Derek’s Fishing Adventures: Brandon Belt Tournament Lake Conroe
My two friends Parker and Garrett came to stay with me this weekend for the Brandon Belt tournament on Lake Conroe. Parker and Garrett were on a team and Stephen, my boss and I were on a team. Several of my friends fished in this tournament that I had fished with in prior years.
Day 1: After blastoff Stephen and I drove off into the orange and yellow sunrise heading to our first spot of the day. In the first 5 minutes of pulling up, I caught our first keeper on a Chatterbait. A couple of minutes went by and boom! Stephen caught our second keeper of the day. His fish ended up being our biggest fish of the day, which was nice to get, first thing in the morning. Then we caught 7 more small fish that were not quite keepers. Since it was getting later in the day with not much size in the live well, I decided to call an audible and run to the opposite side of the lake in search of some better quality fish.
We ran to 4 different spots while we were down there but still only managed to catch small ones. It was getting late and we knew we needed to turn this thing around. We then decided to run back to where we were and fished it with different techniques than we used in the morning. We didn’t get a bite for 30 minutes and we started to lose hope. But then, BANG!!! We caught our 3rd keeper of the day. After that bite we got bit another 6 times throughout the next 45 minutes quickly turning our tournament day around. Today was a perfect example of why you never give up until the buzzer! We caught our 5 fish limit weighing 14.04 pounds.
Day 2: It was a very windy day today. We started in the same place as we did the day before. We fished different places in that big area, catching four fish by 10 a.m. After that we ran to a different place to expand upon our pattern. The first cast on this spot we caught a keeper. Threw our lines back in and caught 2 more small ones. After we had a small limit in the box, we decided to take a risk and fish new water. We rolled up to the spot and casted our lines. Stephen and I caught 8 fish, culling 4 of our fish. I caught one more small fish on the last cast of the day. We ended up catching a nicer bag today for 16.77 pounds. Stephen and I had a fun day of fishing. After we weighed in, I met Brandon Belt. We swapped fishing stories. THROW IT OUT, POP IT IN, FISH ON!!!
