Big Birch Lake-GHB

Friday I drove up to Big Birch Lake to prefish for our Club tournament on Saturday. I drove thru some small rain bands and when I got to the lake it was already starting to clear but the wind had really started to blow. I started on a long point that dropped off fast with a good weed line. I caught a few northerns on a crankbait and the slowed down to fish with some soft plastics. I caught a few along that weedline and then moved on looking for similar areas. I had about 6 spots marked on my GPS that I wanted to fish offshore but the wind made that impossible. After doing some looking in the west side I moved to the east side and found a few spots that I would hit on Saturday. At around 3 pm we called it a day and headed into town for the night. Saturday morning was really cool and the wind had laid down. We headed to the lake for the start of the tournament. When we got to the lake the fog rolled in so it delayed the start to almost 7 am. We took of at idle speed as it was still foggy. Luckily my starting spot was close. My partner for the day was Steve M so I filled him in on what I is was going to do. I got my first two on a tube and the threw a Strike King Ocho and picked up 2 more throwing it on the drop and dead sticking it. Steve then got a few for the well throwing a senko. I finished out my limit with the tube and it was only 8:15. The fog had lifted enough to move at a greater speed than idle so we ran to my next spot. There was a gradual sloping rocky point that I really did not fish on Friday because of the wind but it looked to good not to fish. I threw the tube and got bite immediately and before I could yell for the net it came unbuttoned. It looked like a nice fish and really would have helped. We ran a streach of docks and Steve picked up another. We then ran to the east basin. We fished the outside weed line without any success so we moved in and hit the docks. I got one that I could cull and lost another one that would have helped. Steve wanted to fish the reeds so we ran those and Steve got his fourth fish. We then went back to the rocky point and I got what would be my big fish of the day a 3.30 smallmouth. We worked it for 15 minutes without any more bites. Back to my starting spot and I was able to cull another small one out. We then ran the reeds and Steve finally got his limit fish. By that time it was time to head in for weigh in. I weighed in 11.19 which was good for 2nd place and my 3.30 smallie was Big Bass for the day. Congratulations to Pat P for winning with 11.58. Full results are here: www.goldenhookbassers.org/index_files/tourny5.htm It was time to head home and get ready for Waconia on Sunday morning.