Last night my partner Troy and I fished the Tri-State Bait & Tackle tournament on pool 7. Figuring the high skies and bright sun would have the big Largemouth buried into the thickest of thick slop we headed for one of my best areas.
Our first fish surprisingly came off a weed edge of sparse pads and milfoil on a home-made jig. On a side note, the Dogfish sure love those jigs I tied as I donated a few jigs to the mighty bowfin. 
We fished the slop for over an hour covering every inch we thought might hold fish only to find no one home. Working our way back out of the area, we boated a nice fish on a June Bug Brush Hog flipping a weed edge. After wasting a third of our time for two mediocre fish we decided to make a change and run down stream towards the dam looking for some nicer fish. Not too long after we pulled into the spot Troy says “is that your bait over there?” Ummmm no, that’s large school of bass. No joke, those fish were feeding like Stripers. There were minnows flying out of the water and fish busting all over the surface. We pulled about eight 2 lb’ers on chug bugs, spinnerbaits and buzz baits before they disappeared. After a few more casts trying to coax another fish into biting we headed up to try some banks with grass, milfoil and some slop. This pattern was our best for the evening. The Largemouth were cruising the edges and hammering our offerings. We ended up pulling two more nice fish and calling it an evening.
Not knowing exactly what we had and feeling like it would not be enough to win, we trailered the boat and weighed our fish. We had a total weight of 10.68 lbs. Normally this kind of weight would be good for the bottom end of the pay-off spectrum. But, as luck would have it we ended up with 1st place for the night. 
There was over 20 boats entered in the tourney. It was a tough bite for some.
Keeping it in the family, my Dad and Uncle weighed in 5 fish just over 9 lbs for last place. Surprisingly enough, they found the very same Largemouth we did feeding on top and couldn’t get them to bite. Weird…..
Lastly, I’d like to note that the May Fly hatch has begun and should only get worse from here on out. Some of the trees on the islands we fished around were covered with May Flys. Can the dog days of summer be far behind?
