Posted by Paulie D on 2002 PM:

Heart of CT - Lake Lilli

Ct Tx season kicked off today on Lake Lillinonah as The Heart of CT Bassmasters hosted their annual event with a portion of the proceeds donated to The Tomorrows Childrens Fund.

34 teams put their skills on the line on The Loch Ness of the North - Lake Lillinonah. It was a tale of three cities so to speak.

Tx was 7-3 and a 10 fish limit.

Top 5

First 24.9 - 9 fish.
Second 17.3 - 8 fish, I think
Third 16.1 - 7 fish, with a 5.13 Largie. This from our own CTbassmaster, Jason Cuda and his partner Ed Groballi. Congratulations Jay and Ed !!!!
Fourth 15.14 - 6 or 7 fish. Lunker came from here 7.11 largie!!!!
Fifth 12.10 - 10 fish.

Places 6-8 had between 5-7 fish 10-12 lbs.

Then the next group of 12 ( which included me and my partner)
had 3-4 fish and 4-8 lbs.

the last group of 14 either 1-2 lbs, zeroed, or DNW.

There were at least 3 Largies over 5 and a couple of nice Smallies. All in all you either did great , mediocre , or lousy.

My partner and Joe Belfiore weighed in with 4 lbs - 3 fish. We had a lot of fun and learned alot about the lake. Wish we could have weighe in with more and might have if I executed a little better. Had two really subtle jerkbait bites that i missed. Caught a lot of shorts on a hair jig. We'll get them next time.

Most prevevalent presenations were what you would expect, Jerkbaits, Jigs, Cranks and Hair.

Congratulations to all who finished in the top, especially Jason!
Thanx to Bob Jeffery and all of his club members at the Heart of Ct for hosting a great TX!!!!

ciao

paulie

Posted by Bass Rat on 2002 PM:

Paul

Nice report. Thanks. Do you have an e mail address for your brother. Or a way I can contact him?

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Posted by Paulie D on 2002 PM:

Nick , you read that quicker than i had time to edit it ...LOL

Nick send me your email and i will put you in touch.

pdelvisco@earthlink.net

ciao
paulie

Posted by CTbassmaster on 2002 PM:

Thanks for the recognition Paulie, it really was a tough day due to the extremely low water level at LIllly today. In the prefishing for the tx. I had an awesome jerkbait bite and the one main theing I noticed was the large fish were feeding on baitfish only, and they were feeding up not down, tubes worms and hair jigs were unproductive for me. Well cant wait to do it again. see you at the Bryan Kerchal tx Paulie. later

Posted by Paulie D on 2002 AM:

Jay, We basically saw the same thing. I never found the little holes with the bigger fish. I actually did catch quite a few with the hair jig but they were all rats. We tried working out from those areas off the points and deeper staging areas for bigger fish. I believe I missed 2 of them because i over reacted to subtle bites on the jerkbait. You came up big in a tough TX J !! I looking forward to the Kerchal as well.

caio

paulie

Posted by jofish on 2002 AM:

Thanks for the update Paulie. How low did the water get I was there last Wed. water level was fine , and yes tubes did not work cranks were the ticket on small flats near deep water which is all over the place. I will be there next SAT. what colors worked. Thanks again
Joe

Posted by Paulie D on 2002 AM:

Jofish , Hydo company dropped the lake level the last three days. As John G noted in a earlier post this can be a pain and definately affected some pre-established patterns. Since I had only one day of pre-fish with no pattern I was not affected at all and it showed ...LOL I think J hit the nail on the head Jerkbaits were the key for the bigger fish. Colrs did not seem to matter, more of the ability to find the fish that were stacked up. I fished a Red Craw Crank A alot and not one bite. I fished a Hula Grub , which is my confidence bait all day and only one bite. We caught all of our fish keepers and shorts on Hair and Jerkbaits. The winning bag was caught all on jigs I heard, and you have to be carefull of the so called Dock Talk - i was before and even after the TX. I think the real key was finding the bigger fish and using whatever bait would trigger them. This time of year the JB is usually a cant miss.

ciao

paulie

Posted by bear55 on 2002 PM:

Open Tx on Lilly next Wed

Paulie any word as to whether the water level will be up by next Wednesdays open Tx?????

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Posted by Adam0325 on 2002 PM:

We were out there for the Lilly tournament on Sat.
We didn't practice at all for it, and I guess it was a good thing, due to the fact they dropped the water so much. We really struggled until 1 in the afternoon, but then we seemed to figure them out pretty well. I guess we bucked the trend somewhat because we caught some of our better smallies on jigs.. but they were very subtle in there pick ups. We got quite a few hit and spits before you could even flinch...

Posted by jofish on 2002 PM:

Was the water down that much? and were they in deeper water? near flats? With the water warming up this week it may be a different ballgame, who knows? At any rate thanks for the information. I will try use as much of it as possible. It's really something special when people share as much as they do on this site. Thanks Joe

Posted by Paulie D on 2002 AM:

Jofish here is a number you can call for the water relaese 1-888-417-4837 just listen to the prompts. Adam , i was in boat # 3 the white skeeter Z185. What boat # were ya and how did you fare?

ciao

paulie

Posted by Bass Rat on 2002 AM:

Paulie D

Did you get my email?

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Posted by Adam0325 on 2002 PM:

Paul, my partner Dave and I were in a white skeeter also.. boat 35. We managed to get into some fish and we won... I guess everyone get's lucky once in awhile

Posted by Paulie D on 2002 PM:

Is that like the saying... even a Blind Squirrel finds an acorn once in a while...LOL

Great job to you and Dave and Congrats on the win. You guys fishing the Kerchal?

ciao

paulie

Posted by JOHN G on 2002 PM:

location, location!!

okay your vague secretive tournament types! LOL.... how about some locations, depths etc..... JOHN G

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Posted by Adam0325 on 2002 PM:

Paul, we are fishing the Kerchal tournament this weekend. We are going down Saturday and spending the weekend. We are also doing Foxwoods, so I will be back down there begining on Thursday. I went out to Lilly yesterday. The temp was 63 to 68 and up to 72 in the pockets. I know that is just surface, and that the water is still cool 5 feet down, but for April 17th?? Wow.

Posted by JPBass on 2002 AM:

Fished Lilly Friday and Sat. Water temps were between 67 to 70 degrees (Geeze!!) Usually this time of year jerkbaits are the ticket for me. Found no takers this weekend though (water's too warm I'd guess?). Had a 3 lb. smallie on Friday in shallow rocks, near moving water, on a tube. That was the highlight of the two day event for me. The rest of the fish, although there were plenty of them, were all shorts. Senkos, 4 in. worms, and soft jerkbaits, and tubes caught their interest. I would of liked to have thought that the warmer temps would of turned them on but that wasn't the case, on this particular body of water, for me anyway.

Tourney was won with 4 fish totaling under 4 lbs.

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Posted by jofish on 2002 AM:

Fished at lilly on SAT. everything was set for a perfect day wind light in the morning, water temp. up to where they should be active, light cloud cover. All seeded good to go. But that wasn't the story. A few keepers in the morning on tubes. Thanks to Snoozers. Then shut down or should I say LOCK down. I threw the works. But not to be. There were Some nice fish taken one 5lb 14oz LM. and the total of 8lbs 12ozs, then 7 even third was 4lbs 12ozs. It dropped from there. There were no limits. I manager 1 fish and plenty of shorts. Got picked by a pike. That put me in a pickle. Had to do that!! But all in all it was fun, that was my comments, but to state some others, well---- The big fish came on jerk baits a smithwick rouge deep diver don't know what color. The guy who caught it was just as surprised!! There's another mid-week on Wed.

Posted by JPBass on 2002 PM:

jofish,

Yep, I was thinkig the same thing. Springtime, three days of consistent warm weather, even had some some pre-frontal conditions in the afternoon. Shoulda been biting their heads off!!

Guess the fish don't read all the books...........Stupid fish!!!

My guess is the water got too hot, too fast.

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Posted by Adam0325 on 2002 PM:

Lilly can be weird like that. I was on Candlewood Saturday, and that place was on fire. Everyone out there was lighting them up, either bed fishing or throwing jerkbaits. You would have thought Lilly would have been pretty close to the same. What was the water doing? Were they playing with the water level? That would be the only thing I could think of that would cause it to be off.

Posted by Paulie D on 2002 PM:

Adam , it was nice to meet you yesterday. I think JP might be on to something , maybe the water temps got too hot too fast. I have seen this in smaller bodies of water locally where some fish move up really quick and can be really squirrly for a few days until it stabilizes. You can throw the kitchen sink at them and nada. As for Candlewood yesterday - I have had better days from shore! We weighed the second largest LMB but not much else. It was my first TX on the lake and had a great time doing it,. I need more experience for these early season Bass TX's. Good luck to you and Dave this weekend!

ciao

paulie

Posted by jofish on 2002 PM:

Did a mid-week at Lill and it was just as tough today as it was saturday. Managed one keeper on jerk bait. Loads of shorts. But the good news is that 1st place was 14lbs2ozs. Good to know. The Lunker was a 4lb2oz sm. with another one almost as big right behind it. They were on beds. They were taken on tubes. Senkos had a good showing in bubble gum. And brown craw cranks produced lots of shorts. Close but no cigar. I think my time with lill is about over. I will try to make to Candlewood meet. I never fished that Lake, I hear it's a little behind Lill as far as temp. goes but don't know much else?