Decision Making

I participated in the NNY Bassmasters championship on the St. Lawrence River out of Waddington, NY on September 20-21. Heading up to the tournament fishing pressure was high on the river as many boats were out scouting for the B.A.S.S. Eastern Divisional being held the following weekend. Every time you fish is an opportunity to learn something new if you are willing to adjust on the water to the conditions being presented and get lucky enough in making the right decision sometimes. Day 1: The weather is nasty. High winds 20-30 MPH randomly throughout the day. The river is a churning washing machine the further I travel from the launch area. I run to the my usual fall locations. Focusing on more shallow locations than I would in July. It's overcast, choppy, and these conditions should fuel a decent horizontal bite on the spots I have planned out for the day. After an hour and half, we got one 4 lber in the livewell that took a senko. My best area is pretty much dead. I don't see anything. I move off of it and try deeper, nothing. At this point I figure I better start moving around. I start to hit spot after spot that all other times have good fish but they just aren't there. Slowly we grind out a limit but at this point have maybe 13-14 lbs in the livewell. We decide that it just isn't working and with this being a 2 day tournament we need to head back, as the weather continues to get worse and maybe get lucky on a few of our key areas on the way back to Waddington. We have about 2 hours left. I am feeling frustrated, but the partner and I talk about how this game can change in a second, and it's enough to get me back mentally on track. We both discuss hitting an area we found practicing about a month before, that we had never fished in tournament before, but at this point nothing else was working. It's a sharp break to about 48 ft. Much deeper than I would normally be focusing on this late in September. The weather is making it difficult to hold along the edge but we are rewarded quickly with a nice smally my partner grabs dropshotting a Strike King dream shot. We make 4 more swipes over the area and each time I grab another one of 4 lbs. In about 20 minutes we have over 20+lbs as we replaced all the drinks in our livewell and upgraded our one 4lber by a few ounces. Decision time. Everyone of these fish were like carbon copies...4.2-4.3 lbs Do we keep hitting this spot hoping to upgrade or just take the 20+ and go, knowing this will keep us up there for tomorrow and keep this place more fresh for the next day? We decide to leave it. Back to Waddington we go. Hitting a few main river points but never getting anything to upgrade. Back to weigh in we sack a 20.66 bag of smallies to put us in 4th place heading into day 2. The team of John & Ruth Narrow have the day 1 lead with a 23.26 lb bag of smallies. What a fishery. Day 2: That night we discuss what to do. Head back to the spots tomorrow that didn't work today? Focus on that deep water spot and work closer to Waddington? Weather is suppose to be raining and windy, although not anywhere near the wind from the day before, maxing out they forecast at about 10-12 MPH. We both decide to go back and run the exact same game plan. Hit the spots that didn't work the day before but we have confidence in. If they aren't working we will cut ship quick and get out of there. It proves to be the correct decision. Although almost identical conditions, today the fish are stacked up for a short period of time on my first shallow water area and hammering a spinnerbait. My first cast is a 5 lb smallmouth. Then a 4 lber, and another 4 lber. After another 30 minutes of fan casting the spinnerbait I lay into another 4 lber and we have 4 solid fish to start the day in the live-well. A much better feeling than the day before and a completely different results from this area as well. It slowly dies down and the bite disappears, but not before our 5th fish in the boat a little chunky 3 lber. We run around to a few other areas catching a few here and there but not upgrading that 3lber but more than an ounce or two. So decision time again. Leave this area early and head back to where we had great success deep the day before? Or stay and keep grinding it out in an area where I know there are good fish but it seems to have slowed. It's a decent distance away so it may be to time consuming to go there, and have to come back if it's not working. We decide to go considering how great that area was the day before and the potential. We get there. NOTHING. Amazing how this weekend is a total flip flop from each day. We spent over an hour and a half slowly working it looking for that one 4-5 lber. It's dead. My partner wants to stay and just keep swiping it saying we will get one. I want to leave and drive back to where we started and give it one last shot for what I figure to be the last 35 minutes before we have to head back. After one last swipe he gives in to my suggestion and we quickly tie everything down and drive back 20 minutes in the opposite direction to our original spot from the morning. I calculated correctly. We have about 30 minutes and then we gotta head back. We work the area that is a hump that rises to about 10 ft and then drops to 35 ft. I spinnerbait the shallow section and get a big hit, set the hook, it's a good one....half way in it just comes off. Frustrated we drift off of it and drive back up for another chance. We both hit hard with the spinnerbait and crankbaits...but don't get that elusive second chance. With 5 minutes to go and knowing we need one more good one over 4 to be up there we drift off the back end to the deeper drop off, and dropshot it. I am throwing an XZone sammer #304. My line goes slack, I lift up and set the hook. Good fish. I can tell. After a few minutes of really babying her she comes up and she's over 4lbs. Scoop her up and toss the 3lber out. Literally the last cast of the day. We pack up and drive back. We finish day 2 with 21.64 lbs of smallmouth and a two-day total of 42.30 lbs. Good enough for 2nd place for the 2014 NNY Bassmasters Championship. We lost out to Doug Kirkbride and James Moore by the tiniest of margins. They finished 1st with 42.34 lbs!!!!! Crazy. Many teams took a dip on day 2 as most reported the bite to be really tough. It was a heck of weekend of poor weather conditions, up and down success, and giant St. Lawrence River Smallmouth. A great way to end the team trail season.