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Follow my Fish of 2015
It's the new year, and with the new year means tournament season is nearly upon us. If you are from the north Alabama area, you know that starting the first weekend in February, Guntersville lake will be on fire, no matter the weather. Every club and trail series has a stop on the Big G. My clubs are no exception.
2015 has already starter for me, and it started pretty awesome. You can read about it below.
Truth be told, I didn't fish any early season tournaments on Guntersville last year, as I was moving into our new home. Additionally, I was sick one of the weekends. Apparently the McDonald's in Hazel Green is the worst McDonald's in the world, as I got food poisoning from it. I am not the only one. Ironically, it is now closed, despite being in a fantastic location. That's right. It is THAT BAD.
Anyway, I started out 2014 pretty solid on Guntersville and I would like to get back to having that kind of success. That doesn't mean I won a bunch, because I didn't. However, I learned a lot and I wanted to put that to use. I also learned that you cannot fake your way on this lake this time of year.
So, with a free Saturday, I asked Josh to fish the The Bait Tackle and Grill at Goosepond Wildcat, which they have every weekend during the winter. I have no affiliation with the store or its owners, but Jamie and his wife do a fantastic job at Goosepond in providing year-round service for fishermen. I can't recommend them enough.
Anyways, we had 15 boats and 24 anglers. The ABA was also using Goosepond for their tournament. The lake was completely empty, save for these boats and a ton of duck hunters.
The night before, Josh and I went over our gameplan. We decided to fish the hotspot we found in 2014. We knew there was a chance that the fish probably weren't there anymore, but it was worth a shot. I was going with a four bait system: The A-rig, a red square bill, a green pumpkin chatterbait backed by a PTL Craw D, and a red lipless crank.
Josh and I ran into the back Roseberry creek. As we pulled up on the point, we were whistled at by duck hunters, which made us change our boat positioning. No big deal. It just wasn't something that we had anticipated.
Nothing in the first spot. We moved over a pocked. Nothing.
When scanning the Roseberry creek channel which was intersected by a secondary creek and a huge conduit (which we found on sidescan), we came across two masses of fish adjacent to some bait balls. It was picture perfect as one can find using electronics. But, both of us had our doubts if they were bass and even if they were bass, would they be feeding? Their position, holding tight to the bottom, told us that they probably weren't.
Indeed they weren't active, but I busted out a PTL bullnose jig and set the hook on a fish anyway, reeling in a drum. We left.
After fishing some bluff walls at the mouth of Roseberry, we caught our lone bass of the day, a short fish on a jerkbait.
We fished Mink Creek for the rest of the day, not having another single bite.
That was the story of the day, as boat after boat was either not present for the weigh in or had nothing to weigh at all. I can attest that only 5 boats weighed any fish. So, a swing and a miss. As much as that makes me disappointed, I will simply chalk it up to bad luck and learn from it. That's going to be one of my themes this year. Not that anyone really cares, but those are going to be:
- Don't get upset. Get even. It isn't striking out. It's eliminating water.
- Don't celebrate winning on tough days when everyone else struggles.
- Don't feel better about struggling when everyone else struggles.
- Find a way to win even when everyone else is catching fish.
Here are the final results directly from The Bait Tackle and Grill at Goosepond
"Hello Lake Guntersville Anglers! The Goose Pond Wildcat tournament results for Sat January 9, 2016...1st place and Big Bass winner was Jr. West with 16.50 lbs and a 6.04 biggin!...2nd place was Joey West with 14.32 lbs...and 3rd place was Benny Medlen and Mark Breen with 13.78 lbs they also had a 4.20 spotted bass...we had 15 boats, 24 anglers...It was a beautiful morning, 50° and breezy but for Jan it wasn't terrible..the winners said lures that worked were A- rigs, crankbaits, traps, jigs, and " Forks! " lol ....the ABA Div 29 also went out, 23 boats 18+ lbs won it, see there website for complete results. With the weather moving in we will be closed this Sun. Stay safe and warm! Thanks for coming out to The Bait Tackle and Grill at Goose Pond!"
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