I went into this tourney hoping to be able to do some sight fishing but once we got there and I saw how low and murky the water was I knew it wasn’t gonna be happening.

I started the day throwing a spook along the tules in the cove where we launched and got my first fish about 10 minutes into the day, a 13.5 inch keeper. I worked the spook all the way out to the end of the point leading into the cove for nothing else. I switched to a ¼ oz. white spinnerbait and immediately started getting hit. I had a quick limit by 7:00am. I continued fishing around the next couple of points and coves for an hour or so with no luck; it was all pretty shallow. I made my way back towards where we launched and picked up another fish on the blade from the same area I caught them at earlier, but it didn’t help. Then it was time to change up looking for some bigger fish, I crossed the lake and started fishing some deeper stuff with a Senko on the weed edges, and crankin a Super Shad Rap. Right away I missed 1 on a wacky rigged Senko. Another couple of hours went by with no bites so I made my way back to the point where I had caught all my fish earlier with the intention of dragging some plastic way out on the drop off at the end of the point. The wind picked up a little around 10:00 or so and I decided to toss the Shad Rap some more out there instead. I wasn’t having any luck straight crankin so I started ripping it. My first cast ripping and it’s fish on and a good one too! I figured it was around 5lb’s. I finally had a kicker and was able to cull the little spook fish I caught first thing. Next cast fish on but I dumped that one. I managed to get 4 fish ripping the Shad Rap but was only able to cull 1 more for a couple of ounces. I ended the day with about 12 ¾ lb. and was actually kind of surprised to win.

Contra Loma is a neat little lake, I would really like to fish it sometime when the water is up. I’ll definitely be back!

Mitch