 On June 4-5, Bluewave Pro Striper Team “StriperCrew” does what it takes to claim the NSBA Gold Cup tournament win at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.
Pre-fishing day 1 (only day)
Driving from Missouri all through the night and showing up in time to put their Bluewave 244 Magnum in the water, team StriperCrew begins their 1st and ONLY day of prefishing.
Captian Paul Giesenhagen spent most of the day bouncing back and forth up and down the lake trying to locate schools of stripers. With limited time, and never being on the lake before, Paul burned through a tank of gas and all the daylight he could get.
When he returned to the docks, his father, Paul Giesenhagen I asked how it looked, “not as good as I would have hoped” replied Paul II. With that, they headed off to get their boat prepared for day 1, grabbed a bite to eat and off to the captains meeting.
Tournament Day 1
Captian Paul had 2-3 spots that he felt held enough fish to make for a good showing. They headed off for their first spot. When they arrived, they felt good about their decision as stripers were surfacing all around. It looked like it was going to be a good day.
As soon as the “lines in the water” time came, the Stripers knew something was up and decided to head to deeper waters, the lively water earlier in the morning became silent as the surface activity stopped as soon as fishing time arrived.
About 40 minutes into their day, it proved to be a good choice as they landed a 10.49lb Smith Mountain Lake Striper. There was a lot of excitement right off the bat as they didn’t expect to get into the double digits with one fish on Smith Mountain lake. SML is not known for it’s large fish, the average size Striper on Smith Mountain lake is 6-7lbs.
Though things seemed to be looking up, they only pulled two more Striped Bass the rest of the day with a total weight a little over 14lbs.
The leaders at the end of the day had just over 24lbs total. Though never giving up, team StriperCrew felt like gaining 10lbs was a huge mountain to conquer for day 2. Since the average was 6-7lb on Smith Mountain, it was going to take a miracle to get ahead.
At the end of day 1, StriperCrew sat in 5th place.
Tournament Day 2
It was another super morning on Smith Mountain lake, at 6AM the water was calm and the weather was beautiful. Captain Paul decided to to stick with their plan of fishing in the same area, he knows that larger Stripers will roam together and since he pulled one nice 10lb fish, he was gunning to do it again.
This time it only took about 15 to 20 minutes for their first strike, and strike doesn’t do it justice. One of their front downrods crashed towards the water doubled over bouncing with a nice fish. Captain Paul was on the rod and set the hook. Right away, he knew this was a big fish and shouted for the net. After a good fight with 2-3 short runs, Paul had control of the Striper and Paul’s father netted. This was a bigger fish than the 10.49lb on day one, this fish was in the 14lb range. That fish generated electricity on the boat as now they were in the race!
At this point as far as they knew, they were 4lbs ahead of the leading team. Now this is assuming that the leaders were going to skunk, and that would be unlikely. Paul knew he needed to get another good fish if he wanted to stay in the race for first.
Throughout the morning, the waters went dead for StriperCrew. They were determined to stay in the same area continuously working the fish the saw on their Lowrance 111HD. They saw the fish, but seeing them didn’t get them on a hook, these fish had shut down.
Around 10AM, Paul started checking around with the other boats to see what other teams were rumored to have. At 10AM, the leaders still were fishless and this made tension on the boat high as their 4lb lead put them in contention. They knew there were a lot of good teams fishing in this tournament and it could be anyones win.
11AM and still not a bite, nothing… fish on the graph, but none on the lines. More phone calls, not much action anywhere on the lake, a few fish caught here and there, but Paul knew that they needed another fish.
Paul decided to call back home and let his Mother know what the status was, he requested that she call her friends on her “Prayer Chain” and get the ball rolling in our court by pulling in the big guns. A few minutes later, Paul’s mother called back and she said that 20lbs had come to her and that we may catch a 20lb fish. Paul knew that a 20lb fish at Smith Mountain was not a real possibility but he said ok and went back to fishing.
Now at this time, the temps are in the 90’s and the wind was no where to be found, it was just plain HOT. StriperCrew did a lot of looking at the floor of the boat and the waters around waiting, hoping searching for that next fish to hit. Paul had consistently been seeing fish sitting at 30-35 feet, so he decided to fish along the bank for last hour at 30-35 feet.
With 30 minutes of fishing time left, the team not as happy as they were at first light as they had a great fish, but no kicker fish to go with it. It was hot and HUGE boats were making HUGE waves, kids were jumping off docks about 75 yards away, screaming and having a great time, it made the team feel like they were in a business meeting at a Chuckie Cheese’s.
Then when hope was almost gone, the familiar click-zip rang out as another downrod was crashing towards the water. Paul grabbed the rod and reared back to set the hook. FISH ON!! they were open for business again and business was good!
As quickly as that striper took the bait, he was under the boat and on the motor, with stress in his voice, Paul yelled at his father to raise the motor, as he was bent over the side of the boat with the rod completely underwater trying to keep that fish from breaking off. As soon as the motor started to rise, the fish popped out from underneath and Paul had control of the Striper. Within a few minutes, Paul Senior was netting a nice 7lb Striper. The boat went crazy, high fives, hugs, hoops and hollars!
StriperCrew weighed in 21lbs of fish (note Paul’s mother said something about 20lbs), and fishing in first place taking home this years first Gold Cup trophy.
For questions or comments email Captain Paul Giesenhagen
or visit their website www.stripercrew.com
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