was 43 to 44.5, kind of warmer than I had expected after all the cold air and rain. Must not have gotten as cold at night over in the river valley. Fished under an 8 fish team limit with only two teams bringing in a full bag for 13 lbs and change, second and third place. First place was 16+ pounds with 5 fish including the lunker of the day of 5+ lbs. They only payed 5 places today and fifth was just a tad over nine pounds.

My son was my partner today and we had agreed that crankbaits and jerkbaits around the shallow edge would be plan A, with grubs and jigs, in deeper water, plan B. We had lucked out with the weather, the rain stayed away until the last 45 minutes or so of the event and the wind did not blow but a tad from the north at about 2 in the afternoon. We found a rock pile in ten feet of water that Jonathan continued to hang his crankbait on. On one of our trips to retreive his bait, I was throwing the 2.5" Lunker City Grub on a 1/16 oz head around this rock pile as we approached it when their was a definite bite. The Medium/light action St Croix and six pound test immedietly signalled big fish. After a short battle, a great 3.95 pound smallie came into the boat. As I was just finishing retying my grub, Jon hooked up with a 3.25# largemouth right near the boat on a Wiggle-O crankbait. As I wasn't even on the front deck yet, grabbing the net was easy. Wow! We had 7.20 pounds in the boat in about 2 minutes! All we need is to stick a couple more like these, and we'd be doing pretty well. As with with a lot of fishing stories, this one ends right here. We worked several more spots just looking for a couple more fish but it wasn't to be. We finished 8'th in the derby, just one decent fish away from the money. Oh well, not a skunk anyhow. Next weekend is the Lilly open. Hopefully we do a bit better.

A few trout trollers were on the water today. Didn't see anybody hook up but there were a ton of trout rising today.

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