Peter Larmand Journal Entries
1000 Islands Clayton New York July 10, 2005
Stop #3 of a 5 tournament series. Clayton New York provided the location and the mighty St. Lawrence River provided the back drop. This was a tournament that I was looking forward to. Looking forward to improving my position in the standings. Trying to finish the series in the top 30 so that I could qualify for the regionals in October on Kerr Reservoir in Henderson North Carolina.
Started pre-fishing Friday morning. Beautiful day and after hearing about how great a smallmouth fishery the St. Lawrence is, I decided that I was going to target smallmouth for this tournament. Friday was a pretty good day fishing wise. Caught lots of fish just nothing with any substantial size. I caught between 14 and 17 bass all day. Caught them from a foot of water to about 37 feet deep. However, I was finally able to put something together with points and steep drop offs. My total weight for 5 fish on Friday was just under 12 lbs. I figured that depending on what I find on Saturday, I was going to stick with this pattern and see what happens come Sunday.
Saturday rolled around and so did the weather. Woke up to pouring rain. Conditions completely different than yesterday's. Went out and decided to fish the Canadian side of the river to see if I could add more locations to my pattern or perhaps develop a secondary pattern in case the smallmouth pattern didn't pan out for me. Unfortunately, I only caught a few fish and again only 1 with any size.
So Sunday, I decided to fish the points and deep drop offs that I had found on Friday. The quality bites would be slow but I figured that I could catch at least a limit before noon and then I could go looking to cull into my limit. We were in the first flight and we were boat 10. Leaving at 5:15 . Well, by 9:00 AM I had 2 smallmouth in the box. A small 3 pounder and a dink. Went to the other spots that I had caught fish from and nothing. I came back to this point just around from the launch site and I got 3 more hits. I broke off 2 and lost the other at the boat. I was fishing with 8 lbs line on a 1/4 oz black jig head with a bait that I had made for me in a black/blue flake.
Weighed in with only 3 keepers for a total of 5.30 lbs. Good enough for 75th place. The only good news that came out of this is that I wasn't the only one that had a bad event. I climbed 13 spots in the standings from 88th to 65th place overall. With 2 tournaments left, Champlain in August and back to the St. Lawrence in September. I will have my work cut out to try and finish in the top 30. With some hard work and a little luck from the man above I will qualify for the regionals in my rookie season on the circuit. This is a goal that I have put for myself and I hope to achieve it this season.
Take Care,
Peter Larmand
July 12, 2005
