Fishing Report for Guntersville 1/25/13

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I had been on travel for work out to Ogden Utah to visit ATK, who built the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle, and now builds the boosters for our new rocket, SLS. So, after a 19 hour travel day on Sunday, a full 2 days of work Monday (which was a holiday) and another 12 hour day traveling home on Wednesday, a full work day Thursday doing my post trip reports, I was ready for some time off.

Ironically, my friend Jim and Josh went fishing the day I left for ATK. It was a Sunday afternoon to be remembered as they boated around 15 keepers with a 5 fish limit verified at 26 pounds with a 6.5 pound kicker. They accomplished this by throwing lipless cranks on 6-10 foot flats all day, fishing out of The Bait Tackle and Grill of Goose Pond.

You can imagine how that fired me up, considering that I fished just 2 days before without a bite. But, Jim knows the water and I chalked it up to that. But, all week I stewed about how Jim and Josh had knocked them dead and I couldn't get a bite. All week, I blew up Jim's phone about going.

If you don't know Jim, you better get to knowing. Jim has fished all over the country, which is impressive for such a young guy. Very versatile fishermen. Like me, if you ever are in need of some on-th-water-advcice, look him up! If you are in a tournament against him...well....good luck. I am fortunate to know him.



It was going to be cold and rainy...even a bit of sleet. The weather men said it was going to be the snow and ice apocalypse. Jim wouldn't let me dip out of it, so we planned to hit the water around Goose Pond on Guntersville. Now, I don't have to remind you how my luck has been on this lake over the last year. Seeing as he is quite the expert on this lake, I saw this as an opportunity to settle the score with the Big G (or at least give myself a fighting chance).

I took this opportunity to take my GoPro again, hoping to catch something on video. After my first attempt at using it, I have found that I have to take a lot of short videos and delete them due to storage space. Also, the battery life has to be considered.

We started out throwing lipless cranks. I threw the Xcalibur XR50 rattle bait.

Up until this point, I had been throwing mine on a Wright and McGill 7'6'' fiberglass Magnum Cranking rod, with a Shimano Citica reel and 30 pound Suffix braid. I had originally done this for a better hook up ratio, as I had lost a lot of fish in the past from jerking the bait out of their mouth. The softer rod allowed them to hook themselves. Over time I have gotten better and now throw it on a Wright and McGill "Bama Rig" rod.

Jim was throwing the Spro Aruku

He was throwing his on a Boyd Duckett 7'3'' Medium heavy.

You may recall that I did a product review way back when on these. It's found here:

Anyway, Jim caught one short fish, and while I did get it on video, it wasn't really worth keeping.

It became fairly obvious that the fish weren't going to be on fire as they had been. So, we figured out that we needed to slow down. I was throwing a T-rigged Gambler Why Not

I'm was under orders not to say what Jim was throwing, but it was a similar beaver type bait. After just a few minutes of fishing creek channel ledges , Jim slammed the rod back on this NICE fish. And....I got it on VIDEO!

After that, the rain and sleet moved in. We didn't really feel like getting wet and cold, so we moved underneath the causeway. Immediately we noticed the number of crappie fishermen that were yanking out slabs left and right. We didn't have an grubs, but we did have some baits that MIGHT work. Jim tried a blade bait while I used a Cotten Cordell spoon. I wasn't tearing them up, but I boated some nice slabs as well as 6 other species of fish.

• 2 different species of shad
• flat head cat
• perch
• bream
• drum

We stayed there until the rain left, which was several hours. It left us with only about an hour left to fish, so we stayed close. We went back to flipping T-rigged plastics. That turned out to be the ticket. We didn't whack them and stack them, but we did boat some GOOD fish, including the whopper flat head that about took the rod out of my hands!

Again, not at banner day, but we started getting regular bites. We just had to find the right area, the right bait, and the right approach. Best fish went over 4 pounds.

Hey, I'm not going to complain. I caught a bunch of fish, and while they weren't all bass, it was certainly fun and it keeps with my New Years Resolutions.