2004 Tournament Results:
August 26th-28th, 2004 FLW Outdoors Everstart Series Bass
Tournament, Lake Erie
out of the Buffalo Smallboat Harbor. The winner was Joseph Pappas of
Southgate, MI, who had 39-13 pounds the last 2 days (33-14 the first 2
days) of Erie
Smallies to win the 4 day tournament taking the $10,000 cash and a new Ranger
Boat & Yamaha or Evinrude Outboard. The highest local competitor was Brad
Brodnicki of Amherst who finished 4th with 31 -13 pounds over the final
2 days.
I finished 51st in my first Tournament as a Professional cashing my first
Pro check as well. The majority of the competitors fished
fairly deep 30-50' with Tubes & Drop-shoted worms and Goby imitations from
Buffalo to Barcelona. The first 2 days were very windy with 20-25 mph south
winds making presentations and boat control very difficult as well as slowing
down anglers making long runs.
I opted to drag a gold Kwickfish off a 3 way rig both days over
a 25' hump in 32' and a 19 - 25' drop off for most of the time. But, did catch one
of my 4 # kicker fish on a drop-shoted Snake Bite Tackle Sculpin when wind
subsided enough to fish it efficiently. This was my hot set up while I was
pre-fishing, only if we could have a little less wind. But, that's how it
goes, I adapted. But, not quick enough as well as should have moved around a
bit more instead of camping out on my spots. Live and Learn, this was a great experience
and I can't wait for my next chance at making some Erie Gold off Erie's
Bronze!
Although I didn't get to fish the
final 2 days by not making the Top 20, the final competitors had totally
different conditions to deal with, dead flat water which can be as difficult
or harder than the rough water. Here, on Lake Erie, being adaptable and having
a back up plan are a must. Probably more than any other Lake because of it's
shear size, quickly changing weather, diverse structure and constantly
moving Smallmouths!
Click
Here to see Complete Results
May 1, 2004 Millennium Bassmasters Tournament
at the
Buffalo Smallboat Harbor.
I fished with Alan Smith to a 3rd place Finish, We had 11.76 pounds for 2 fish
with our biggest being a 6.14 pound Slob! We fished mainly between 18 Mile
Creek and Myers Reef in 10-18' of water. The winners were Jim Rodney and Ken
Napier, they had 12.02 pounds with a 6.78 pound Monster to anchor their win.
Claude & Rodger Desrochers of Ontario, Canada were 2nd place with
11.84. Dave Stahura Jr. & Dave Sr. finished 4th with 11.48
pounds.
May 2, 2004 Niagara
Frontier Bassmasters Tournament Finished 6th place with Brett Bulmer
with a total weight of 10.26 pounds while the winners had 10.84 pounds.
May 15, 2004 Make-A-Wish Millennium
Bassmasters Tournament -
The Tournament was a huge success, raising $12,545 for the MAKE-A-Wish
Foundation! Despite
the poor conditions of steady rain, fog and a 25 degree cold front (mid 80's
Friday to 60 on Saturday) 136 2-man teams participated. The Winners were; Pete
Elphinstone & Linsay Smith with 11.86 pounds for 2 fish, 2nd place was
Scott Sexton & Gerald Mante Jr. with 11.64 pounds, 3rd place was Steve
Smith & Al Beckett with 11.30 The lunker award went to John Siejak &
Robert Jackson with a 6.44 Slob Smallie!
I fished with Joe Fonzi and we had 9.30 pounds and finished 70th in the
middle of the pack. We struggled as everybody did, there were
only 4 boats over 11 pounds and about 20 over 10 pounds. It's to bad, I didn't
get the 6.7 pound Slob my client got on Friday along with the 6.2 Joe had on
Friday would have been nice but that's how it goes.
June 19th, 2004 The Wagon Wheel Annual Smallmouth Bass
Tournament My neighbor and Tournament partner for
the day; Mark Wheeler finished 2nd with 8.84 pounds for 2 Smallies. We fished
off Myers Reef in 16-22' of water. He was using big Golden Shiners off a 3 way
rig, while I stuck with Tube Jigs but, I should have switched to live bait.
June 24th, 25th & 26th, 2004 Citgo
Bassmasters Northern Open out of the Buffalo
Smallboat Harbor, Buffalo, NY. The tournament was a Huge Success again with
over 8,022 pounds of Bass caught over 3 days. The winner was Frank Scalish
with 55-4 pounds edging out local favorite and the first 2 day's leader:
Gaspere Costabile who had 55pounds.
I had an awful Tournament finishing 128th out of 171 entrants on
the non-boater side but, learned a valuable lesson. I will never fish as a
non-boater on my Home Waters again, I will stay home if I can't get to fish as
a Pro and control my own Destiny. May be I would fish as a non-boater on water
I'm not familiar with but not here.
Day 1: Started out ok, with the weather but got progressively got
worse. I fished with Greg Mills of Dayton, OH. We were in the last flight to
go out and by then the wind was picking up with waves building to 1-2'. We ran
to Myers Reef and started in 12-20'. He lost a Big Fish right off the bat,
then got 2 keepers while I lost 1 and caught 2 Sheepshead. The waves continued
to build to 2-3 foot with the 15-20mph winds. I switched from Tube Jigs to
drifting a Kwickfish and caught a nice 3 pond Smallie immediately, then lost
another one. I set Greg up with a Kwickfish and he got a big Sheepshead. I got
another keeper Smallmouth and a Sheepy. When Greg said its time to go, that it
was getting to rough (3-4' to me it was just getting good). So we went back to
the Buffalo Small Boat Harbor and fished the same section of break wall for
the next 6 Hours! I caught a Northern Pike on my second cast on a Rattletrap,
then not another bite for the next 6 hours. I tried everything from
Spinnerbaits, Senkos to Tubes. Talk about Frustrating, all we would have to do
is move down the wall a couple hundred yards either way to 2 spots I knew held
fish or to the Erie Basin Marine and I know I (we) could have caught more Fish
and I could have got a limit and possibly at least been in the Hunt to fish
the Final day. He keep saying he caught big fish there 2 weeks a go and did
catch 5 small Smallies by flipping Tube Jigs to the break wall but, the boat
positioning didn't give me much of a chance to catch anything only having 6-8
foot to pitch to or cross his line to get to fish that hadn't been casted to
and/or had been spooked by the boat. I weighed in just 4-15 for
2 fish and was totally out of any chance of making the cut.
Day 2 was the complete opposite of day 1 it was dead flat with basically
no wind and we went out in the first flight and of course the latter flights
did very well when the winds started to pick up when we were do to be back in.
I fished with Kevin Baldwin of Vandergrift, PA. He was great Guy but like me
had a bad first day and was out of it. We tried a lot of different spots but
the tough flat conditions didn't help us and got the best of us. We did each
manage to catch 3 keepers each all coming out of 40' of water between Seneca
Shoal & Myers Reef and off Evans Bar off Tubes (Mizmo & ISG) and drop-shotted
worms (Top Notch Tackle). I lost several fish and but landed a 4 pound Hog
Smallie at 2 o'clock that if I could have had 4 more like it could have put me
in the Big Show on Saturday. The wind had just started to pick up and the fish
started to snap when we had to go and weigh in. If the 13-2 pounds for the 5
fish I caught for 2 days was daily (I was catching 13-15 pounds a day
practicing without really working a spot hard), it would have helped me cash a
check, But That's Fishing.
Past Tournament Results:
2006
2005
2003
2002
2001
Schultz Sportfishing Home Page