JACK WOLLITZ Next day, different tactics
Anglers who force feed bass the same tactics over and over would do well to consider the experience I shared last weekend with Ron Learn Jr.
Learn, of Hubbard, is one of the region's top tournament bass fishermen. Just recently he and his tourney partner, Rod First, scored back-to-back victories at Berlin and Mosquito Creek reservoirs.
He made an offer I couldn't refuse for a trip last Saturday to Shenango Reservoir and I reciprocated the next day with an invitation to join me at Mosquito.
What we learned was eye-opening.
Proved stature
Before I reveal the lessons, however, I need to confess up front that Learn proved his champion stature by trouncing me at Shenango, somewhere in the vicinity of 15 to 1. I blamed the Coppertone scent I must have inadvertently applied to the tubes I was pitching.
OK, that's credit where it's due. Now for the good stuff.
Saturday and Sunday were remarkably similar days, considering the unsettled weather that has been blowing over the area this spring. The sun was high in the crystal blue sky, and a breeze ruffled the surface.
At Shenango, we found most of the largemouths tucked up against the bank between willows in a foot of water. We connected mostly with bucks, and Learn found them more than willing to dart out and eat his Texas-rigged tube worm.
Around 11 that morning, he pitched the same bait into the shady crook of a waterlogged tree and set the hook into the jaw of the day's best fish, a female largemouth that weighed 3.25 pounds.
One would think our shallow-water pattern would hold up 24 hours later on a lake only 15 miles due west of Shenango. But Mosquito yielded its bass under completely different circumstances.
Our first fish Sunday was a buck that gobbled my crankbait after it clipped the edge of a weed line off a main lake point. The second was a 3-pounder that slurped in my tube a good 30 feet off the bank in a few scraggly strands of milfoil.
We moved quickly around Mosquito Sunday morning and found largemouths willing to eat spinnerbaits and crankbaits worked far from the thick shoreline cover for which the lake is noted.
Shenango and Mosquito - two lakes so close in proximity, but so far in terms of productive bassin' patterns last weekend.
Our two days proved you can take nothing for granted when it comes to figuring out the fish.
ESPY nominees
Tiger Woods, Jeff Gordon and Roger Clemens might take ESPN's annual ESPY sports awards for granted, but the bass world is buzzin' about two of this year's nominees.
They are Kevin VanDam, the reigning BASS Masters Classic champion and currently ranked No. 1 in the world of bass fishing, and Rick Clunn, a four-time Classic winner considered one of the legends of pro angling. ESPN, which owns and operates B.A.S.S. and its CITGO Bassmaster Tournament Trail, naturally has decided it would be good to shine the spotlight on outdoor sports.
VanDam and Clunn certainly are worthy ESPY nominees. But there's no guarantee an angler will win the outdoor sports competitor category. Also up for the ESPY are Mel Lentz, a Stihl Timbersports champ, and Jerry the Big Air Dog, gold medalist in the canine leaping competition at ESPN's Great Outdoor Games.
My guess is the ESPY will go to VanDam, who is to tournament bass fishing what Tiger Woods has been to golf. But if the cynics are correct and our world is going to the dogs, then who knows?
Watch for the winner when the ESPY show airs at 9 p.m. July 10 on ESPN.
jwollitz@shermanassoc.com