Practice Day 1

I was able to get out on Saturday for a day of prefishing and it was pretty successful. The fishing was extremely slow and I only caught 2 fish, but I took in a lot of information that should help me later on in the week. We launched out of Jackson's Point and fished a couple points near there for the first couple of hours. One lost fish after a few turns of the handle is all we had to show for it. The water was the clearest I have ever seen it. Visibity was 20 feet or more. We fished from 30 feet into about 12 or so on the first spot.

After no fish we moved down the lake and fished one of the few spots I had fished in the fall before. It took a couple minutes to find it as I didn't have the waypoint, but once we got on it, it looked a lot better than I remembered. Lots of rock and a significant depth change. Our first drift over it I caught this fish that was just around 5 lbs.

After unhooking this one, I cast my bait back out there and put away the scale and camera. When I picked up my rod there was weight on it. Checked it quickly to make sure it wasn't a snag and it wasn't! Set the hook and this fish actually felt a lot bigger than the last one. It was a longer fish, but not nearly as fat. This one came in at 4lbs 13 oz. Decent fish, but not really what will make a difference in this tournament. At best this is hopefully going to turn out to be a backup spot.

We made a couple more drifts on this spot with different lures and didn't get a bite. The water temp was 57°F which is around prime jerkbait temperature so we moved in shallow and fished some Rapala XRaps and XRap Shads for a while but didn't get any takers. All of the bites we had so far were in a very specific depth range so we focused on that for the majority of the day. On our way out to a deep water shoal the Lowrance lit up with arches over top of unmarked hump. We turned around and drove over it a couple of times and there were some specifically positioned fish on the structure. Fish like this are usually very easy to pick off with a drop shot rig. We fished it for a good while without a bite. Its frustrating when you can see them but they won't bite. That happens so much on Lake Simcoe!

For the rest of the day we moved around from 8-40 feet and didn't have much success. I don't think we even marked a fish on the Lowrance graph for the rest of the day. We ended up on Georgina Island to finish out the day and I caught my first Simcoe Goby.

I won't be able to get out until Wednesday again, but I don't think that is a bad thing. The weather is not looking good for Tuesday. Hard winds from the north, rain, and freezing temperatures. All week is not looking great weather wise, and tournament day looks like it will be a repeat of last year-Nasty. So I have 2 days this week to go over what I learned on Saturday and make a practice plan around that.

The wild card in this event will be if the lake turns over before Saturday. The odds of that are good if you ask me! Check back later in the week for more reports

Lawren

www.rapala.com