This past weekend, my granddad and I competed in our fishing club’s two-day bass tournament on the Kissimmee Chain. This large chain of lakes is made up of eight different bodies of water and located in central Florida.
We spent two days practicing for the derby. We spent much of our time pre-fishing in the Kissimmee River and the south end of Lake Kissimmee. Although were caught a few bass, we unfortunately were not able to find very many fish in practice.
On the first day of the tournament, my grandpa and I started out fishing some pads along the main channel on the south end of the Lake Kissimmee. We struggled mightily the entire day, running all over the lake’s south end and fishing the river. We landed only four keeper fish and weighed in just 6.5 pounds of bass. It was a disappointing way to start the tournament.
On day two, my grandpa and I spent the majority of the day fishing swimbaits around dollar pads and grass next to a deep channel, where we’d gotten a couple bites the day before. The fishing was far from stellar, but it was a little better than the day prior. We managed to land a limit by noon and eventually cull our two smallest bass. We brought 10.20 pounds of bass to the scales on the final day but were well out of 1st place and ended up finishing in 7th place, which would end up being our worse finish of the season.
Everybody has good tournaments and bad tournaments. It’s the way it goes. There will be another tournament next month, so stayed tuned for the update.
Happy fishing and keep your hooks wet!
The four pounder I caught during our first day of practice.
