1st Place and Big Bass on Holiday Shores
My buddy Steve Grizzle called me up about fishing a jack pot tournament out at Holiday Shores. I didn't have anything going on last Sunday so I decided to come out and fish. It's probably my favorite time of the year to fish from late fall to early spring so I wanted to get out. I had not been on the water since the FLW Regional on Lake Chickamauga and I had been going through fishing withdraws. Holiday shores is only 430 acres and it's a private community lake. They have a bass club called the Tiki Bass Club that fish the lake every weekend. Typically they only fish the lake from end of Feb to September but they decided to put on a tournament.
It was a balmy 30 degrees at take off so we only ended up having 5 boats. The fishing was really slow to say the least. I ended up catching two bass which was good enough for taking first place and big bass. One other boat had one fish. My fish were big enough that we didn't even have to weigh them in. It was a winner take all event so we ended up taking everyone's money. It was only 170 bucks but anytime you can make money fishing you can count yourself as being lucky. I grew up fishing little pot tournaments like that on some of the lakes around Truman State where I went to college. You can make them as competitive as you want to be but some of the lakes die hard fishermen where in the tournament so anytime you can win an event big or small it's a good time.
Along with the bass I also caught one of the biggest common carp in my lifetime. I've caught some big carp before while bass fishing but this carp was probably the biggest or second biggest I've ever caught. It was a battle reeling it in on just 8lb test line and it hardly fit in the net. I got some 8lb test that I've been using for the past year and it's been pretty good to me. It's super strong stuff and doesn't break the bank. It's made it so I'm not afraid to do battle with a spinning rod in hand in pretty much any situation.