I fished in a night tournament on Friday night, June 24. We finished up at 5 AM on Saturday morning.
I pulled up onto a point to start the night and made a few casts with a 1/2 oz. spinnerbait. I had put this particular bait together just a few hours before, while I was at home prepping for the tourney.
On the 4th or 5th cast of the night, I hooked into my first fish in about 6 feet of water. It smoked the spinnerbait as I let it flutter down toward the bottom. It was a decent fish and I was happy to start the night off with a good fish so quickly.
Since this fish hit out away from shore a bit, I made a few more casts in the 6 - 8 foot depth range. Within a few more casts, I had fish #2 in the boat. This one was over 4 lbs. Into my livewell it went. Because I have two livewells, this one went into my "no cull" livewell, since I didn't expect to be getting rid of it unless I had a 20+ lb. limit
A few minutes later, I hooked another big fish. This one looked to be close to 5 lbs. That one joined the other big one in the no cull tank
15 minutes into the night, I already have 3 very solid fish!
Based on the first 2 fish, I stuck to that 6 - 8 foot range and just kept on connecting with quality fish!
Within the first hour or so, I had my limit in the livewells. I estimated my weight to be between 13 and 14 lbs.
I stuck with this pattern for the rest of the night and upgraded my weight as I went.
When the night was over, I had 19.81 lbs, with a 4.82 lb. kicker fish for tourney lunker.
Oh, and that spinnerbait I made before the tourney? I literally wore it out on big fish. It got bent up really badly several times, and it finally broke in half in my hand somewhere around 3 AM, as I was trying to straighten it out one more time
Oh well. Better to break in my hand, than with a big fish on the other end
Here are my two biggest fish of the night.