Fishing Report for Wilson 3/17/18

Follow me on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter!

Read about all of my Fishing Adventures!

Follow my Fish of 2017

I didn't have time last week to tell yall how our prefishing went on Wilson leading up to our club tournament. Brad and I were able to get out Wednesday and do some fishing. I was really excited to get on the water following the fiasco that was the Alabama Bass Trail on Guntersville. Wilson has traditionally been good for Brad and I, although we kinda hit a slump last year. Even this isn't really true. We fished back-to-back tournaments last year. The first tournament, we struck out and the second we whacked them for wins. I'll put the links to this below:

Fishing Report for Wilson 3/31/17

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

Anyway, the flow was really high, hovering around 100K CFS which is too much for Brad's 24V trolling motor. So we started hitting some down river stuff. It hasn't worked out for us the last two years, but if the conditions are right, down river points and pockets can be lights out for magnum smallies. Some of our biggest bags have come from 'rigging bluffs, points, and pockets but, for whatever reason, it hasn't been on. I THINK its just due to the spawn. If you don't have water in the 60s and a full moon, they won't get up there. We haven't had that, but we needed to check, anyway. 

We quickly got on a decent bite with jigs. It wasn't big numbers, but every pocket and point was holding one fish around three pounds. We didn't lean on them, we just caught one and moved on. After the jig was proven as a decent bait, I began throwing a jerkbait. This began to work as well. It was kind of the same deal, pull up on a point or pocket, make five casts, catch the active fish, move on. 

By the end of the day, we had a five that went 14 or 15 pounds. Brad had a lot of luck on the jig and I caught the majority of my fish on the jerkbait including this really nice smallie, which was an absolute riot to catch. 

I also caught this crazy looking largemouth with all the spots.

I swore this year that I would make the jerkbait work for me and thus far, I have earned a lot of respect for it. It's becoming a go-to.

Alright, so our game plan for tournament day was to hit points and pockets down river really early and then to spend from 9AM to weigh in at the dam. I figured we would have a limit of around 14 pounds really quick and could cull up at the dam. All we would need was two big bites and we would be in contention. To fight the current, we decided to take my boat. So, Friday, I pulled Big Booty Judy (which is for sale right now, BTW) and ran the motor, cleaned the livewells, blah blah blah.

Saturday morning, dump her in the drink, drop the trolling motor....nothing.

At first I thought it was batteries, but it didn't act like it. I messed with it as Brad was walking down from the parking lot and I just broke into a sweat on how I as gonna broach this subject. I just went for the kill and laid it out. He took it about like I thought, which really wasn't that bad. I mean, I didn't get cussed out. 

Of course, we had about five minutes to decide whether to brave it or put it on the trailer. It was going to be windy. It likely shot our entire gameplan. But, I had faith I could make it work down river, just not at the dam. 

We ran down river and fished our first point. It resulted in one non-keeper and one solid chunk on a red series three Strike King. Brad didn't get bit, which didn't help his mood. Being able to fish meant playing the wind and current and it meant either getting three casts before firing the big motor up OR it meant fishing a lot of water we didn't have confidence in.

After failing to get bit again, which was shocking considering the solid jig bite we had just days before, we ran to the point I caught the big smallie on. Now, keep in mind that I caught this fish and no other fish. But, for some reason, I believed I could get bit. Sure enough, another solid largemouth pounded the jerkbait. So we had two fish for around 5 or 6 pounds. Not a great start, considering it was 9AM at this point. We sat down and thought things over. We decided to run to the dam and give it a try. I thought I could get the nose down river with the boat in the eddy and make drifts. Of course, as I rounded the barge canal and headed to the generators, there were easily 20 boats fan casting. 

I eventually navigated them and we began trying to make a drift. The issue now was that a north wind would push us out of the current. It meant fishing the same stretch over and over, and they clearly weren't biting there. After an hour, we gave up and ran back down river with a new game plan.

We were going to fish everything super fast and super efficient. Pull up on a point, make three casts, and move. About this time the sun came out, so the Rig came out for Brad. 

Every third point, we found an active fish. After going all morning without a single bite, Brad got the Rig going and filled our limit when we doubled up. He caught a nice largemouth and I boated a decent smallie on the jerkbait. 

We added small culls on every other point, but couldn't get that big cull. 

At 1PM, I decided that we would go back to where I had caught all of our big fish. That would be the big smallie on Wednesday and the largemouth early that morning. I continued to work the jerkbait as Brad chunked the A-rig. 

The rod loaded up for Brad and we boated a five pounder. What a fish! We ran to weigh in a little early due to the chop on the water and we made a few casts around the rock dike in front of Turtle Point. Brad caught yet another fish that actually increased our sack.

It wasn't enough for first, which was a gorgeous bag of 24 pounds. All smallies. Second place was 18 pounds, thanks to two big fish. We came in third with over 14 pounds. Any other time, I would be a little deflated, but considering we did it without a trolling motor, it's hard to be upset! 

In all, we caught around 10 fish. All of them came on points. Half were on the Rig and half on the jerkbait. 

Fishing Report for Guntersville/Alabama Bass Trail

Follow me on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter!

Read about all of my Fishing Adventures!

Follow my Fish of 2017

The only thing more embarrassing than writing this fishing report was walking across the scales Saturday afternoon during the Alabama Bass Trail tournament weigh in at Guntersville State Park with one fish. 

It's not the most embarrassing moment I've ever had, but it's dang close. It was a nightmare, but not just A nightmare but THE nightmare where you realize while sitting at your desk in school that you DO have a final today AND your naked. And while you're at it, add in any of your typical reoccurring nightmares. For me, that's a combination of things to include alien invasions, being disowned by my family, and falling off a building. 

But you didn't come here to read about my symbolism. You came here for one of a few reasons: to laugh, to get educated, or both. So, let's get to it.

We fished Guntersville a total of three times following the cancellation of the first event on Pickwick. I can't speak for Josh, but at no point did I think we could get a check. Best case, I was hoping for a limit of fish to weigh about 18 pounds, which could get at least an appreciable amount of points. 

The first day was the day we were supposed to fish Pickwick. As you may recall, we didn't weigh in a limit, but we did find a 9 pounder and we lost enough fish to make a solid bag. It's the same spot we've caught a couple of sixes and fives as well one over eight that we lost. The water temp was 58 degrees that day and the level was near full pool.

We fished the Saturday before the ABT. It wasn't a good day, but we did find a point in South Sauty that was holding a few decent fish, including one five pounder I did catch. Later in the afternoon, we came upon a shell bed that was absolutely loaded with buck bass. We caught and caught and caught. While we didn't catch a measuring fish, we thought, hey....if the first wave of females comes shallow, this is going to be a spot we can win a tournament on. 

Last day of prefishing was this passed Friday. We had to be in Guntersville for the pretournament meeting, so we decided to fish all day. But, we decided that we would NOT fish our bigger fish spot in Roseberry, nor go look at the spot in South Sauty. We would try and find new spots to visit throughout the day. After all, the spot in Roseberry had NEVER had five fish in it. At most, we've caught three measuring fish, but they've always been big fish. Add in that we were boat 7 of 225 and we had a really good chance of being the first ones in there to catch them. 

After struggling most of the day, we rechecked the spot that was holding buck bass. It still had a load of bucks and no measuring fish. These fish were eating square bills and lizards. We noticed that the water was really, really low. This is important for later. 

We moved towards the main channel and found a hump that produced three measuring fish on three consecutive casts. Two of these were just three pounders with one that I caught on a square bill being a solid four pounder. We quickly left this spot after marking it. 

To end the day, we fished some creek channel swings in Seibold, which resulted in shaking off a few solid fish. This would be our Alamo: the spot to visit when all else failed. 

Fast forward to Saturday morning. Here's the gameplan: run to Roseberry and fish until noon, no exceptions. At 11 AM, we would fish an extra hour for every fish caught. After that, we would cycle through our other spots, as they wouldn't take long to fish.

We were the first tournament boat in Roseberry, although there were several other boats fishing. Still, we were able to fish exactly how we wanted to fish. Things got sideways in a hurry. Truly, the worst thing that could have happened was exactly what happened: I caught a nice chunk within the first five minutes of fishing on a lizard. This gave us a very bad sense of security because everything else should have told us to scrap our plan. For example, the lake was very, very low with the important grass lines and ditches that we needed to fish were out of water or the fish had displaced. Additionally, water temps were 52-53 degrees, a lot lower than they had been in prefishing.

We doggedly stuck with this plan as other boats came and quickly turned around and left. Before we knew it, it was 11AM and we hadn't caught another measuring fish. Eventually, we decided to leave and start running our other spots. We ran into South Sauty and that's about the time we realized we had torpedoed our entire day. Upon idling up to the point, we noticed just how low the water was. The three foot thick grassline we had caught fish in was now breaking the surface. We pushed back to deeper water and did catch some buck bass, but 30 minutes of aimlessly casting didn't result in finding the measuring fish.

We visited the spot with all the bucks, but in truth, we did this for confidence. We both needed to catch some fish just to get our mental state right. It kind of worked. We quickly caught around 10 buck bass in what was a complete waste of time. Again, water level was key. What had been 8 feet was now 6 feet. What was barely submerged grass was now topped out. 

Mentally, I thought the hump we had caught three consecutive measuring fish would still pan out. It had produced so quickly the day before that I felt certain we could lean on the hump and catch fish. An hour later, we hadn't had a bite. Seibold didn't result in any bites either. 

At 2:15, the sun finally came out. I think this was key to any shallow bite that we might have found but it came so late that it didn't matter. Soaked, dejected, and frankly mentally drained, we weighed in one fish simply for the points. 

It isn't the first time I've had a tough tournament. It's not the worst one I've had. The thing is, in wildcats or clubs we fish, we can always just walk away in reasonable ambiguity. This one we had to face the music and that was really tough, especially as the weights were adding up and it took 20 pounds just to get a check. So, across the stage we went with one fish and I could just feel the smirks and laughs. Maybe that's insecurity. Maybe you guys were really laughing. But on the inside, it hurt my pride because I know we are better than that. Good enough to win? No. Get a check? A long shot. But we should have gotten a limit. 

Ok, so enough sappy crap. The real story is, what happened and what could I have done different. First, we didn't prefish enough. Typically, we are good enough that prefishing once for a club or wildcat is enough to get us competitive. This was a different animal and we didn't respect that. So, we had limited data that was subject to SPECIFIC conditions that didn't exist on tournament day. The guys that did well are good on the G to begin with AND they fished three days straight. Now, some of that isn't our fault. We can't afford the time or money to fish really more than one day. But, that's reality. 

For example: I can't vouch for EVERYONE, but with the low water level and water temps, we should have IMMEDIATELY scrapped the shallow bite. Period. With the current levels and the aforementioned data, we should have looked at deeper ledges. Both of us are solid ledge fishermen and we completely missed a chance to do something. Even with half a day of scrapping a plan, we could still have found five. 

But, like many of you have texted me: we have to flush this and move on. We knew this was a mulligan lake for us and the good finishes are still head. Now, I didn't think we would finish 191st but now the writing is on the wall. We have to knock a few out of the park and that starts in a few weeks on Wheeler. See yall then.