Preparing for Gibson bass tournament

Preparing for Gibson bass tournament

Columns

By: Wil Wegman

As I write this during the week of Aug. 18,  I am busy preparing for the largest bass tournament of the 2008 season — the Hank Gibson Ontario BASS Federation nation provincial qualifier in Orillia Aug. 23 and 24.
 
The last time the qualifier was there was five years ago just after the major northeast blackout that left many York Region residents without power.
 
I ended up pre-fishing the entire week prior to that event.
 
All that practice was rewarded with a second place finish that earned a position on Team Ontario.

From there, our 12-person team fished the BASS Federation nation divisional championship in South Dakota – a 25-hour drive away.

I am as eager to qualify again for Team Ontario, so spending time practicing or pre-fishing is mandatory.

Not only is each practice day spent looking for new areas that could hold big bass, it is also spent checking out old spots to see if they are still productive.

Just as important is to figure out several different patterns based on various weather and wind conditions.

Deep and shallow water is fished, rock piles, weed beds, sand flats, docks, humps, points, islands, shoals and anything else that might hold fish.

Of course figuring out what lures work best and when and where to use each is another critical part of the pre-fishing puzzle.


Largemouth or Smallmouth?


This is the time of year when Lake Simcoe’s smallmouth are in a state of transition.

They are on the move, from their shallow water early summer haunts to their early fall locations.

This time, largemouth bass could be the big haul.

To illustrate how tough smallmouth fishing can be at this time of year, back in 2003 when renowned Canadian tournament angler Dave Chong won the qualifier he weighed-in five smallmouth the first day, but only one on the second.

My game plan back then was to focus mostly on the more predictable, all be it smaller largies, by making the long run in my bass boat all the way from Orillia down to Cook’s Bay where largemouth bass reign supreme.

I am hoping this strategy can be duplicated again in 2009, but am also using valuable pre-fishing time to search for those big smallies that could easily win the tournament.

Stay tuned to next week’s column for a full report of the 2008 qualifier.

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