OSU Bass Fishing: Tournaments

Boat U.S. College Fishing Open
on Kentucky Lake, June 21-25, 2010

The Ohio State University Bass Fishing Team competed in the 2010 Boat US Collegiate Fishing Series Open on Kentucky Lake, June 22-25. This is how our week went:

Tuesday, June 22nd - Our first practice day:
Two of our boats (3 anglers) were able to make it to Tennessee Tuesday morning and put in a full day of practice. The air temps were right around 100* and the water temps were just above 90*. To disect the lake, one boat focused on ledges and other off-shore structure while the other boat focused on rocky banks and steep banks close to channels. Both boats were able to find plenty of fish, but the 15" limit proved difficult as only a few keepers were boated.

Wednesday, June 23rd - Our second practice day:
All three boats (6 anglers) were able to make it out on the lake for this day of practice. The lake was very rough, so only 1 boat ventured very far from the cove we launched out of. That boat, again, focused on deeper structure and ledges while the other 2 boats focused on deeper banks close to the launch. A few hours were lost with trolling motor problems, so the team wasn't able to spend as much time practicing as we had hoped. However, we felt that we had 2 or 3 spots that could produce some 15" keepers.

Thursday, June 24th - First tournament day:
Jason Founds' boat started 8 miles from the ramp fishing off-shore structure with only small fish making it to the boat. The other two boats started 3 miles from the ramp on deep banks and got on the fish early. Since this was a team event, boats were allowed to communicate via cell phones with other team members. Early on, a text message went out saying fish were being caught on deeper banks, so Jason ran to the closest rock bank and caught a keeper pretty quickly. By 10am (1/2 way through the day) the boat of Kyle Huston/Dan Giannamore had 4 fish in the well and the boat of Joe Vendlinski/Joe Shaw had 3 fish. Feeling comfortable with the team having good numbers of fish, Jason ran another 9 or 10 miles down the lake to a spot that looked interesting. Immediately after pulling up on the spot, co-angler Quinn Miller boated two 5-pounders, giving the boat 3 fish for about 13lbs. The bite slowed for all of the boats, but the call came in around 1:30pm that Kyle/Dan had finished their limit so we all converged on that location. Jason was about 24 miles away, so he didn't arrive until 2pm and check-in was 3pm. They boated one last keeper, then had to head to weigh-in.

Day 1 Weigh-in:
Jason Founds/Quinn Miller weighed 4 fish for a little over 15.5lbs anchored by a 5.93lb largemouth.
Kyle Huston/Dan Giannamore weighed 5 fish for a little over 13lbs, but lost 1lb for dead fish. The extreme temperatures made it difficult to keep fish healthy, and we battled this both days.
Joe Vendlinski/Joe Shaw weighed 4 fish for a little over 11lbs.

Team weights were calculated by taking the weights of the top two boats, so Ohio State was able to bring in about 28lbs which was good enough for 15th place.

Friday, June 25th - Final Tournament Day:
Joe Vendlinski's boat ended the day Thursday with some sort of lower unit problem which made his boat's top speed around 5mph. We weren't able to fix it, so they planned on fishing the Paris Landing Marina all day on the trolling motor. Unfortunately, the trolling motor broke around 11am, so they pulled out and weren't able to fish.

Locally, the power was out Thursday night so we weren't able to fill up the boats because the gas stations had no power. Jason's boat was the only boat that even needed fuel since his spot was 18 miles from the launch ramp. So, since he couldn't make that run, he took Joe's Thursday spot which was pretty close to the ramp, but not close enough for Joe to fish with his motor troubles. Jason and Quinn boated two fish pretty early and Kyle/Dan boated one pretty early as well.

Instead of milking their morning spot for all it was worth, Jason and Quinn made a bad decision and headed out to the ledges. Kentucky Lake is for sure a ledge-fishing lake this time of year, but the duo had little luck during practice mostly because of inexperience. After wasting a little more than half of the day, Jason decided to head back to their morning spot where they got one more keeper before weigh-in.

Day 2 Weigh-in:
Jason and Quinn had 3 fish for 7.5lbs.
Kyle and Dan had 2 fish for 4.5lbs.
Joe and Joe had thrown their fish back because they were not confident they would be able to keep them alive while the boat was on the trailer. They said their 2 fish would have went 3lbs, so their decision did not effect the team weight.

This lack-luster performance on Day 2 dropped the Buckeyes from 15th to 28th Place for the event.

Event Summary:
Even though we didn't have quite as good of a performance as we were hoping, we still had a great week. Kentucky Lake is an amazing fishery. We were running all over the place and still managed to catch no less than 30 fish per day, per boat. Almost every single fish we caught would have been a keeper in Ohio, so we had a blast. We had quite a few break-offs during the two tournament days that should have brought Jason's boat up to 16+lbs on Friday and Kyle's boat up an additional 5lbs on Thursday. But, that's how fishing goes sometimes.

The majority of our fish were caught on Hookerz Tackle Shakey Heads and 5/0 EWG Hooks (Texas rigs). Several fish were caught on custom jigs made by club member Matt Archer as well. Additionally, we were able to boat several fish on Koppers Live Target crankbaits in their craw pattern.

We want to again thank the companies and individuals that made this trip such a success with their donations. If it weren't for their support, the team would not have been able to afford 2 days of practice which proved to be incredibly important. Please see the list of supporters at the bottom of this page.

Lessons Learned:
The number 1 lesson we learned was that it's not a good idea to try and learn a new technique during tournament week. We don't have anything in Ohio that prepared us for Kentucky Lake-style ledge fishing, so we shouldn't have spent more than 1 day on the ledges. The good news is that this event is going to be held at Kentucky Lake annually, so we can get down there at learn how to ledge fish that lake throughout the coming year.

Lesson number 2: Fill your boat up immediately after leaving the ramp. We decided to go cool down in the cabin's air conditioning for a little while before heading to the gas station to fuel up. Well, we didn't plan on the electric going out so we weren't able to get the fuel we needed. This altered the plans for the 2nd tournament day and we weren't able to catch as much weight.

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