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Highlands Today

Short-Strikers Test Fishermans' Resolve

Dave Douglass/Highlands Today

From left: Chris Jerdan and Matt Jerdan hold up a 7.55 pound bass that won the big bass portion of the tournament.

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Dave Douglass

Published: October 6, 2007

LAKE WALES — The Reel'em In for Rotary Charity Bass Tournament 2007 sponsored by the Lake Wales Breakfast Rotary was held on Lake Kissimmee last Saturday.

Camp Mack Resort hosted the event that launched at safelight and weighed in at 2:30 p.m.
Thirty teams participated in the Bass tournament event conducted by tournament director, Nigel Hill of Lake Wales.

Terry Dale and I decided to try our luck even though pre-fishing during the week before proved to be much less, than we had hoped for.

We figured everyone was having a hard time locating bass, and in the last four tournaments on the Kissimmee chain of lakes, the majority of participants weighted in one or none at the end of the day.
So we rolled the dice, and launched Terry's boat and prepared to give it a go.

The winds were moderate to start out with, so we decided to work one of our holes, which was out in the open water where waves would become a factor later on. After thoroughly working the area using crank, spinner, and top-water baits, we switched to small and large plastics.

Terry worked the smaller bait and I worked the larger ones. Using all methods of retrievals yielded nothing.
We moved to hole No. 2.

Now the winds picked up to 15-20 mph and we moved to the inside of Kissimmee Grass, Lily Pads, and Bulrush.
Again, we tried opposite techniques to see which one would succeed. It wasn't very long before we both boated a bass, however they were both under the minimum length of 14 inches – but at least we were in hope of larger bass nearby.

From 9 a.m. to noon we each had two good hard strikes, but to our dismay, the bass were what angles call, "short striking" — when bass barely grab the bait or suck in the bait to kill it and blow it out in less than one second.
Each time, we set the hook as quick as possible, only to watch the bait sail over our heads. We worked the area in hope that a real feeding migration might occur — no such luck.

Sunny skies, strong wind, and rising barometer, all signs spelling bad news.
We moved on to hole No. 3.
This ride was anything but fun, as we chose to run parallel with the waves— the shortest route — which were now about two feet or taller. We moved to lily pads only, figuring there would be the ideal environment for larger Bass, and with only two hours left, we needed three large Bass to finish in the top five ... we hoped.

Our guess worked but was not a success. Each of us took turns setting the hook on what looked to be four to five pound bass in huge heavy pads in three to four feet of water. The battle lasted for five seconds and ended with no fish on the hook and a large lily pad instead. We guessed we must have had them hooked in the corners of their mouth, and they tore free.

Over the next hour we switched plastics, used top-water frogs, went back to large and small plastics and with thirty minutes to go, I became frustrated and mockingly cast as far as possible into an open section between the pads.

I figured, "I might as well straighten out my like so I could pitch smoothly for the last half hour."
So I began to retrieve as fast as possible — ripping the plastic Yum Sooie across the top of the water. Half way back, going full speed, a 5.5 pound bass exploded on my bait with vengeance for invading her territory. She set the hook by going the opposite direction of my retrieve. Immediately she was wrapped-up in pads, so I just kept the line taunt as Terry quickly moved the boat along side where she was pinned up against the pads unable to move. Terry quickly netted her and I placed her in the livewell.

First successful catch of the day due to the fact she was hooked between the eyes. The only way she was getting away was to break 65-pound test braided Stren line — not likely.

So now was the time to put three more like her in the boat — so we thought. We worked the entire area using the bait which worked. Surely, there must be more bass there which did not want to have a bait buzzed over their head — wrong again. We worked hard for the remaining fifteen minutes and headed to the weigh in to be on time.

The weigh-in was dismal to say the least. However, it was no different than the previous weigh-ins we had witnessed — all on lakes from Kissimmee to Istokpoga.
Out of 30 teams, 10 teams weighed in bass. Only three teams had five fish and two of them finished first and second, and the third team placed fourth.

John Kremer and Robert Grantham finished first with 15.8 pounds and Jerry Harvey and Tommy Thompson finished second with 11.5 pounds
Third place went to Chris and Matt Jerdan with one bass weighing 7.55 pounds. They also won "Big Bass." They said they had one strike all day — not a bad "one strike."

We finished one place out of the money, sixth place, with one bass weighing 5.75 pounds.
It was a small, but well run tournament for a good cause. The raffle proved to generate plenty of excitement for about 50 spectators who didn't have much to get excited about at the scales.
Ahh, the typical summer time bass tournament experience — the testing of the bass angler's character and resolve prepares him for success.

Dave Douglass is a Bass fishing guide and teacher, Bass tournament fisherman and also an officer of S.O.S.-Florida Lakes, Inc. You can reach him at (863) 381-8474, e-mail davedouglass@sos-floridalakes.org or visit the Web sites reds-bass-fishing-guides.com and sos-floridalakes.org/.

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