I've had a lot going on the last week which has kept me from keeping you guys up to date on the fishing.Believe it or not, I was able to get in something like four trips on Wilson in the last ten days or so, starting on the 24th of last month.
Tim was gracious enough to let me make the decisions for the day. In the past, I have done well in the grass throwing a frog. I knew the day would likely be tough as the skies were high. So, we went into Shoals Creek and I began throwing the frog. On my second cast, I boated a keeper. In the next few minutes, I had two more short fish in the boat along with several blow ups. But, as the sun crested the tree tops, the bite dead completely.
Around nine, I had about an hour of fishing time left so we hit the bluffs across from Shoals. I began throwing a swim jig with a
PTL Swinging Hammer. I was concentrating on shallow cuts in the bluff that held pea gravel.
I was getting bump after bump but not hooking up. I tried varying my retrieval, but nothing would get the fish to hook up. The nail in the coffin was when a six pound largemouth followed the bait to the boat and stared at me.
It was one of those stupid tough days and I tried to do all the things I do when it's tough and none seemed to work. That's an important note for later. We ended up in third with just two fish.
The next day (Sunday), Brad began prefishing for the other Classic. This one was much bigger and a lot more money was on the line. He found a lot of what I found. It was really, really tough and all of the things I tried, he tried with the same results. But, at the end of the day, he went to the dam and was able to get some bites. Though the bass weren't jumping on the hook, drum and bait were, despite the small 12,000 CFS current.
I was back on the water Wednesday to prefish and began running bluffs because of the number of hits I had on the swimjig. The cooler nights had brought the bait to the surface and it almost looked like rain. I quickly caught fish on a chatterbait and a
PTL Swinging Hammer. But, it was a short smallie. The bluffs produced much of the same thing it had the previous Saturday. Lots of hits but no fish.
I made a move over to Bluewater Creek where I also found bait, but there were also active fish.
Over the next hour, I managed a hit between every other cast on an Xcalibur Zell Pop. But, there was something odd going on. They would hit it pretty hard and I would fight them for several seconds before they would pull off. I changed hooks and that seemed to help. Fishing on top of an old roadbed, you could see the bait everywhere as well as the smaller bass eating them. In between, very sizeable bass would school them up a bit deeper. I had at least five quality bites of fish three pounds or larger including this very nice smallmouth.
I was very happy with what I had seen, despite not getting them in the boat. I believe I was subconsciously not setting the hook. With how hard it had been the previous Saturday, I believed the 12 or so pounds I had stumbled upon would be enough.
Josh prefished the very next day and was able to verify that there were good fish on the spot, going so far as to tell me that we might have to share the spot.
Brad and I prefished again on Friday, starting on some all new stretches because of the fog. I was able to bag a frog fish on the first cast of the day, but the rest of the day was very, very tough as we covered the lake from end to end. That isn't to say we didn't catch fish, because we did. We couldn't catch multiple fish anywhere.
At the end of the day and after having to convince me, we headed to the dam. I don't like the dam because it seems everyone fishes these and I have never done much good. Seems like you get in line and chunk and wind. Some people catch them and some don't.
However, while we were talking to one of our clubmates who happened to be at the dam, we caught several while he caught several. Interesting. It was in line with what Brad had found the previous Sunday.
So began the argument over what we should do on Saturday. I was willing to admit that the spot in Bluewater was weather dependant. If there was ANY wind, the spot would be dead. Additionally, it seemed to need a high sky.
Saturday was windy and overcast, so that made our decision for us. The fact is, other than the one day of catching them solid in Bluewater, we had nickle and dimed the entire time to catch fish. While we do well when it's a tough day, we knew someone was going to get them, especially in this club with this many boats. We couldn't take that chance.
At blastoff about four other boats headed to the dam. Since we were boat 14 of 20 and in a slower boat, we had to get behind everyone.
We watched the line of boats catch every species of fish known to man, but preciously few bass. That isn't to say bass weren't caught, but not enough to share among all the boats.
We had to do some jockeying since we were the odd man out. As we went behind the line of boats in an effort to get on the eddy, I made a cast with a Strike King 5XD which was basically in line with everyone's boat motors. And I picked up a short smallie.
I made another cast and picked up yet another short smallie.
On the third cast, I boated a 3.5 pound smallie and we knew we might be onto something. More importantly, everyone's attention was focused the other way and no one seemed to notice that I was pulling fish off the back of their boats.
Over the next three hours, Brad and I managed to have a total of five more bass bites, but every single one of them was a pig.
Along the way we lost every 5XD we owned, but by the end of the day we had what we suspected was just over 20 pounds along with what I believed was a six pound smallie. By 11AM, we were begging for the weigh in as the clouds had lifted and the bites had stopped.
Eventually, weigh in did come. No, I didn't catch a six pound smallie. It had the body for it, just not the girth. So, we didn't get over 20 pounds. We did weigh in 19.22 and took home a win in the club's biggest tournament of the year. Second place was around 18 and third was 11. Big fish of the day was a six pound largemouth. All the winning boats were fishing at the dam.
