Went away for a 2 week vacation to The shores of Winnisquam, a lake I have always enjoyed to fish, known for its 2-3 lb smallie population. My club also had a tourny scheduled there for the middle weekend so I thought I would get prepared for it. Long and the short of the 11 days on the water only resulted in 10 bass caught TOTAL! I stuggled from the start, trying to stay away from spots I knew and explored other areas I did more ruling out water then finding any new areas to fish. Only fish caught were nice uns, all 2-3 lbs, but what bothered me was the total absence of any smaller fish, with no short fish taken ( or even seen). What I did learn was that 9 of the bass were on weed , either the few lily type pads I could locate or in pockets of cabbage. 1 was caught in 3ft of water along a sandy shoreline. (appears that the same fish was in the exact same spot 4 days later for the tourny). Also deadsticking the senko is the only way I got bit on that bait, and the lizards were dragged verry slowly. I resorted to digging into my tackle using spinnerbaits, topwaters, frogs, cranks,swimbaits,dropshot, jigs,spidergrubs, tubes, all without any success, with all bass coming on c-rigged lizards and 6" senkos wacky style. Tourny day was a tough fish as well with no limits caught, I was able to score a win with 3 bass, a 2.75lber that took lunker, as well as a 2lb sm and a 2lb lm for just over 6 lbs total. Others had 1 or 2 smaller fish and goose eggs were numerous. Great weeks spent with my bride and a very relaxing vacation was had on a lake that is usually a lot better then I found it to be.
The ranking score is used to determine how "popular" a trip or location is. It is calculated based off of a weighted average of the number of reviews and the user ratings. For example, a trip with 2 reviews and an average rating of 5 will have a lower "ranking score" than one with 10 reviews and an average rating of 4. This is because even though the first trip has a better average rating, it has not been reviewed as much as the second trip, so it is not as "popular". In the future we may modify the ranking score to take in additional factors, such as the number of views, comments, and photos.
