Peter Larmand Journal Entries
Marbury MD May 14 & 15, 2005
The moment that I have been waiting for so patiently had finally arrived. I am leaving to Marbury Maryland to fish my first bass tournament of the year. I was fishing 2 tournaments that weekend. A BFL tournament and the first tournament of the ESPN Bassmaster weekend series…..both in the Northeast divisions.
Left Wednesday morning at 4:45 AM to make our way down to Marbury. 15 hours later, because we made a brief stop at the bass pro shops in Harrisburg PA, we arrived at the hotel.
Thursday morning we head to the launch and set out to do some prefishing. Overcast conditions but still very warm weather was the forecast for the day. Did some prefishing around the mouth of one of the major creeks that flow into the Potomac River. Fished mostly grass beds. Caught a small bass and a garpike. Unfortunately, didn’t have the camera with me because I would have liked to get a picture of the gar. It was the first one that I ever caught. No real size about 4 lbs. I can’t believe all of the teeth on that thing.
Friday cooler day still overcast decided to go up river as far as about 30 miles. We stopped at this one major creek flowing into the Potomac and fished some grass beds on the left hand side of the creek. Caught nothing. It turned out that we should have fished the right hand side of the creek coming in off of the main river. Anglers were catching fish there. Then we move up the river towards the Maryland D.C. border and fish a bay at the border. This is where we caught our keeper bass. Once again the minimum bass length is 15” until June 15th. Which at that time the minimum length drops to 12”. Bass weight about 3.5 lbs.
Saturday morning was the BFL tournament. I met up with my non-boating partner (drawn the evening before) at the launch. The day started out as overcast and windy. I decided to go back up the river to the where I caught the keeper. I figured it was my best chance since I knew that there were fish there. So up the river I go. It was probably that roughest water I have ever fished in. Made our way up the river. Took us about 40 minutes to get to where we wanted to go. Got to the spot and found out that there were some 12 boats in this one bay. It turns out that there were 5 tournaments going on that Saturday on the same body of water; and we worry about fishing pressure.?!?!?!
We caught some fish but they were all 14 or 14 ¾ inches. All too small to weigh-in but we were still catching fish. The key to catching them was to fish slowly, when you thought that you were going slowly enough you slowed it down even more. Tried all sorts of baits and techniques. Tried a drop shot rig, Carolina rig, crank bait, spinner bait, tiki-sticks, worms, lizards, grubs everything just couldn’t catch a keeper. We had to weight in at 2:30 and around noon, I broke the first cardinal rule in fishing…. never leave fish to find fish. We fired up the Optimax and down the river we went back to the creeks and fish the grass beds.
Get to the one grass bed near the launch and first cast catch a bass. Measure it and it too was 14 ¾ inches. Continued fishing until it was time to weigh-in and the announced that we had no fish.
Saturday evening attended the BASS meeting to find out my non-boating partner. Also got our boat number for the day and we were boat 96 out of 116. Hoping for a real good afternoon bite because we never left the launch until 6:45 and we get to fish until 3:00.
On Sunday I decided to just fish the grass beds with shallow running crankbaits and tiki-sticks. Went back up the river for about 20 miles to fish this creek that has some nice grass beds on it and about an hour into the day I get a bite. It hit hard, I thought it was a nice fish. It turned out to be a catfish. That's right, a catfish on a crankbait. I ended up catching two on a crankbait and my partner caught a catfish on a spinnerbait. Once again, we had no fish in the boat. We caught bass just no size.
Ran to another bay where you have to go under a bridge and then you have to get up on plane really quick or else you will not make it across the bay to a creek where once you are in the creek you can come down off of plane and you are into 3-4 foot of water. We caught no fish in that back creek so we went to leave and I was not fair enough into the creek channel and when I tried to get up on plane the boat just bogged down in the mud and weeds. Got the boat turned around and this time got the boat up on plane before getting out of the creek and was able to get across the bay without getting stuck.
Left that places for another creek and fish the mouth of the creek where it comes out onto the main river. It was 2:00 when I caught the 3 lbs 12 oz largemouth. Caught it on a doctored tiki-stick. It was a green pumpkin coloured but I dipped the tail into red dye. We had to weigh in at 3:00. We worked the creek mouth for the next 55 minutes before having to make the run back to the weigh-in.
I'm glad that I was able to weigh in a fish. I received some valuable points. Points I need to qualify for the regionals in October.
The fishing is different down there than what we are accustom to up here. The water clarity was about 1-2 foot. The biggest thing that I learned from this past weekend is never leave fish to find fish. I was fishing in the same areas and the winner of both tournaments; it's just that I didn't stick with it long enough. Fish that were caught were caught after making anywhere from 20 to 50 casts into the same spot. Fishing slow was the key. The slower the better.
It was a really experience, one that I will never forget. I have never fished in a tournament (as a boater) that big before. Now that I have all my nervousness out of the way and I understand the way it's run. I can concentrate more on the catching fish aspect of this game. I truly is a mind game when you see all of the guys with shirts, sponsors etc. and you have nothing. I know it's got nothing to do with whether or not you can catch fish but trust me when I say to you that this more psychological than you think it is.
We will play this game again next month on Cayuga Lake in New York.
Pete Larmand May 16, 2005