Fishing Report for Guntersville 11/19

So the opening day for gun season finally rolled around. I missed it last year since I attended the Iron Bowl. I sat on the stand until 8:30am without seeing a single deer. So, I texted Josh and told him that I was getting the boat and heading to the lake. He said he was ready when I was.

After rebuilding the carbs, replacing fuel lines and other assorted fixes, the boat finally would start without having to pray over it. I picked Josh up and we headed to BB Comer, since it has been (relatively) hot in the last month.

I have to admit that I had planned on fishing unless I killed a deer. The weather looked to be perfect. 8mph winds with slight gusts, overcast, and in the mid-60s.

After pulling the boat off the trailer, I found that I had, once again, been duped by the weathermen. It was certainly overcast, but it was in the low 50s and the wind was hurtling at a 15-20 sustained clip. The water was surprisingly cold at 53 degrees.  The boat DID fire up readily, so I was at least happy that we could fish somewhere out of the wind...like the spot down river that Jon and I had fished the previous week.

But, as I tried get the boat into gear, it would just grind the gears. This isn't a new thing. The throttle has a history of binding up on me. But never THIS much. I would have the throttle halfway down and it would still grind. If I floored it, it would jump into gear. But I am positive that isn't good for the lower unit. So, the question is: is there something wrong with the throttle and/or cables and linkage...or is there something in the lower unit? Say, a thrust washer has been eaten?

But I did get it in gear and it SEEMED to run ok. So, I ran us the half mile to the spot I had been fishing. Quickly we noticed that the grass mat I had found them packed under had been blown away. Completely. So, that was a bust. We pushed out into the channel and fished the drop off (4 feet to 8 feet). Josh ran a spinnerbait and I threw a square bill. But, the wind pushed us upriver at a good pace and we only had a single hit....a fish I caught on the strike king KVD square bill.

Surprisingly, we couldn't get a fish to look at the spinnerbait. It seemed to be the PERFECT spinnerbait day.

Not wanting to run very far, we ran under the bridge and down about half a mile where we found grass mats. We fished the left hand side and just let the wind blow us. We at least could hear a little popping from baitfish, so we had some hope. we both picked up the frog rods and started casting away. Within a couple of casts, I had a hit. But the fish missed the bait by 2-3 feet. We threw back in and couldn't coax a return hit. The wind pushed us a few more feet and the same thing.

In the next 5 minutes, we had about 10 top water hits. They were hitting the surface pretty hard, but were missing the frog by 2-3 feet. Finally Josh got one to make an accurate hit and we got him to the boat. But, we got past this spot quickly, even though I had the trolling motor on high. After a few more minutes, the batteries were dead.I am not sure if the batteries are going dead, didn't get charged, or maybe I had just used them up. But, that was the end of the day. We didn't plan on fishing long anyway, so at 130, we called it a day.

The only thing we could think of is that the sever chop on the water throws the fish's vision for a BIG loop. I can't see that it could be anything else. They seemed to be active in very specific areas, but just couldn't get to it.

That's a big disappointment, considering the weather was, once again, ALMOST perfect. The warm days are coming to an end. I am hoping to give it a try again early this week. At least we didn't get skunked, but we sure didn't catch anything to write home about.