Citgo Bassmasters Northern Open
Oneida Lake, New York September 15-17, 2005
Bob Places 5th!!!!
To fish a tournament on your home waters is one thing but to fish a Bassmasters Tournament on your home waters is a completely different story and that was exactly the case when the Bassmasters rolled into Oneida Lake.
I consider Oneida Lake to be my home lake since I spend about 100 hours a summer on this lake and live within 30 minutes of the lake. Oneida Lake is known as a walleye lake but as the Bassmasters found out it’s bass fishing is unbelievable! The smallmouth fishery gets the most pressure but it’s largemouth fishery can be fabulous since for me largemouth was a vital part of my success in this event.
I will take you through each day of practice and each day of the tournament.
You can actually say I started practicing on Oneida when bass came in season but my first day of preparing for the tournament was on Sunday September 11 with my wife Joann. We concentrated our efforts in the western part of the lake. Fishing shallow most of the day we had found that the largemouth’s were tucked in tight underneath the docks. The lure of choice was a june bug colored Assalt Salt Stix rigged on a 4/0 Xpoint hook.
The first official practice day of the tournament was Monday August 12, 2005 and my practice partner was pro angler and tv show host, Joe Thomas. I met Joe at his hotel around 6am and we was on the lake by 6:30. We had unusually hot weather for Central New York in the middle of September with daily highs reaching 90. We got both a smallmouth and largemouth pattern going throughout the day. The smallmouth coming on tubes and the largemouth hitting jigs. In the evening we stumbled upon the strongest pattern yet and that was both the large and smallmouth were attacking top water baits, this pattern continued all day the following practice days even in the bright sun with 90 degree temperatures. At this time we only had to find the areas that were holding the better fish since the topwater pattern is something that held up all over the lake.
Practicing three days from sun up to sun down with Joe Thomas was both and honor and privilege. Joe is such a professional both on and off the water it certainly was awesome to spend so much time with him.
Joe with a nice Oneida Lake smallmouth
Another beautiful smallmouth
Bob with a monster Oneida Lake largemouth!
There was actually two reasons for practicing with Joe Thomas, one was obvious and that was to prepare for the tournament but the second reason was to gather information, photos etc. for a national bass fishing magazine which will be published in early 2006. I will announce the magazine etc. when it goes to publication, all I can say is this is one awesome project to work on with Joe Thomas.
My day one partner was professional angler and owner of Hawghead Baits, Rick Andersen of Pennsylvania. Rick had also found the topwater bite very strong in practice except the area he was fishing was within sight of the launch ramp. On this day top waters, 4” Assalt Salt Stix, 5” Kid Lizard Kidz Sticks and Unleaded Tackle spinnerbaits played a roll. Both Rick and myself was calling an hour after the tournament began and ended up catching about 30 keepers apiece. My total for the day was 12 pounds 2 ounces. I ended the day in 13th place. All I can say is that Rick was an awesome partner
Bob and Day 1 partner Rick Andersen
On day two I drew professional angler John Chaffo from Pennsylvania. I knew this would be a great day since John and I had a lot in common including John was from the Pittsburgh area where I was born and raised and my family still resides there. On day two Oneida Lake grew ugly. The wind was coming out of the east at 15-25mph and since Oneida Lake lies east to west this turned the lake into an ocean most of the main lake areas were unfishable. We ended up in the east end of the lake near the town of Sylvan Beach. On this day the smallmouth were still feeding on top but this day they wanted the brand new buzzbait from Cavitron, white with a red blade and red hook. My entire goal on this day was to catch enough to make the top 50 cut. There were numerous times that smallmouth blew up on the bait and missed it which I thought may keep me from making the top 50 but as it turned out everyone else had an extremely tough day. My total for the day was 7 pounds 15 ounces. I finished in 10th place and made the top 50 cut to fish on Saturday.
Bob and day 2 partner John Chaffo
The awesome week continued as I found out that for day 3 I was paired with my day 1 partner Rick Andersen. After the day I had with him on day 1, I could not help but be extremely confident going into the third and final day. On day three Rick and I returned to our day one area only to find that the wind on day two had muddied the water in the area. We went to the west part of lake near Brewerton where the wind did not have an effect on the clarity of the water. Rick was throwing a fluke and I was throwing Assalt Salt Stix and Kidlizard Kidz Sticks along with Unleaded Spinnerbaits. Rick caught an easy limit on the fluke and then something very strange started to happen as quick is as Rick caught a limit on the fluke they turned off and turned onto the Salt Stix drenched with Megastrike, Green Pumpkin and Junebug were the colors of the day and even sharing them with Rick. I cannot thank him enough since he basically stopped fishing with about an hour and a half left to go in the tournament to push me to my limits. He kept telling me “You have a chance to win this”. He certainly pushed me further than I thought I was ever capable of and cannot thank him enough. All of the fish all week long were caught on Kistler Rods and Tica Reels spooled with McCoy Line. At the end of the day I had 5 largemouths weighing 11 pounds 9 ounces giving me a total of 31 pounds 10 ounces for the tournament which was good enough for 5th place.
Looking back on the week I was very fortunate to have fished with Joe Thomas in practice and then drawing two guys like Rick and John. I cannot wait until the Bassmasters Elite Series rolls into Oneida Lake next July.
Bob on stage at the Bassmasters Tournament
