Read about all of my Fishing Adventures!
Follow my Fish of 2015
Follow my Fish of 2014
It's hard to believe that my last fishing trip was almost a month ago. I guess that is part of being the parent of three kids, one of which plays two different travel ball sports.
Additionally, in cause you missed it, I am also writing for Track 'Em Tigers on the side.
Between all of these things, it has been hard to find time to fish, much less blog about it.
Amazingly, I continue to have traffic on this blog, despite the lack of fresh content. So, let me thank all of you for reading and to apologize for the lack of new stuff.
For reference, here is my last trip on Guntersville. If you don't want to read it, allow me to sum it up. Guntersville is impossibly tough for the AVERAGE fisherman. If you think you can show up once a month and consistently catch fish, you are in for a surprise. That doesn't mean that you can't get lucky, because it's Guntersville. It's the only lake in America that people travel to fish because "lucky" will result in a 6+ pound fish. Just not for me. Additionally, if you expect to fish a random tournament without extensive prefishing, you are wasting your time. Unless you are a REALLY good fisherman, and in that case....why bother with a random club tournament?
With that being said, our club Classic tournament was on Guntersville. The post was pretty solid, $1,000 for first place. Brad and I have struggled and struggled to get anything done on Guntersville this year. It's a far cry from past years on Guntersville where I felt like I could be within reach, regardless of what club it was. Furthermore, though the wins haven't been as plentiful as I would like, we have been fairly lights-out on other lakes this year. On any given day on any other TVA lake, you will find me and Brad/Josh within the top five.
Because of the disparity of the success between the different lakes, Brad and I swallowed our pride and hired a guide.
I really don't want to get in to that. If you want my opinion, you will have to ask it. There were seven fish caught, all day. The guide caught three. I caught four. Brad struggled and didn't bag any.
That being said, we did at least have a pattern of solid fish going in to Saturday. I won't say that I was locked in on the pattern. Truth be told, it was a pattern by default. However, we figured that a pattern of any kind was better than no pattern at all.
We launched out of City Park in Scottsboro and headed out of Roseberry. Our ride was a short one as we were going to concentrate on flipping main channel grass ledges after throwing a swimbait around scattered grass in shallow flats. The shallow flats produced a lone hit, but the fish didn't manage to take the bait. We transitioned in to our main pattern for the day.
There was a specific 300-yard stretch that had produced fish during the guided trip.
The first pass resulted in a solid keeper for Brad on a D-bomb. It was the only hit of the pass.
We skipped over to a grass mat that we were going to use as our afternoon pattern. On the guide trip, the best action was found on this mat. However, the constant rain and wind had broken the mat up and scattered it greatly. I was able to get a hit on a Snagproof frog, but the hit was weak. I threw back in, hoping for a follow bite. I didn't figure I would get one, since we hadn't had a follow bite all day on the guided trip. As I pulled the frog off the mat, I paused it at the edge. The fish destroyed it. This was a SOLID fish, but we would need her to be the small one, if we had a chance. Still, two fish in the boat by 9am wasn't TERRIBLE.
We went back to the main river grass and began flipping. On the second pass, I bagged a fish on a PowerTeam Lures Craw D. It wasn't a huge fish, but it was a hit and we were grateful for any hits we had.
Just another 10 yards down the stretch, Brad set the hook.
We thought was a stump. Just for a moment we considered giving up the notion that it was a fish, but sure enough, the line pulled back. We fought the grass and horsed over a NICE four and a half pound fish. Four fish by 11 wasn't bad. We had another three hours or so to get one more bite.
That time came and went. With 30 minutes left, we went a little further up river to fish some clean water. Within the first five minutes, we spotted schooling fish in the scattered grass. It was the most action that we had seen all day. But, we didn't have anything tied on that could be fished around the scattered grass except frogs. Though we had some knocks, we had no solid bites.
We knew it was a tough day. We knew that this was a good club and that four fish wouldn't win a check. Imagine our surprised when three fish took second and third. It wasn't a surprise that the winner had over 20 pounds.
Seeing that we were 1.5 pounds or so from third and two pounds from second was extremely painful, especially knowing that we simple needed a fifth fish, of any size.
All told, only one boat had a five-fish limit, and that was the winner. We were the only boat with four. Everyone else had three or less.
Additionally, in cause you missed it, I am also writing for Track 'Em Tigers on the side.
Between all of these things, it has been hard to find time to fish, much less blog about it.
Amazingly, I continue to have traffic on this blog, despite the lack of fresh content. So, let me thank all of you for reading and to apologize for the lack of new stuff.
For reference, here is my last trip on Guntersville. If you don't want to read it, allow me to sum it up. Guntersville is impossibly tough for the AVERAGE fisherman. If you think you can show up once a month and consistently catch fish, you are in for a surprise. That doesn't mean that you can't get lucky, because it's Guntersville. It's the only lake in America that people travel to fish because "lucky" will result in a 6+ pound fish. Just not for me. Additionally, if you expect to fish a random tournament without extensive prefishing, you are wasting your time. Unless you are a REALLY good fisherman, and in that case....why bother with a random club tournament?
With that being said, our club Classic tournament was on Guntersville. The post was pretty solid, $1,000 for first place. Brad and I have struggled and struggled to get anything done on Guntersville this year. It's a far cry from past years on Guntersville where I felt like I could be within reach, regardless of what club it was. Furthermore, though the wins haven't been as plentiful as I would like, we have been fairly lights-out on other lakes this year. On any given day on any other TVA lake, you will find me and Brad/Josh within the top five.
Because of the disparity of the success between the different lakes, Brad and I swallowed our pride and hired a guide.
I really don't want to get in to that. If you want my opinion, you will have to ask it. There were seven fish caught, all day. The guide caught three. I caught four. Brad struggled and didn't bag any.
That being said, we did at least have a pattern of solid fish going in to Saturday. I won't say that I was locked in on the pattern. Truth be told, it was a pattern by default. However, we figured that a pattern of any kind was better than no pattern at all.
We launched out of City Park in Scottsboro and headed out of Roseberry. Our ride was a short one as we were going to concentrate on flipping main channel grass ledges after throwing a swimbait around scattered grass in shallow flats. The shallow flats produced a lone hit, but the fish didn't manage to take the bait. We transitioned in to our main pattern for the day.
There was a specific 300-yard stretch that had produced fish during the guided trip.
The first pass resulted in a solid keeper for Brad on a D-bomb. It was the only hit of the pass.
We skipped over to a grass mat that we were going to use as our afternoon pattern. On the guide trip, the best action was found on this mat. However, the constant rain and wind had broken the mat up and scattered it greatly. I was able to get a hit on a Snagproof frog, but the hit was weak. I threw back in, hoping for a follow bite. I didn't figure I would get one, since we hadn't had a follow bite all day on the guided trip. As I pulled the frog off the mat, I paused it at the edge. The fish destroyed it. This was a SOLID fish, but we would need her to be the small one, if we had a chance. Still, two fish in the boat by 9am wasn't TERRIBLE.
We went back to the main river grass and began flipping. On the second pass, I bagged a fish on a PowerTeam Lures Craw D. It wasn't a huge fish, but it was a hit and we were grateful for any hits we had.
Just another 10 yards down the stretch, Brad set the hook.
We thought was a stump. Just for a moment we considered giving up the notion that it was a fish, but sure enough, the line pulled back. We fought the grass and horsed over a NICE four and a half pound fish. Four fish by 11 wasn't bad. We had another three hours or so to get one more bite.
That time came and went. With 30 minutes left, we went a little further up river to fish some clean water. Within the first five minutes, we spotted schooling fish in the scattered grass. It was the most action that we had seen all day. But, we didn't have anything tied on that could be fished around the scattered grass except frogs. Though we had some knocks, we had no solid bites.
We knew it was a tough day. We knew that this was a good club and that four fish wouldn't win a check. Imagine our surprised when three fish took second and third. It wasn't a surprise that the winner had over 20 pounds.
Seeing that we were 1.5 pounds or so from third and two pounds from second was extremely painful, especially knowing that we simple needed a fifth fish, of any size.
All told, only one boat had a five-fish limit, and that was the winner. We were the only boat with four. Everyone else had three or less.
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