. It is a two day tournament with the non-boaters trying to catch 3 fish a day, while the boater in the front of the boat is trying to catch their own bag of 5 bass. It seems easy to catch 3 bass over 12" but when you have another experienced angler in the front of the boat doing the same thing and another 80 boats on the hunt as well, it can be a difficult task.My pre-fishing partner and I headed up the Petawawa on Wednesday morning to pre-fish Wednesday to Friday. We don't fish too hard as you do not want to catch a bunch of big bass a day or two before the tournament. So we fished and checked out some areas we had fished in years past to figure out some patterns of where the fish were and what baits they were hitting.
During our pre-fishing days we found some decent bass and some baits they liked, we also caught a few pike and a couple walleye and couple more walleye.... quite a bit of walleye activity.
For the 4 nights we were they we were staying at an AirBnB house up the highway in Chalk River, a great spot and a great house.
Tournament Day 1:
I was paired up with a great young angler Ryan Clark... after a little run up river at 70 mph we arrived at our first fishing spot....
Not much activity at our first stop but after checking a few spots my boater found some fish.... we fished that spot for a couple hours.... my boater landing some nice smallmouth bass, with the help of me as professional netman... lol. Unfortunately all I got on that spot were walleye. We actually landed 7 walleye on the spot... including a 5 pound fish and two walleye in the 8-9 pound range!!! Crazy big walleye for up there. the 2 boats trolling for walleye... catching nothing beside us did not look too happy as we released walleye after walleye. lol Unfortunately no photos during tournament fishing.
We leave that spot when the bass bite died and checked out a few other spots... but nothing so we pack up and get ready for a couple mile run down the river to a spot my boater is sure should hold some decent bass. Ripping down the river at 70 mph... the engine makes a weird noise.... boater comes off throttle to neutral.... then puts engine in gear but it will not go into gear.
No motor.... fishing day done around 12:30 pm.... and 20 miles from the marina. We call the emergency number for the tournament officials and they send out the rescue boat to tow us in. Meanwhile a pontoon boat with a bunch of great local residents start towing us until the rescue boat shows up. The guys on the rescue boat try a few things but no luck getting the motor to shift into gear, weigh in is at 3:15 pm and we will not make it in time. I don't have anything to weigh in but my boater has a decent bag of fish. So we flag down another competitor who agrees to run my boater and his fish to the weigh in, while I ride in the broken boat as it gets towing back to the marina.
So my Day 1 of fishing ended with a 3 hour tow ride back to the dock... as I waved at passing boats like I was in a parade. lol
At least my boater did make it back to the weigh in and finished Day 1 in 4th place!!
Tournament Day 2:
My boater for day 2 was Phil Curtis, a great experienced angler from the Hamilton Bassmasters, we had a fun day on the water. My morning started off slow, but got to practice my netting skills on some nice fish Phil put in the boat early in the day. the late morning bit was slow.
I finally landed a decent smallmouth on a Liquid Mayhem Thrust Swim Minnow on a Big Bite Baits Fishing Lures swimbait head at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We continued fishing until the last minute we could before we have to make our 30 minute run back to the marina for weigh in at 3 pm. Finally close to 2 pm I land a nice 3 plus pound smallmouth on my swimbait and that was it for the day.
I finished the day weighing in 5.6 pounds for my 2 fish and my boater weighed in 12 pounds to move from 20th place after day 1 to 10th place after day 2 and qualify as part of Team Ontario... awesome job Phil Curtis!!
After weigh in we made the traditional DQ stop and then headed home.
All in all a great Qualifier trip.... the fishing did not go quite as planned, but always a great time.... meet some great new people... learn new fishing tips... ate some good food.... great spirit of competition!!!
A big shout out to the Petawawa Bassmasters for hosting this year's Qualifier, to the Ontario BASS Nation and a special thanks to the two guys on the tournament rescue boat for the tow in on Day 1.
Off for a few days then back out chasing salmon for the Silver Salmon Challenge and Great Ontario Salmon Derby!!
JimW
