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Tournament Lessons from Newton Lake

With two full days to practice for our mid-March tournament, my partner and I were confident that we could figure out a successful game plan. After all, we not only had many years of experience fishing on Newton Lake , but also had finished in the money at several previous tournaments.

Newton is a "hot water" lake, heated by a coal-fired power plant. The warmer water temperatures make it an early season destination for Illinois anglers. The 1750-acre lake is v-shaped, with the warm water entering the West arm at the north end of the lake. There are a few areas of isolated rip rap, mostly near the upper end of the hot arm, but the primary cover is wood in the form of stumps, fallen trees, and planted brush piles. There is some scattered shoreline grass, but no weed beds, docks or bridges. A legal keeper bass at Newton must measure 18 inches.

Thursday morning was windy with bright skies. A spring cold front had blown through Illinois on Wednesday night so the weather was no surprise. We expected the fishing to be tough during the two practice days, but hopefully improving by Saturday.

We decided to divide the lake in half, fishing the hot water arm on Thursday and the cold arm on Friday. We figured that the first day after the cold front would be better spent in the dirtier, warmer water in the hot arm. Friday we would fish the cold arm, compare the results from both practice days, and make a decision about where to begin the tournament based on the results.

After two days of practice, one in each arm, we had boated a total of only five fish. We had caught three in the hot arm and two in the cold arm, but one of those two was a nice 4-pound, 5-ounce keeper. We obviously had no clue where to locate feeding fish, but we felt that crankbaits were a key, since all five of the fish were caught with them.

We had limited our search for bass to concentrated wood cover in ten feet of water or less, but had fished a wide variety of main lake points and pockets, as well as secondary points and pockets in coves and the backs of coves. We didn't know much, but we did know that our fish had come from the main lake areas on crankbaits.

It wasn't as though we had not tried a wide variety of baits. We came up empty on jigs, spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, topwater, and others.

I've always prided myself on making a game plan for fishing based on what I know, not what I don't know. We decided to start the tournament in the cold arm at the spot where we caught the keeper, with lots of crankbaits tied on our lines.

Tournament morning saw a major weather change on the way. After two post-cold front days, a storm front was approaching with thunder, lightening, and heavy rain. Even if the storm somehow managed to avoid us, it would be a dark, overcast day.

We drew for our take-off number and got number 25 of 32 boats (typical for us), but were glad when we saw only three other boats head for the cold arm of the lake. We would at least have our meager spot to ourselves.

The thunderstorm arrived shortly after takeoff and we fished in heavy rain and lightening for 1-2 hours before the day settled in to occasional light rain and dark skies. This weather was radically different than our two practice days.

The rest of the story is predictable. We failed to boat an 18-inch keeper, but did catch 10 fish, three of which measured between 16-17 inches. We went to the weigh-in confident that our experience would be typical with few heavy bags of fish showing up at the scales.

We were humbled when 18 of the 32 teams brought bag after bag of keepers to the scales. Those teams weighed a total of 70 fish with more than 21 pounds being required to even finish in the money at fourth place. The winners had more than 25 pounds and big bass for the day was 6.74 pounds.

Our dismal showing on a day that was a good fishing day forced us to reflect on why we were doing the wrong thing in the wrong area all day. We knew the lake well and had experienced many successful days there in the past. Our practice days were poor and didn't provide us with much of a starting point.

So what should we have done differently? Neither of us believes in selecting fishing areas on a whim. We try to eliminate unproductive water and baits to arrive at a game plan.

Our three and one-half hour ride home gave us plenty of time to arrive at some conclusions.

1. Usually, our experience has been that tournaments are held on post-cold front days that are very tough fishing days. Typically, good practice days precede poor tournament days. Rarely, does it seem to happen in reverse, but this was one of those times.

We should have considered that the fish would turn on during the approaching weather change and discarded our game plan based on two totally different, post-cold front days. We should have planned to be in areas that had produced for us during previous trips to Newton in similar weather conditions at this time of year.

We have dozens of log books of previous days on Newton and should have trusted them to be our starting point, since the weather change would obviously change the fishing. If the weather Saturday would have been identical to the practice days, our approach may have been more successful.

It may also have helped to scour our logs for baits that worked under the severe weather conditions and check our "keeper" map for areas that produce numbers of big fish during this time of year. Sometimes practice isn't as important as experience.

2. A large part of the fun of tournament fishing for my partner and I is putting together the puzzle. We would never follow other contestants to fishing areas.

However, our delight that most teams headed up the hot arm may have been misplaced. It is preferable to be in an area that is full of feeding fish and have to contend with other boats than to have an unproductive area all to ourselves.

If we had decided because of our fish logs, keeper map, or practice days to fish the hot arm, convinced that our chances were best there, then the presence of other teams should not affect our decision. Sometimes, while running away from the competition, you run away from the fish. I say this fully realizing that many tournaments have been won by those finding isolated fishing spots in remote areas. We should keep an open mind that the scenario works both ways.

3. I try to not break any of the cardinal rules that I have established for fishing any lake during a specific season of the year unless I have an excellent reason. I don't establish many "rules" for fishing lakes, but one of them is to fish the hot arm of Newton Lake during March and the cold arm during April. This is a guideline based on years of experience and results documented in my fishing logs. I broke that rule this trip, but didn't have a sound reason.

When the weather and sky conditions are radically different during the practice days than the tournament days, rely on your experience on the lake, as well as your knowledge of bass behavior and seasonal location. My experience told me to fish the hot arm so I should have stayed there unless circumstances forced me to make an exception.

Practice can put you in a position to win many tournaments, but you must also be open-minded enough to know when to throw it out the window and rely on your experience.