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
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.
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