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Follow my Fish of 2017
Everybody has seen the movie Happy Gilmore, correct?
As I loaded my stuff into my car around 8:45 last night, a scene from that movie popped into my head, stemming from a conversation that Josh and I had.
There is a scene where Happy's golf coach, Chubbs, takes him to a mini-golf establishment to get better at putting. Happy, as you may know, could drive the ball 400 yards, but couldn't putt. Gilmore throws a fit and says "This is embarrassing, I am a professional golfer!"
And, of course, he proceeds to struggled to the point of futility.
Fishing Ditto landing has become my mini-golf course. The stretch of river from 65 to Guntersville dam has been the clown that spits Happy's ball back at him, even after he FINALLY figures things out.
See, I feel the most confident fishing for 15+ plus pounds on huge bodies of water against a big club of fishermen. But put me up against 7-10 boats of local fishermen on a small body of water with even smaller fish, and I freakin' struggle.
Don't really understand 'cause catching limits and winning checks in this tournament was never an issue until the last few years. I know we are INFINITELY better fishermen. Anyway, yall have heard this story before so I won't reiterate the same shtick.
Two tournaments ago, there was good current. We went to the dam, caught two nice fish. Couldn't catch any more. Last week, the water was high, so we went flipping. We caught two good fish doing that before relapsing into some junk fishing holes. But, we found fish. Just didn't have enough time. Go read that report here:
This week, same story. Good current. High water. We decided to do a combination of what had worked. In other words, hit a lot of eddys created by current breaks, start at the dam, and work back fairly quickly to cover water.
First spots, both on each side of the river within 300 yards of the dam were busts, though I did catch one measuring spot and one short spot on a Spro Little John DD.
After scratching our heads a bit, we moved down to the painted bluffs, for no other reason than we suck and we should probably avoid doing anything we would normally do. Fishing bluffs facing into the current qualified.
Wouldn't you know it, the fish started biting.
Just one problem: they were all tiny spots.
We caught five or so within 5 minutes on a combination of cranks such as the Spro Little John DD, the Hookset medium diver, and a Norman. All had a slight hint of Chartreuse.
After finishing the stretch, we had to make a decision: spend some time there and hope to get some bigger ones to bite or to move on.
Considering our experience has been that a collection of babies like that typically yields more babies, we moved on.
Would we have found bigger ones? We will never know. But outside of a few more short fish caught on a PowerTeam Lures 7" Tickler and a Pea Head, we caught just one more measuring fish: a nice keeper with about 2 minutes to go, right outside of Ditto Landing.
I didn't stick around to see what won, but it was the best bags I've seen weighed in at Ditto this year, including some nice 5-pounders.
I keep telling myself that getting my rear kicked is good for me. I mean, I know it is. Any time you can take a nice dose of humility, it's a good thing. I just thing I've had my fill.
Oh, and I almost forgot. I caught my first Saugar last night! Too bad I was kinda mad and threw it back.....
Oh, and I almost forgot. I caught my first Saugar last night! Too bad I was kinda mad and threw it back.....
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