Snowden's Tournament Journal - Grand Lake

Brian Snowden’s Tournament Journal 2007

www.missouriangling.com

Event: Bassmaster Elite

When: June 18-24

Where: Grand Lake, OK

Finish: 56th

Winnings: $0.00



With a tremendous amount of rain prior to the event, Grand had risen to 750, but the GRDA had every floodgate open so the lake was falling rapidly. The lake stabilized at 746.5 and maintained a fairly constant level throughout the event. The first day of practice was spent from Honey Creek to the Dam. I worked main lake and secondary points with a DD14 and DD22 in chartreuse and blue. I also fished a Carolina rig and football jig. The morning started out nicely with seven or eight keepers with one over four pounds on a crankbait. The rest of the day the fish were caught on a Carolina rig brushhog with the largest fish being just under four pounds. The second day of practice was spent shallow flipping and pitching to the willows in the Sailboat Bridge area. It was amazing how many bites and how many fish could be caught out of the willows. The only problem I had was size, most of them were only two pounds with an occasional four pounder. After seeing this I spent my final day practicing around the Duck Creek area fishing off-shore structure with a Carolina rig and football jig.



My game plan was all laid out. I would start shallow and catch a 12-13 pound limit out of the willows. The first morning I caught 12 pounds by 7:30, and I headed down lake to try and improve my weight. I caught 10-15 keepers down lake, but I was unable to get the quality bites needed to have a good stringer. I finished the day with only 13 pounds. The second day of the tournament I started out in the willows again and caught two three pounders and a limit by seven. I then went back down the lake and caught several fish on a Carolina rig brushhog. My co-angler started fishing a 3/16 oz. shaky head with a Zoom trick worm and caught a 6.5 pound bass, so I decided to also try the shaky head. It produced one more three pounder for myself. I finished the event with 26.9 pounds and ended up in 56th place.



By Brian Snowden