I don't know why I don't fish Logan-Martin Lake more. I have now fished it a grand total of 3 times and I have never gone without a great day of fun.
You can read about my last trip to Logan-Martin, way back in 2012. Go here and check out MFC Tournament on Logan-Martin.
So, as we have always done, Josh and I drove down Friday afternoon. We drove directly to Lakeside Marina and dunked the Bullet. We noticed that there MIGHT have been 4 more trailors in the lot, which was amazing. I mean, can you imagine pulling up to Waterfront and Guntersville and seeing only 4 boats? It doesn't happen!
Each trip, we learn about a new hump, it seems. Anyone can read a map, and we try to do that as well. We bought a map on our first trip, marked some humps, and caught fish. Each year, we add another hump to the mix. The first one we stopped at was right on the channel. Now, when I say "hump", I mean it. It comes from 35 feet of water all the way up to a skeg wrecking 6 inches. I was throwing an XCalibur square bill while Josh threw a Strike King series 3. Both of us caught a fish off the first hump, so we decided to check another one, this time a little further back in a cove. Sure enough, both of us caught another fish. It got dark on us pretty quick, but we thought we had a pretty good handle on things, though we both admited that we had said the same thing in both of our other two trips. In both of those cases, the bait that worked the day before didn't produce.
We went to eat some Mexican food in Pell City, then visited the Wal-Mart for boat food....Uncrustables. Yum.
The next morning came early, and we found the boat ramp deserted again, though the camp ground was swamped as usual.
We met up with our club, gave our salutations, then off we went.
We stopped at a hump we had not visited the night before, but where we had caught our biggest fish in the past, including a magnum 3.4 pound spot. The bait was flickering and the fish were busting. We tossed an assortment of top water lures. I was throwing an XCalibur Zell Pop and Josh threw a walk-the-dog type bait. Both of us landed at least 2 fish with the top water, including two keepers. We swapped between the top waters and the crankbaits that we had thrown the day before, and although we did catch another fish or two, the bite slowed down as the sun came up. We fished the point of the cove without a tap and decided to move on to our primary spots.
We pulled up on this rockpile that sits between two creek channels. The boat was positioned in about 6 feet of water and we were throwing up to about 3 feet. I had abandoned my top water and crankbait combo and went for the shakey head. I got to tell yall, I feel accomplished to have so much confidence in finnese fishing. In the past, I wouldn't have gone to the sissy stick until after lunch, and here I was throwing the shakey head at 7am. It paid off almost immediately and I boated our first nice keeper after what was a 5 minute fight. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it isn't. I have the video proof. Those spots don't quite fighting. In fact, they WANT you to shorten the line on them so that when they get to the boat, they make a hard run and pop your line.
But Josh and I have wised up and boated the 2 pound fish.
On the next cast, I had what I thought were bites, but I couldn't get them to really thump the worm. On the next cast, I began sliding the worm instead of hopping it. That way I could feel the weight of the fish. After a few seconds of sliding, I had another taker, and I slammed it home. Another long fight broke out, but we won. It was another 2 pounder, but it put as at 4.
2 minutes later (via the GoPro), we had our 5th fish in, but 2 in the livewell that needed to be culled.
We fished the rockpile hard for another 2 hours which saw us cull all 5 fish, not once, but twice. Ounce by ounce. Though, we knew that we might be making judgement mistakes because we didn't have a culling board. But, what can you do?
When the bite slowed down, we looked at the clock. 9:51am and we had caught around 20 fish and culled at least 10 times. We decided to go looking for a few more spots. Looking at the map, we found a rock pile just up the river that we had never fished. We made the short run, but found a boat already fishing it. As we pulled into position, we watched them catch 3 fish on consecutive casts, though none would have helped us. The wind was ripping down the river, forcing me to abandon the shakey head for something else. I threw a lead head swimbait and a crankbait, none of which worked. Josh was throwing the ball and chain with a finesse worm and managed to catch 2 fish that culled up a few ounces.
At 12pm, we decided that without catching a monster spot, the only options we really had was to go looking for largemouth. We knew of a nice creek with an awesome flat in the back. We rigged up for largemouth and made the run. We eased back in the creek and noticed a lot of buck bass, grass carp, and gar. We figured there had to be some nice females in the mix somewhere. We flipped,. we cranked, and we threw a little bit of everything.
On my first cast with a swimbait, I had a fish nearly take the rod out of my hand. The fish was big. Real big. And, as I fought it, it rounded a stump. I did my best to get back under control, but the fish won and the swimbait came out. I tell myself that it's a carp or drum. I sure hope so...
We cycled back through our rock piles and caught more fish, but none of the magnum spots we needed.
We headed into weight in, where we weighed 11.3 pounds of spots which was good enough for second place behind a 12.06 bag with a 3.22 spot.
Over all, we caught from 20-25 keeper fish. I am most pleased with the fact that we didn't loose a single fish on the light line. Everything we hooked into, we caught.
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