Peter Larmand Journal Entries
Cranberry/Dog Lake, July 29, 2006
Stop number 3 on the Renegade Bass Tournament schedule brings us to Cranberry and Dog Lakes, part of the Rideau system. The launch and weigh in were out of Seeley’s Bay public launch.
We spent a couple of days prefishing for this event. As we are still trying to get into the top 30 as it’s the top 30 that qualify for the season ending 2 day Classic on the Ottawa River. Coming into this tournament we were sitting in 46 th place just over 3 lbs out of 30 th place. So we knew we had our work cut out for us but with some hard work we might be able to pull it off.
Pre fishing went pretty good. We were able to locate fish in the deeper water 10 – 14 foot range. We found these fish in Cranberry Lake, even though we caught fish in other lakes Cranberry was where the quality fish were caught.
So tournament morning we wanted to go to Cranberry Lake but unfortunately, we couldn’t fit under the swing bridge so we had to wait until 8:30 until the bridge would open up. So we decided to fish parts of Whitefish Lake until we could get across. There is a no wake zone coming out of Seeley’s Bay heading towards Whitefish Lake that seems to take an eternity to get through but we finally made it through and were able to get going to our location near Jones Falls locks. We were able to catch our first keeper a solid 2 pounder. Not an amazing fish but a good way to start off the day.
It’s 9:00 and we want to get into Cranberry so that we can go and fish the spots that we found during Pre fishing. So back through the never ending no wake zone and finally we are in Cranberry lake and on our spot. With 3 other boats around we start fishing in 10 foot of water. We were able to boat 2 other keepers. No size however, 1.7 lbs and the other one we had to measure about 3 times just to make sure that it was 12 inches. We run back up to the top of these humps and drift back down again. When all of sudden my partner Darrell Medaglia says “Pete get the net” we get this monster in the boat. We are thinking that it will touch 5 pounds. We continue to fish this location for the rest of the day. We were able to cull that little 12 incher put we could never cull that little 1.7 lbs bass.
We were the first flight to weigh in and our weight is 14.54 lbs for a 5 fish limit good enough for 15 th place. The big one was 5.26 lbs. Good enough for big fish of the tournament. If we were able to catch another quality fish and cull that 1.7 lbs bass, we might have been in the money. However, it was nice to get a cheque for big fish and our first plaque from Renegade Bass. This finish moved us up in the overall standings to 33 rd. Just over a pound out of 30 th with 2 tournaments remaining.
Next event is on Big Rideau Lake on August 12 th out of Safari Marina. Hopefully, we can keep the momentum going and have another solid finish.
See you on the water.Peter Larmand July 31, 2006
