CSFL Chippawa

Ok, ok I said that I was staying away from big water for the rest of the year cause of what happened at the Everstart 1000 Island event, but the thought of my year already being done and its only September just depressed me. I got a call from my good friend Andy Pallotta of the CSFL asking me if I was fishing the southwestern tour of the CSFL, I said I was honestly thinking about it. Then talking to Casey Ruttan he expressed great interested in doing it. I think it was a "hell yeah!" And with a call from one of my best friends Danny Dunn saying he was going that sealed it. I figured we would be fishing deep dropshoting smallies in big waves. So that's what we did for the 2 days of practise and caught very little. Come Saturday morning I was figuring we would weight in a small limit every day and hope we would get enough points for next years Classic. Talking to Casey in the morning before blast off we came up with the idea that we would try something completely different because everything we were doing wasn't working. So shallow we will go! Where I don't know. lol! We will leave the Chippawa river and hit lake Erie and as soon as I see something I like we'll stop and fish. We were 1 mile out in the lake when I pull hard right on the north shore stopped and started fishing. We moved up to 4" and I started whipping my watermelon red and black senko around. I figured if nothing else this thing always catches fish. We weren't there 5 minutes when I caught the first smallie and started seeing all kinds of smallies swim around the boat, from 2 to 6 pounders. But the wouldn't bite, the close ones never do too spooked I guess but it was hard not to chase them so we did, lol. As we moved to a little deeper water, like 6 to 8" we started dropshoting them using Xzone slammers. We spent the whole day moving along this break on the gps going deeper then shallow throwing senko's and dropshoting picking up fish as we went along. Day one which was a wildcard event we ended up with 5 smallies for 14.25 lbs, which I was happy with cause of such a bad practise. I figured if we could do this again tomorrow we could get some good points and then work on Lake St. Clair in 2 weeks.

 Laying in bed that night I thought about the fish we saw and what we did wrong. Tomorrow I will not chase the fish I see no matter how big they are and just concentrate on those fish cruising around  far out in front of the boat. I'll long bomb my senko out as far as I could get it. It worked and we culled the whole day. At the end of the day I was hoping for 17 lbs and Casey was think closer to 18. Well we were both shocked with 5 smallies for 19.65 lbs and 3rd place.

 My Evinrude ran fantastic all week long and the Ranger handled perfectly. The bite was so soft that there is no way I would have felt those fish without my St. Croix Legend Tournament Drop Shot/ Finesse rod. We weighted in 3 fish and caught so many on Xzone Slammers it was incredible. I would like to thank JB's Fishing Depot for keeping me supplied with Slammers and Senko's, they always have a good stock of both. My partner for this event was Casey Ruttan, a great stick and a solid angler. He was able to adapt to whatever was happening and act without me having to ask. I would have not been able to pull these fish without him. And of course none of this would be possible with out the funny man Russell Peters. I would also like to thank Bay Marine for keeping me on the water, Sirius Satellite Radio, Evinrude, JB's Fishing Depot, Xzone Baits, everyone at CPI Pictures & Management for all you do, and St. Croix Rods.

 Well I'm off to prepare for Lake St. Clair, I've never been there before so I have a lot of homework to do. Take care and tight lines everyone.

Mike.