I had a decent practice and ended up catching fish just about everywhere I went as both the smallmouth and largemouth in the lake were in all phases of the spawn. My best patterns were swim jigs in the grass, pitching wood with a jig and fishing for bedding fish. Having never been there I really didn't know what to expect for weights. Last years Bass Nation event was won with around a 15lb average and most had 10-12lb bags, but this year was a different story and the fishing was much better.
The first day I weighed 11lbs even and was around the middle of the standings. I caught tons of fish but they were all basically identical between 2-2.5lbs. The leaders had just over 16 so the weights were packed pretty tight and I was really still in it. I went into the second day doing the same thing and a 3.5lb fish on my last cast brought me to 12.5lbs. Entering the final day I had moved up some but had a big hill to climb as my team was leading the state competitions and three of the top 5 were in my state. I had my best bag on the final day at over 14lbs so I moved up again. Still not to the top 2 it takes to move on to nationals but I was happy to improve each day as most people did the opposite.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised with Noxon and the Trout Creek, MT area. I would recommend it to anyone as it was a fun lake with nice people in the area.
Advertising