We are planning our annual mid summer trip to Lake Champlain. The group of 5 boats and 9 guys are heading to Champlain on Friday 8/11/09. I am very excited to try and work some of the awesome weed fishing Champlain has to offer.  The group consist of guys from our club in which some have won some noteworthy events. We have some stiff competition in the club. We have a mixed bag of local anglers and some who compete and place in some large events such as ABA , Flw and Bass events held in MA,CT,VT,NH, and NY. I believe we will have a fun tournament on Saturday with a ketch/weigh and release format. As always the stakes will be a large as most FLW events with the losing team washing dishes from our Saturday night meal lol. I will try and post a full report early next week. Please do not forget to bring the sponge and pomolive!   

bmrev01 said:

However I must mention we did not watch any other boat land a fish? I was told by another angler they where shaking them off and not using hooks lol ( for practice purpose) I have to mention that must have be a very  slow weekend, my non fishing friends think I am crazy for releasing all of my fish I have to tell them about the shaking non hooking fishermen! is this similar to golfing 18 holes without balls? 

    I will try to explain this quickly for those that have never fished a multiple day tournament for big dollars. When many touring pro's from any circuit i.e. FLW Tour, Elites, Stren etc. practice the first day they usually hook up with a few fish in several areas to see what quality fish they are into. If they establish a solid pattern everything they do after that day changes. The follow days of practice they will look for several areas similar to the areas they found fish the first day of practice. They will also test the patten they discovered that first day. They will do this without setting the hook or fish without hooks all together. As long as the pattern is holding (they are getting bites) they will continue looking for alternate areas in this manner. They will also look for a few alternative patterns as a three or four day tournament requires options. Some pros however take a different approach. Anthony Gagliardi for example will pull into an area during practice and catch just a few fish regardless of quality. He will not try to setup a pattern or refine his technique. He waits until the tournament starts to do this. He returns to the areas he believes to be the best available and then begins to try to figure out what the fish want. So all though the methods very for some, most do shake fish or fish with no hooks. I do this quite often myself especially if I get a solid pattern developing. When your practicing for big money your not out there in practice to catch a lot of fish to have a fun day. Your out there to make money and for some a living. Fun fishing waits for none tournament fishing. You can have fun fishing tournaments but when your out to make a paycheck especially to feed the family you sacrifice fun catching fish in practice.

Henry Fristik