Philipsburg Bassmasters 7th Tournament of 2012: Lake Raystown (September 9, 2012)

Today was my club's 7th tournament of the season and I did not have high expectations for this one.  There was a Jim's Anchorage tournament today so I knew that with my small boat, that I was not going to make a long run for the fear that someone would be in my spot after running for 30 minutes to get there.
I started out fishing up in Snyder's Run but did not have any luck.  I decided to make a run to near Seven Points and made a quick stop to a rocky point with a steep cliff near it.  That quick stop ended up being where I fished all day!   They were eating my Power Team Lures Finicky Tickler like it was candy!   That Hog Tonic scent really attracts the bass!  I caught 4 keepers off a dropshot fishing along steep banks.  Whenever I would come up on a tree I would throw a senko into it and usually get at least a nibble (darn bluegills). 

I caught my kicker fish which was only a 2.54# largemouth on a senko.  Around 12 o'clock I caught my 6th keeper on a dropshot on the point where I started and ended up culling a 12oz fish.

I ended up finishing with 7.54lbs with 5 fish.  One of my fish died so I had to take a 1/2lb penalty.  I ended up taking 1st place for the day which was really a surprise.

I can't praise Power Team lures enough for the exceptional quality of their baits.  I am happy to be on their pro-staff and their baits alone helped me win today.  I don't think I could have had the success I had using any other bait.  A couple guys in the club weighed 3 fish but no one else brought in a limit today.   Everyone reported catching fish and I had 76 degrees for water temp on this September morning.

Next tournament is September 22 in which I will not be attending.  A buddy of mine is getting married and I am in the wedding!  Should be a fun one. 

I am heading out to Colorado this coming Saturday for a nice getaway with my wife and her family.  Going to do some fly fishing out there in which I will try and post some pictures.

My next tournament I will be attending is September 29 at Curwensville Lake in which my Club is hosting.  Guaranteed 1000$ payout if you are interested please contact me!

Next club tournament I will attend is October 4 at Lake Chataqua in New York.  Should be a blast!
Tightlines!

Philipsburg Bassmasters 6th Tournament of 2012: Sayers Dam August 25, 2012

Well I just finished up my 6th club tournament of the summer which was held at Sayers Dam.  I have never had much luck fishing Sayers in August so I did not have high hopes coming into Saturday.  I went up during the week one day and only managed to catch 2 11 inch fish in the very stained water. 

Saturday was no different with the water conditions as it was still very stained and there was a lot of junk floating around as well.  

I figured I would do what I have been doing all year which is dropshot but that did not seem to pan out.  Topwater in the morning also did not produce.  The trusty senko as well as a Power Team Lures Sick Stick did the trick for me.  I caught about 7 fish on either one of them.  The PTL Sick Stick is absolutely SICK on a wacky rig!   

I ended the day with 3 fish for 3.00lbs.  Good enough for a very surprising 3rd place finish!  My next tournament is September 8 at Raystown Lake.  Should be a fun one!

Tight Lines!

Philipsburg Bassmasters 4th and 5th Tournament of Season: July 21,22 (Allegheny River, Pool 9) and August 4, 2012 (Kinzua Dam)

We had our 4th club tournament on Julys 21 and 22 at East Brady (Allegheny River, Pool 9).  This was our biggest even thus far with a total of 11 club members coming out and fishing this tournament.  It was a 2 day tournament in which Saturday night we fished from 4-8:30 and Sunday morning was 6-12pm.  

We launched Saturday evening and I went to the spot where I usually start.  I started fishing under a bridge and about 1 hour into it I got my first keeper.  I decided I was dropshotting for smallmouth all evening and it seemed to pay off.  I couldn't find any schools of smallies but I was able to hit a couple spots where I found 1 smallmouth here and there.  I worked myself back up river towards the launch and I ended up in catching 4 keepers for the evening.  My biggest fish for the evening turned out to be a smallmouth that weighed 1.94lbs.  After day 1, my total of 4 fish for 5.59lbs put me sitting nicely in second.  Only one other angler had 4 fish for the evening and I was sitting only ounces behind him.
I hit pretty much the same spots the next day and everyone else reported having a difficult time catching fish.  I ended up with one keeper smallmouth for 1.04lbs which kept me sitting in second place for the tournament.  It was a good time to say the least and I enjoyed fishing the Allegheny River.

 On 8/4 the club fished at Kinzua Dam which is one of my favorite places to fish.  I fished around the Bridge all day throwing mostly Optimum Baits Wacky shads and AA Worms Straight Tails and absolutely smacked the bass.  I love these baits and you definitely need to try them!  I caught 4 keepers for the day cycling back and forth between 3 spots.  I didnt hit my fall spots yet because the fish are still relatively deep.   I ended up taking 4th place with 5.76lbs topped off with my 2.52lb lunker smallmouth.  Next tournament is August 11th at the 3 Rivers in Pittsburgh!  See you there!

Philipsburg Bassmasters 3rd Tournament of 2012: East Branch Dam July 7,2012

Our 3rd club tournament of the year was held this past weekend at East Branch Dam in Wilcox, PA.  I have never been to this lake before so going into the day, my goal was to just weigh in 1 fish in order to get some club points.     I took my dad with me and I met him at his house at 3am.  We met Woody in Bigler around 3:30am and we were on our way.  We ended up launching around 5:45 and there were only 4 boats in the tournament.  A total of 6 club members participated for the day.     Jeff Wood ended up bagging a limit real early in the morning on a topwater bait  and taking first place and Ed Eckess found a limit of smallmouth also for 2nd.   I was able to pull in 3 quality keeper smallmouth for a total of 6.03lbs with my lunker just missing big fish with 2.51lbs.  Lunker was 2.60.    

I was throwing a dropshot all day and with 45 minutes left, I found a place that wouldve won me the tournament if I could have had more time to fish it.  I ended up fishing it way too fast and was not able to take my time.    

Our next tournament is July 21 and 22 at the Allegheny River Pool 9 (East Brady.)    

If you are interested in joining the club, please email me at jtmoslak@gmail.com or call 814-553-4831    We could use some new members.  Tournaments are 25$ and we have a club meeting on the 3rd Tuesday of Every month at Reliance Fire Hall in Philipsburg across from Weis Markets.

Tightlines!

Philipsburg Bassmasters Lake Erie tournament: June 16,2012

Our second club tournament of the year took place on June 16, 2012 in Lake Erie, PA.  We launched out of Presque Isle Bay around 5:30am.   One of my good buddies came with me to fish the tournament who had a little bit of experience fishing the lake.  Jeremy Lake was the 2009 winner of the FLW College Fishing tournament held on this amazing fishery.

Going into the day, we had a pretty solid plan in place.  We knew we were going to dropshot... dropshot... and dropshot some more.    So after placing a nice Tackle Warehouse order, we were well ready to go for the tournament.

After blastoff, we made a run to just outside PIB to fish a pipeline that Jeremy found while fishing with Penn State.  We fished there for around an hour and I ended up putting 2 keeper largemouth into the boat.  Both Jeremy and I knew that those fish wouldn't be good enough to get me into the money so we made about a 4 mile run to fish 15ft of water.  As soon as we got there it was game on!  We ended up catching probably 25 keepers between the two of us.  I can't say enough about the Shimano Stradic and St. Croix Avid rod I was using.  They held up very very nicely this tournament and the drag on the Stradic was perfect.  Also, the Gamakatsu hooks I was using made for a perfect hookup everytime.  I think I only lost 1 fish the entire tournament.     Also, I could not have caught as many fish if it wasn't for the Tabu Tackle Whiptail worm I was using.  This and another bait that I won't name really produced some nice fish for us!

We had a great time and cannot wait to go back!  Jeremy has a Fisher's of Men Regional tournament there in the fall and I would love to go back up and prefish it with him.       I ended up in 2nd place for the day with 3 Smallmouth for 8.15 lbs with my lunker being 3.07lbs.   1st place was taken by Jack Lynch with 9.15lbs.     Jeremy almost won lunker for the day with a 3.74lb smallmouth.  Here is a couple pictures of our fish for the day!

Tightlines!

Philipsburg Bassmasters 1st Tournament of 2012: Sayers Dam (March 30, 2012)

So I had my first club tournament of the year on March 30 at Sayers Dam. My goal for this year was to win a couple tournaments and gain confidence in a few techniques that I have ignored since I have been tournament fishing (Jig and Dropshot, and maybe Spinnerbait.) My at take off I had a couple places in mind that I would hit throughout the morning. There was about 10 club members present at the tournament so I decided to head to a place where I didnt think I would have any company. I hit this spot for about an hour and finally, when I was hitting it one last time, I had a big largemouth hit my bait in about 6-8 feet of water. I boated my first keeper of the morning, a 4.19 lb largemouth. After fishing for a little while longer with no more bites, I decided to move to my second spot. There was a little bit of wind so I was guessing that this place would work fairly decent. I was right as I picked up my second and only other keeper of the day on a Rapala DT6. She went 4.96 lbs. I fished for the rest of the day and could not boat another keeper. In PA during March, a keeper bass had to be 15 inches as opposed to 12 inches after bass season comes back in. I caught many other bass on a crankbait that day and many of them would have been keepers had the limit been 12 inches. But anyways, when I got back to the launch I found out that 2 other boats had their 3 fish limit. I was happy to see though that the closest competitor to me only had 8.5 lbs with 3 fish and my 2 fish went 9.15 lbs to take the first tournament of the year and also come home with the Lunker pot. My next tournament is June 16 at Lake Erie. It should be an exciting tournament and I am expecting big things this year in our club!

Philipsburg Bassmasters Allegeny River/ Clarion River tournament (July 9 and 10, 2011)

Today I fished day 2 of the club's two day tournament. Day 1 was held at the Allegeny River at East Brady and Day 2 was held at the Clarion River (Millcreek Launch.) I spent all of yesterday moving in and cleaning my new apartment so I was unable to make it to the Allegeny portion of this tournament. Some guys in the club reported that the fishing was decent that day.

My buddy and new club member, Joe Quick and I made it there and were on the water by 5:45. Whenever we launched and were heading out we decided to go the opposite direction of everyone else. We went downstream while the other 2 boats in the tournament went upstream. It turned out to be a pretty goo move for us.

We fished down past the second bridge and I caught my first fish of the day on a Rage Tail Craw flipping it by a dock. I then missed another fish that looked like it wouldve been a keeper.

We ended up fishing for a little bit longer and Joe hooked into a nice keeper largemouth. It weighed in at 1.78lbs and actually took lunker for the day!

After fishing a little bit longer, I moved to a spot that looked like it would produce.. it was a feeder creek that dumped into the Clarion and was very shallow..i ended up catching 4 or 5 fish in this little area and got my second and only other keeper.

We made it back into the weigh in and Joe and I found out that we were the only ones who were solidly on fish! There was 1 other guy who weighed a fish today as the other two had a rough day on the water. I felt pretty good knowing I went into a place that I have never fished before and actually figured something out. I ended up having 1.80 lbs for my two keepers and took 1st place for the day! Joe's 1 fish put him 2 hundredths of a pound behind me and in 2nd place for the day. Since the tournament was a two day tournament, they combined the weights from the two days and I ended up finishing in 3rd place for the second tournament in a row and cashing a check and Joe ended up in 4th place and taking home a check for the lunker.

In all, it was a great day and I had fun trying to figure out fish on a very tough place, the Clarion River.

I will not be able to make the next two club tournaments on Kinzua Dam on July 30 because I am getting married that day and on August 13 at Raystown because I leave for my honeymoon in Alaska that day. The next time I will be in action with the club will be August 27 at Sayers. It will probably be a rough one for sure but I am really looking forward to it.



Thanks for reading and feel free to comment!