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I fished the NNYB tournament on Butterfield Lake today. We started out with fog and overcast until about 1030 and then the sun tried to come out, by 11:30 it finally popped out. I decided given those conditions that I'd fish a buzz bait and spinnerbait.
We had a front blow through yesterday with some heavy rain, but I didn’t think it would really hurt the horizontal bite that much. Turns out it really did slow the bite down. I started on a main lake flat in 3-7 feet and had one strike on the buzz by no hookups. Then I fished the SWL spinnerbait and that gave me two fish and one short. So around 9 a.m. I decided to push off the flat to the open water edge of the weed line and fish plastics in 8-10 ft. I got one more keeper and one short and my non boater caught a nice 2.72 lb fish on a Senko. I dropped a marker buoy and we worked that general area for the next 40 minutes with out so much as a bump. I retrieved the buoy and told my non we were headed to the northern end of the lake to fish a flat that has coontail and cabbage leaf in 3-5 ft.
We set up on an area that usually produces keeper fish and I got a keeper on the SWL Spinnerbait and then a miss. I fished it for the next 35 minutes and just couldn't generate a strike so I picked up a 5 inch Strike King Shadilcious swimbait. I fished that for the next 30 minutes and generated one pike bite that came off and then I caught a bass. I say "a bass" because it was just big enough to identify what it was. How on earth a 4 inch fish can hit a 5 inch swimbait and get hooked on it is beyond me… but it did.
I told my non that is it, were headed to the bank and I'm looking for the thickest nastiest stuff I can find. I'm thinking to fish weren't chasing on the main lake flat, they weren't on the open water outside edge of the flat, and that aren't really chasing anything on this flat so I need ot hi the bank.
I looked around and on the southern shore of the northern flat about 1000 yards in front of the creek mouth I found it. I found matted eel grass and coontail blown in on the south shore, and it ran for about 300 yards with probably 20 25 patches of it. Anywhere I saw chunk rock below the outer edge of the matt I pitched the chigger craw in there and I got bit. Half way through my first pass I caught a couple keepers, but I found my 3/16 oz weight was too light and as soon as I re-rigged with a 3/4 oz that was all it took. I finished that first pass, closed out my limit and I culled once.
I turned back around to cover that same area again because I had a couple of spots I got too close to on the first pass and I didn’t even bother to pitch at them. Man I sure am glad I did a repeat. What I was doing was pitching the t-rigged craw to any matted area that had a hard bottom below it, but the mat had to come off the shore line at least 2 to 3 ft. and the depth below the mat would be only 18-20 inches max, but that's all they needed.
About 20 yards into my second pass I stick my big bass of the day a solid 5.70 LMB. My non nets it and I tell him we won’t hit another fish for about 8-10 yards and I cover about ten yards on the trolling motor, make a pitch and bang another solid 3 so I cull again. I ran this area for one more pass and I caught three more, but only one fish culled. I tried to extend the pattern to other areas of the lake, but the further I got off that northern flat the fewer fish I caught. I still caught fish doing the exact same pattern on both the northern and southern shoreline, but none would help me.
We went back to our 3 p.m. weigh-in and I was surprised to hear the guys weren't talking so much and those that were all reported tough fishing. I waited to the last to weigh-in and I had 14.56 good for the win and I missed lunker by .02 oz. Which I really don’t mind and here's why.
Steve Sharland brought a guest named Jim. And this was Jim's very first tournament and oddly enough he only caught the one fish. The good news for Jim is that one fish weighed 5.72 lbs. So if you have to loose lunker by .02; man I can't think of a better way to do it than to a guy who's fishing in his first event ever and only catches one fish. Now how cool is that? Congratulations Jim,welcome to tournament bass fishing and that's one nice fish for sure!!!
Here's Steve holding Jim's 5.72 lb. tournament lunker Jim's on the right.
Here's part of my 14.56 limit and my big bass 5.70
We also had two other fish over 5 lbs.
Top three weights were
Burnie Haney 14.56
Corey Palmer 11.90
Jim Moore 11.50
Butterfield Lake is alive and well and you can see from these four 5 lb class fish that the club brought in today that this lake has the potential for a 25 lb. sack
Another fun tournament and you know when things go as planned it almost makes you feel like you know what you’re doing out there
Thanks for reading
Burnie
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