Melvern 4/19

[bluebasser86]

Fished a little for fun tournament with some guys from another forum at Melvern on Saturday. Wind was brutal all day, especially in my little tin boat. Game plan was to head west from Arrow Rock to avoid the crowds on the east end (there was another tournament going from the marina). I was hoping that I could find 5 good fish down there while everyone else was fighting each other for water, it didn't work. By 11am our biggest fish was just over 2 lbs (we weight and release them on the water instead of doing an actual weigh in). Had to run back to Arrow Rock to help a buddy with trolling motor problems so we decided to try to find some bigger fish around there. He said he had around 10lbs on a shakyhead so I tried some finesse plastics. I only caught 3 on them (hard to fish in 25mph winds ) but one of them sure made the effort worthwhile. Never felt a bite, she was just there when I started to reel in to make the next cast and was lucky enough to keep her hooked and my wife did a great job netting her. Our big fish of the day and the biggest of the tournament was 20" long and weighed 4.80lbs.

Trolling motor batteries were fading fast so we jumped into a cove on the south side and just started at the back and controlled the boat the best I could as the wind blew us back out. Got a solid 2 3/4 pound smallie on a jerkbait on the first drift, then another tanker that was 3.63lbs on the next pass on the same jerkbait. It was so rough I put my 2 bigger fish in the livewell to get pictures once we were back on solid ground. First place was 16.87lbs of smallmouths, all caught on jerkbaits. Second was 16.26lbs of smallmouth, all on finesse plastics. Then there was my wife and I in 3rd with 14.72 of all smallmouth and big bass of the day with my 4.80 pound smallie.

My 2 biggest ones of the day.

Wish we would have made the move to the east end a little sooner so maybe we could have got another solid keeper to get rid of our last small fish but we still had a lot of fun

[Team_Reeder20]

I've gotta get up there!

[bluebasser86]

I've gotta get up there!

Lots of solid smallmouths in Melvern and this is the time of year to catch a big one. I think we had 13 over 3 pounds caught by our small group Saturday.

[Mike Cork]

Thanks for the report. Those are some awesome smallies