Fishing Report for Smith Lake 10/28/17

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It's been tough to find time to fish the last month or so, between travel softball and MORE travel softball.  In fact, we had a scheduled tournament for this weekend as well, but it was the NASA club's Classic and is the last regularly scheduled tournament of the year. 

Of course, we pulled Smith lake out of the hat, the one lake I haven't been on since February. Now, the good news is, that was a really, really good tournament for us. The bad news is, it was February. Here is that report.

Fishing Report for Smith Lake 2/18/17

And, add in some absolutely nasty weather and a cold front moving in around 9AM that day....

....I really considered not fishing at all and just going to the softball tournament. But, Brad and I drew out so that we could fish together. I decided I would drive to Smith Lake park so that I could leave directly for the softball tournament. 

I polled some of the local guys on a Smith Lake Bass Tournaments facebook page and they gave me a little info. They also said "don't fish that end of the lake." Well, thing is.....it's a free tournament and the money wasn't quite worth driving too far. So, we decided to use the techniques they had told us, but fish the places we knew.

It was cold (in the 40s) and raining at blast-off. We started on a nearby main lake point. Brad was throwing a white buzzbait and I a chrome and black Rapalla DT-10. This paid off quickly with a nice chunky over spot. Then, nothing.

We moved to the next point and Brad was tossing the white buzzbait around a boat ramp and a fish slurped it. After a fight, we boated a NICE four-plus pound spot. 

We quickly found out a couple of things:

First, they only wanted the buzzbait. 

Second, there was only one active fish per point. 

So, when we would move to a new point, we would get one bite. Sometimes it would stick. Most of the time it wouldn't. Brad was getting the vast majority of the bites, but they weren't hooking up. Meanwhile, I tried to alternate baits in attempt to find something they would bite. I had some short strikes on a jig, shakey head, and a drop shot. But, none of them connected.

We would move spots and eventually we had three overs and one under that I had caught on a buzzbait. 

But, when the rain died and the cold front descended, the bite died. The lone bite we had after 9AM came on a PTL 7" tickler, but it was a slot fish that had to be thrown back.

We went to weigh in with just 4 fish: three overs and one under. We knew the chances were that we would have the big fish of the day and any time you have that big fish, you have a real shot to win. Of course, we didn't have a limit and we did have a tiny under. 

So, the pucker began when the best fisherman of the club unloaded five clones for around 7.5 pounds. However, it was the under that put us just above that mark and we walked away with the win by the skin of our teeth. 

It wasn't a fun day. The fish had absolute lock jaw even though we found at least three spots that were holding bass. We would find them close to the bottom on the first major drop of main lake points, always adjacent to some bait balls. Nothing could convince them to bite, from spoons to jigs, to drop shot. 

But, winning is winning. That's about all you can say about catching five fish all day. 

Fishing Report for Wilson 10/9/17

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I know not everyone was fortunate enough to have the day off Monday, but those of us that are federal workers did. Josh and I and our friend Naaman wanted to go fishing, but the question was where. 

I am sure that you all have read about my last tournament on Guntersville, which was just days before. If you didn't, you can click the link below and see how I caught a 7.12 pig. 

Fishing Report for Guntersville 10/7/17

However, Guntersville had been pounded to death over the last two weeks and none of us really though we could catch any numbers, much less any size. So, we looked at the weather. The weather was looking just like it had a few weeks ago when the last round of hurricanes came through and Brad and I caught some massive smallies.  Read that report here:

Fishing Report for Wilson Lake 9/12/17

So, we loaded up Big Booty Judy (now with a really nice sound system) and headed to Safety Harbor.

There was a fair amount of flow, around 25,000 and it seemed the right generators were turned on. We began fishing the normal eddies but we couldn't get bit. I found it a little more difficult to concentrate and run the trolling motor with three people in the boat, as there were baits flying everywhere.

Josh was throwing a Bull Shad when he yelled that he had a fish. He didn't yell initially because the fish was big, but because it is hard to hear. But, when he saw the fish, he started yelling for the net.

This fish was a lot larger than he had thought and it wasn't a brownie as we had expected. 

It was a really, really good start.

It's too bad that we couldn't get consistent bites. In fact, other than about five short smallies that we hooked up with, the fish were really, really stingy. Some of that is likely because the current had kicked up and I imagine the fish had moved from their normal haunts. 

We did get into a huge pile of white bass and stripes that alleviated our boredom.  

It was about this time that I noticed I had a really, really bad headache. In retrospect, it coincided with the pressure change ahead of the weather. For some reason, it didn't turn the fish on, either.

We moved away from fishing current and started hitting bluffs. There was no shortage of bait, but no bites. 

We then moved to docks, which is where we began to at least get bit. We caught several measuring fish by flipping docks, but only did this pattern for around 20 minutes before we had to leave. We did the most work with jigs backed with creature baits. 

In all, the fishing was very, very tough despite what looked like terrific conditions. 

Fishing Report for Guntersville 10/7/17

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Been almost three weeks since I checked in with everyone. Our last trip was the last regular tournament of the year for NASA, which was on Wilson. Go check it out.

Fishing Report for Wilson Lake 9/15-16/17

That meant that our club Classic was up and Guntersville was drawn (eye-roll). But, I don't give up. I was going to put in the time. So, Brad and I got out the week before to do some prefishing. 

Since the club was going to use Goose Pond Bait and Grill, we put in there. Since we hadn't fished Guntersville since our 3rd place finish in June, we decided to just put the trolling motor down and start fishing. You can read about that week of fishing here:

Report for Guntersville 6/1 and 6/3 2017

We began to talk and realized that we had caught five pound fish on every lake except Guntersville, which was truly astounding, considering how the lake is known (rightfully so) for its massive fish and number of them. Of course, Brad pointed out that I had caught a fiver on the G, but it had come on fishing deep cranks on a bluff. I responded that it didn't count.

We began fishing shallow grass near Goose Pond with frogs and buzzbaits. This resulted in a nice three pounder on a Spro Poppin' Frog for me and a lost five pounder-plus for Brad, though we were glad to have shaken it off. We ended up with around 10 blow ups in a small spot, which was far more than any mat has provided for us in the last few years.

We moved around a good bit that day, but the amount of rain and wind had decimated the mats. I was able to catch a fair amount of short fish on a PTL Swinging Hammer, fishing it as a jerkbait in the blown out mats. Location didn't seem to matter as I caught them in three or more places. 

I left for the beach for a week but Brad was able to fish the Friday before. When he reported in initially, the numbers weren't good. He had caught only a few fish, but had found a very small area where he caught two fish really fast.

Now, typically, two fish wouldn't get you excited, but when he showed me the picture, I was sold. We didn't think there would be another seven pounder the next day, but typically fish school by size. 

The best news was, it wasn't a frog bite and that was good because the Spro tournament was the same day as our Classic. In fact, with a bit of a genius move, Brad had listened to some of the guides and decided to fish deep grass lines. 

The next morning, we went to our shallow grass spot and caught a few fish including one measuring and several shorts. We quickly moved to our next spot where we went to work with big worms. We would throw it shallow into the grass and work it through the scattered grass, down the ledge. The bites started immediately and I caught a nice spotted bass and Brad caught a short fish.

That's when the bite happened. When this fish bit, I knew it was the one. Working a big fish on a 6-6 medium heavy with 10-pound line isn't something for the faint of heart, especially when you see the fish is so big she can't jump. I loosened the drag and we fought the fish for the better part of ten minutes while trying to be discreet as there was another boat in the area who had already seen us catch one fish.

Brad finally netted the beast and we finally had that big bite. 

Of course, that comes at a price. The nearby boat moved within a cast length of us and began throwing a bama rig all around which resulted in a four pounder for them quickly. Good for them and all, I guess. 

As it turned out, we really needed that four pounder. We didn't catch another measuring fish though we did put another ten to 15 fish in the boat. 

The story was similar for everyone at weigh in. They caught short fish, if they caught any at all. Only two limits were weighed in and neither broke the 13 pound mark. Our three fish went 11 and change with the fish being a 7.12. That was the big fish of the day and of the year. It is the personal best for me in terms of tournament fishing by over a pound. It's the largest fish I have caught since 2011. I have to really hand it to my partner for putting it together. After fishing the G for a couple of years without a big bite, he was able to put two 7s in the boat in 24 hours.