BassMaster Northern Open

[jona38]

Way to go Shawn!! Good luck!!

[StarTzar]

Looks like someone made it on the Bassmaster website!
Hope you're having a blast!

http://www.bassmaster.com/blogs/bass-pr ... opens-blog

Gatineau's (Hull) own Shawn Dompierre

[Kerrazy]

Hey better showing today he moved up several spots with 3 fish today. Good job Shawn. So far you have out fished me this year all species combined.

[lape0019]

Congrats Shawn for not making a complete fool of yourself!

There was some stiff competition there as well as a slew of people who probably fish that lake a few times a year.

Be proud of your showing!

[ShawnD]

All I can say is WOW, I want to thank you all for the encouragement!

A quick recap of the practice/Tournament.
So I met Regan, a fellow OVSB member who was fishing the event as a PRO on Friday morning for the 18 hour Drive to Tennessee.

Saturday we got to Dandridge TN around 5am, the Store only opened around 7-8am so we drove around getting familiarized with the ramps and restaurants, we ate, got our permits and got on the water ASAP.
This lake was nothing like ours, all Rocks/clay/brush piles and the odd tree here and there. Lots of garbage too...
After hearing this event would be won deep but the shallow bite would give you a small limit, we got on the water and started beating the bank for anything that bit.

First fish of the trip, almost a Nickle, between me and Regan we must have made around 6 cast to this log/brush pile.
I flipped in a black and blue craw for the sixth time, seeing as I had nothing else to fish until Regan moved the boat, out came this bedding beauty.
You could tell by how raw the tail is, this fish was still on a bed, the tail was bleeding a lot.

This fired us up and kept us in the shallows.. We might have been better off trying to catch them deep, but we felt like finding them shallow would give us a solid plan B.
We decided to call it quits around 3 pm Saturday , we had not slept since Friday morning so... We were pooched!

Practice went on that way, catching a few fish a day, until we made our way into what we thought would be a solid creek to come back to. Regan must have caught 8-9 fish in this creek including a 4+ that broke off at the boat..

Unfortunately we did not find a solid deep water spot, fish were there, but they wouldn't bite and we threw everything at them!
These fish were feeling the pressure of 189 boats on the water + the locals..

I managed to catch a fish every single day. But it gets frustrating to fish 8 hours for a few bites...

Day one of the BASS Open, my first day boater was an Elite Pro called Kenneth "Boo" Woods.
The day got off the the right foot with me setting the hook on a small mouth, but seeing as Douglas Lake has a 20" keeper rule for smallies I couldn't keep it.
The rest of the day was all about running between deep and shallow spots, IMO it didn't seem like Boo was set on fishing deep or shallow.

Every spot we ran to on the water was cluttered with boat fishing deep ledges and deep brush piles, which is where they, the BIG'UNs were at!
Ended the day with 1 fish for 14 ounces..
I learned some tackle tricks and to be efficient! No time to waste. This boater also made sure he would be making all the first casts at anything worth while.
Spent the night re-spooling almost all my reels and playing around with tackle.

Day 2,
Derrick Blake was my boater for day #2 of the BASS Open, a local stick that has been fishing tournaments since the age of 9, hes been a boater since he was 16.
Didn't hurt that lived 1 hour from the lake, though he wasn't an Elite, he sure fished like one!

Finished the day with a limit of tree fish for 3.7
I learned a lot from Derrick, I learned that I need to work on my casting and he taught me a special technique that I can't divulge Top secret stuff fellas...

4.7 Was my weight for the event, placed #137
Regan finished in #183 with 2.12

I'm very happy with my experience over all, I got to see was it is to fish for a living... It's hard core.
I can't wait to apply what I've learned this past week to the numerous tournaments I'm fishing this summer.

I want to point out that this trip could not have happened for me if it wasn't for Regan Martin, one heck of a good guy and a solid fisherman.
I proud to be an OVSB member, guys like this make it worth while.

Time to get to work and finish the my boat!
Cheers guys and thanks again for the support.

[StarTzar]

Good write-up. It's not nice to keep secrets from us.
You should change your handle to "Tennesse Shawn"

[TheMaverick]

Good recap, thanks for sharing your experience with Fish-Hawk.
Now about that Top Secret stuff…

[beachburger]

I learned a lot from Derrick, I learned that I need to work on my casting and he taught me a special technique that I can't divulge Top secret stuff fellas...

So you learned how to go "strolling"?????

I wish you had posted that you were going beforehand. I spent 3 days on Douglas Lake a couple years ago as a marshal for an Elite Series event. I could have given you at least 10 "shallow" areas and points that you could check out, including the area that Greg Hackney fished for 3 days. I rode with Hackney on Day 3 and he was in 15th place going in. The Elite series event I was at was in early May but the water would have been close to the same levels. When I was there, the lake was almost at full pool and was over 30 ft higher (yes 30 ft) than it was a few months earlier.

Thanks for the write up and it sounds like it was a lot of fun.

[lape0019]

LOL,

Great write up Shawn!

Fishing a body of water you are not used to can be daunting. Good luck oin the rest of your year and I can say I am looking forward to getting out on the water with you sooner or later!

Maybe I will even show you a few spots on the Rideau. After the MS Bassin tournament of course

[Kerrazy]

great write up Shawn. Many of us were living vicariously through you!

[RJ]

Great re-cap of your experience Shawn! Worst part of doing those is you are 100% at the mercy of your "pro".

RJ

[ShawnD]

Great re-cap of your experience Shawn! Worst part of doing those is you are 100% at the mercy of your "pro".

RJ

You can say that again, they don't place the boat at all for you, this isn't a team event and you happen to catch a big one off a tree they didn't cast to first... They'll be kicking themselves.