Beginning Bassin’
Left-coast
College Bassin’
Smallmouth
clear water, rocks and finesse tac- tics. Sounds just like most of my local lakes back home. I knew something good was going to happen at Lake Havasu, and of course I have visualized catching good smallmouth on Lake Havasu for a month, ever since our Lake Shasta tournament. That’s all I could do with the exception of drilling a hole in the ice just to go fishing. Plus, during our winter quarter, I’m bogged down with an overbooked class schedule so that I can take a lighter load during fishing season. Trav- eling from the frozen, snow covered wheat fields of Cheney, WA, the two teams of Eastern Washington Univer- sity set out on a flight for Las Vegas, Nevada. Right now you probably think we are donning shorts, count- ing our money, and getting ready for a college-style run down the strip at Las Vegas. No sir, we are loaded up with rod tubes, tackle bags, tourna- ment jerseys, and the rental keys to a “Vegas Hi-Roller” Kia Mini-Van. We are on a business trip, a trip to try and win the Lake Havasu FLW College Fishing Tourna- ment. I write this article as I am wedged like a sardine sitting on the college-budget middle seat on a Southwest flight. So much for the “Wanna Get Away”, I just want to move my arms.
By Nick Barr
Nobody on our two EWU teams has ever fished Lake Havasu before, so after the Lake Shasta tournament was finished, it was time to start calling around and networking to gain information on the lake. After doing hours of research and looking at Lake Havasu on our Navionics Charts Mobile App on our phones, we made sure to shoot an order into BassTackleDepot.com to get our Yamamoto Shad Shaped Worms, Rapala DT 14’s, Gamakatsu Drop Shot Hooks, Quickdrops Dropshot sinkers and 6 pound Sufix Fluo- rocarbon. Our two teams decided on a game plan. It included fish- ing points and then meet up in the shallows of the London Bridge area later in the day. The
first point we wanted fish in the morning, I a c - cidentaly blew straight across the shallow top of it on the trolling motor, unaware of the exact layout since I had never been there before. Af- ter exploring for 20-30 minutes or so, I began to see the huge mass of artificial structure, or cages, that everyone has been telling me about on Lake Havasu. Forgetting that there are Quagga and/or Zebra mussels all over the cages, I throw over to one and instantly break off. This was my first time ever fish- ing a lake with the now infamous mussels, I learned to re-tie quickly. Without much sun- light in the early morning, I see a bed with
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Summer 2012