Monday, July 4, 2011

Top Bass: Lake Scugog Tournament Sunday July 3, 2011

By Luigi De Rose

Lake Scugog is a strange place. A horse-shoe shaped natural lake located about 1 hour north east of Toronto, Ontario Canada, it can get a lot of fishing pressure. Choked with weeds, this lake is rich with cover. Docks, pads, cane, weed flats and two rivers provide anglers with a lot of choices. Unfortunately, it offers no breaklines, drops or defined bottom structure. If you're a deepwater, hunt with your depth finder type of guy, keep driving right past this place. It is not for you.

Scugog has always been a largemouth fishery with some smallmouth too. Years ago it was quite murky but due to some zebra mussels and changes in farming practices, the water can be gin clear in places.

I love it and hate it all at the same time. I fished my first big tournament there and cashed a check. I was only 20. I've won one or two club tournament here. I won a Top Bass tournament here a few years ago with just over 20 lbs for 5 bass. So, I have good memories.

But, this place can make you sweat blood. When the wind kicks up, and the tournament boats are on top of each other, this place is difficult to almost impossible.

Yesterday, was a difficult day for most. The wind was strange. It was strong the two practice days I fished. One afternoon it was around 80km. Whitecaps were everywhere making the search for new areas difficult. Yesterday the wind was steady before blast off and came from every direction. It was south west, north west. I felt it just followed me everywhere.

Wind should have make the power fishing easier but it didn't. Everyone love to flip and pitch this lake and with stronger winds it can be a challenge.

The finish. We survived but that was it. We had just under 11 pounds for 5 bass. Waiting for a weigh-in bag it was strange to see how many did poorly. A lot of bags under 8 pounds and many didn't weight in at all. A few guys did have some decent bags. Just before I weighed in, the big bass of the tournament changed hands a few times. Many had one good kicker with a few dinky ones. Always seems funny how that works. One guy in front of me weighted identical 4.9lb largies. One was long and thin it's twin was fat and short but they had identical weight.

Sorry for not naming names, but this is not a top tier tournament with everyone in monogrammed tour shirts and wrapped boats. Its just a group of anglers trying their best on a difficult lake that keeps calling us back year after year. 

I'll up-load the final standing when it come in, which might take a few days.  

Next stop is a lake where I can whack a whole bunch to shake off my aggrivation and then ICAST!

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