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Follow my Fish of 2017
So Josh and I ended Thursday evening on a really solid note as I weighed in my second biggest fish of the year with a 6.30 for the Ditto Thursday night wildcat. You can read about the results by clicking the link below.
But, the fishing for the week wasn't over, not by a long shot. Our club was fishing Pickwick this weekend and while the tournament was moved from Saturday to Sunday, Friday was the only time we could try and get on some fish. Brad and I hit first light to see what we could find.
I was so busy last week that I forgot to write the report for our other club tournament on Pickwick on 4/6. It wasn't a great day. I fished with my buddy Naaman and we simply could not find any sizable fish, despite all the inclinations that huge bags were being caught. If you read Lou's Pickwick Fishing Reports or any of the various guide reports from Pickwick, you know big fish were coming to the scales. Most had said the Horseshoe was the deal, but I really didn't want to mess with fishing alongside 40 other boats. The 'Shoe is worse than any ledge on Guntersville in terms of walking across the lake and never getting wet.
Look, don't misunderstand. I KNEW the big bags were being caught there and I had no problems grinding it out. I've done it before. I just don't LIKE it because you are likely to only get five bites a day and while they are usually GREAT bites, if you only get four, then the entire day was wasted, anyway. So, Naaman and I didn't even bother fishing there and we did get on a great bite down river, in terms of numbers. While it was less than a stellar day, it was still enough to cash a check for second place despite not catching a single female. The pattern was fishing current inside of Seven Mile Island with either a chatterbait or a spinnerbait. It didn't seem to matter which one. We left them biting. Not great, but it was a data point and it was something that COULD be really good IF weather cooperated. And, there were some warm days on the horizon.
Brad had fished the weekend before and the results were less than optimal. He had fished all over and the 'Shoe was the only place he got bit, and they were good fish. So, we needed to ferret out a game plan. We agreed that if the females DID come up, the tournament COULD be won down stream, which was preferable to both of us. So, we didn't fish inside the Horseshoe all day Friday.
And, truthfully, we didn't get bit either. At the end of the day, we did put together a small limit fishing a small swimbait along bluffs. We didn't find any females. So, we had to make a choice and that meant factoring in that water levels were going to fluctuate due to 23 hours of rain and the weather was going to be really cold following two days of a warming trend.
Eventually, we settled on fishing the Horseshoe all day without any discussion of leaving it. We felt like, with the weather, water temps and levels, and current, smallmouth were going to be the deal and any largemouth that had pulled up would be pushed back down.
We launched and made the short run. On my very first cast, a smallie loaded up on the PowerTeam Lures 4.8" Swinging Hammer and I boated a solid three pounder. Brad followed with his Scottsboro tackle swimbait just two minutes later with an identical sized smallie. I followed that with a nice Warmouth. Two fish for around six pounds just five minutes into the day AND the 'Shoe wasn't packed.
And that all changed, real quick. See, the college series is on Pickwick next Saturday and there were a LOT of guys prefishing. And while these guys are LIGHTYEARS better than I was at that age, they haven't quite learned some of the intricacies of sportsmanship on the water. Before we knew it, we had two boats sitting on the rock pile that were fishing. The rest of the crowd filtered in and so began the day of trying to to cast on to other's boats or cross their lines as we aimlessly wondered around trying to find the fish.
We went several hours without a bite and when the sun tried to peak out, we went to the rip-rap inside the 'Shoe and Brad picked up the A-Rig while I threw a shakey head with a PTL 7" Finicky Tickler on it behind him. Just a few casts in, a fish popped the worm and we boated a nice three pound or so largemouth. Brad caught a non-measuring largemouth soon after. The sun disappeared and so did that bite.
The klaxon sounded and flood gates began to open on Wilson dam. Then, the fish began to really bite, just not for us. Now, obviously I can't watch every boat all the time, and it is possible that several boats caught big bags, but I never saw the same boat catch more than two. However, the action was palpable, we just couldn't seem to find the same bite every one else was finding, which included two fish that I am very comfortable were well over six. Many, ff not the majority, of the boats in there were live-baiting.
But eventually the work paid off and what I was SURE was a catfish or a drum ended up being a magnum smallie that took several heart attack level jumps and one run towards the motor before we got her in the box.
We knew we had four really good fish. Now we needed one more bite. We fished for three straight hours without a single bite before it was time to weigh in. Could we have found a squeaker? Absolutely. I could have caught a second limit on the bluffs down river, but what good would that do? We have changed philosophies this year. While we have done well the last few years, it has been "limit first, quality second." But that typically only brings heartache. After all, no one remembers who just had a limit, right?
With the quality of fish we had seen caught and we had caught ourselves, we knew someone was going to sack them up, if not most everyone. Sure enough, it was 20 pounds for a win, followed by 19, and then us with 15 pounds in four fish which included a five-pounder that was AMAZINGLY the big fish of the day. So, while we could have found a fifth fish, we needed another five pounder to win. While I KNOW we did the right thing by fishing hard and staying where the big fish were, it's tough to accept that sometimes luck isn't on your side.
And I say that knowing that the two boats that beat us didn't just have luck. They were on fish and we know what they were doing and it was very specific. We just had a general plan that wasn't really backed by any evidence, more of a lack of, which is the difference in that last fish. We needed luck and they didn't.
Anyways, it was still a solid day and to see and catch those big fish is always awesome, even if the weather isn't. For those interested, most of the smallies have spawned. Water temp was 60. Numbers are tough.
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