Fishing Report for Wheeler/Ditto Thursday Night Wildcat 5/24/18

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Kinda in a hurry today, being the first day of summer and all. Just so happens that everyone is already celebrating the holiday week, but I actually had work to do today. Well, I mean, I have time to write this, hence me telling you it will be short. Kinda like the bite we got on last night (spoiler alert). 

Fishing is such an interesting and weird sport. You can fish and fish and fish and spend weeks trying to scrounge up a limit. I mean, it's crazy the think that we've caught tiny limits. We've caught a 6.3 without finishing a limit, but we have yet to put together a good bag.

The last few years, I've begun to wonder if we outsmart ourselves. This is a 3.5 hour tournament and you can't make bad decisions and you can't miss fish. It seemed like when we went to the dam, the winning bag was from down river. When we went down river, the bag was caught at the dam. Believe me when I say that the decision on where to go was talked about for an hour before blastoff, so it isn't like we just blindly chose.

TVA was pulling 45,000 CFS out of Guntersville. They had been steady all day, and they had the flood gates open, so there's actually a good bit more current than that. This time of year and on into deep summer, TYPICALLY current of this nature positions the fish really well and you can't just junk fish the way you normally would this time of year. So, we chose to run all the way up river to the dam.

Well, not quite. There are a couple of creeks that feed into the river within two miles of the dam. Try as we might, we've never caught a whole limit off these points. It's not that the fish are there, but my opinion is that when current has been steady, they've already fed up and are just chilling until the next feeding. Typically, that isn't in the window we fish. Now, we still usually get a solid bite on each of these so we just hoped we could piece together a bag.

I began throwing a Xcaliber zell pop while making the comment that I had YET to catch a top water fish this year. On the first cast, that remained true, though a fish exploded on the popping bait just a few twitches. The resulting wind knot I had was impressive as braid was wrapped all over the rod. The five or so minutes I spent untangling this mess was just enough as the same fish destroyed the bait seconds after it hit the water. We had a nice two pounder in the box. 

Typically, I would have suggested that we only give that spot five minutes as we never catch more than one good fish. But Josh set the hook on another two pounder on a big worm seconds later. I took over the trolling motor and caught two on back-to-back casts on a big worm. After putting his fish in the box, Josh boated our biggest of the night, a 3.00 spot. 

Then the bite died.

That doesn't mean we didn't get bit. Actually, we culled up three more times but bites on that spot dried up. Literally five straight casts or so to start, then nothing. In fact, it was more because we caught fish that didn't help in between some of those bigger ones. 

By 7PM, we were moving around at the dam, looking for a big bite, but never found it. 

At weigh in, we had 9.90, which was good enough for the win. This time of year, 10 pounds is going to get you a check in virtually every tournament from now until August. We were fortunate enough to get that bite. 

Oh, and enjoy the laugh of my SECOND top water fish of the year.

Fishing Report for Weiss: Alabama Bass Trail North Division

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I have gotten texts, tweets, calls about why I haven't put out a report for the ABT North Division on Weiss Lake. No, it's not because I am embarrassed that we finished around 100th (which was a new personal best, considering the first two tournaments) but because I have been traveling for work. I mean, yeah, embarrassment is PART of it. 'Cause you best believe that had we finished in the top 10, I'd have this report out by Sunday morning.  Anyways....

Weiss isn't exactly close to home, ya know. It's about a 2.5 hour trip one way. Between our other clubs and work travel, I never made it to Weiss until the day before our tournament. Josh was able to go one day over a week before, simply to see what the lake was like. This is gonna sound funny, if you've been to Weiss and Logan-Martin, but we expected the two lakes to fish similar. I mean, they are on the same river, right? 

We expected rock piles and offshore. We expected top water on sea walls. We got none of that. It took me about five minutes Friday morning to realize that my preconceived expectations may have really messed me up. And, after what ranks in the top ten hardest prefishing days I've ever had, I laughed in the face of a local who told me it would take 25 pounds to win. 

Josh had found fish the week before by throwing a square bill on sea walls. The good news was, there are a lot of seawalls within a mile or so of Leesburg marina. My experience has been that if square bills work in the middle of the morning, top water will also work early. That's based on trips to Logan-Martin. 

You can read about some of our trips to Logan-Martin here:

Fishing Report for Logan-Martin 5/20-21/2017

Late Friday, literally the last place we fished, was a main river point. We had the boat sitting in 20 feet of water and had marked fish sitting on the main river drop. Josh caught the best fish of our day on a worm and that fish had at least two other fish follow the worm to the boat. I caught my first and only fish in practice minutes later, though I did have another one follow a crank to the boat. Josh caught two more. We figured we had a good spot to hit around 8AM after the seawall bite died down. 

We also found a lot of grass, so naturally our game plan was to catch a limit of spots and go hog hunting the grass. We anchored that by a series of frog blowups we had on a long flat of grass. 

So let me stop here at explain something that most of you wouldn't read if I put it at the end of this post. Yes, I realize how bad I'm struggling in the ABT. Don't need anyone else to remind me cause God knows I've been hearing it from literally every angle. I realize this isn't a 15 boat tournament or some benefit derby. I'm used to being in the running for a check. I've spent the last weeks following ABT tournaments over analyzing myself on why I can't even get mid-pack. When you struggle, you really start wondering if you are cut out for this. Maybe you aren't as good as you think, which would be something else cause I already don't think much of myself.

Over weeks of thinking, I've come up with something and I am going to bold it so you can't miss it.

It doesn't matter how talented you are if you can't adapt to fishing bigger tournaments. 

That's a combination of things that includes ability, sure, but also prefishing and having not one or two or three spots but ten or more and MANAGING those spots. 

Ok, carry on. 

So we were boat 176 or so coming out and we quickly ran to the nearest seawall. Josh would pick up a fish on basically every seawall on a squarebill while I tossed a combination of baits behind him, specifically a buzzbait, spook, and whopper plopper. Josh had caught around seven fish and I hadn't had a bite. I began throwing a worm behind him and that didn't work either.

That bite died real quick and we didn't even have a limit out of those seven fish. We began fishing docks and we eventually got our tiny limit in that manner. It was this point we noticed something: every dock and every point was getting pounded. Like, a boat would leave and another would pull up.

In a 225 boat tournament, these is virtually ZERO chance of winning an event by fishing behind everybody else, who is fishing behind everybody else. None. 

We retreated to the grass only to find boats doing that as well. 

We then went offshore, thinking we might could find fish that hadn't been pressured. We marked some very nice offshore channel swings that were holding fish, but we couldn't get them to bite consistently and found ourselves spending way too much time on areas that were not producing. Not only that, but as we were fishing offshore, we found our assumption that people wouldn't be doing this was also wrong. Every hump was also getting fished. 

Although we did make some small culls. we knew we needed two big bites to put us in the money. We found an offshore area that was being ignored and we marked both bait and fish on it. Most importantly, there were active fish in the area. 

Throwing a 3/4 ounce swinghead with a big worm, I boated our biggest fish of the day, a three pound spot that was a huge cull for us. That got us to over nine pounds. While we knew that wasn't enough to get a check, we knew one more of those bites would be enough and two more bites might be a top 20 finish. 

I had both of those bites in the waning minutes of the tournament. 

The first thumped the worm and I leaned on her, but never got the hook through. That one is on me. You gotta give a fish more time to get a 10 inch worm swallowed and with a large gauge hook and a ton of line stretch, you gotta really let them have it. 

The next bite, I fought the fish to the boat. This came on the end of a very long cast and there is no question this fish was in the three to four pound range. I fought this fish for what seemed like eternity, got the fish around the back of the boat and around the motor and she simply let go. Between the thump, the load, and the fact that this fish was mean enough to fight me without have the hook in her tells me all I need to know.

That would have been over a three pound cull and would have gotten us to around 13 pounds and firmly where we needed and hoped to have been. 

Look, I get it. I can feel the eyes rolling. Every missed fish is a giant, right? This wasn't a giant, but it was the quality fish we needed. 

Weiss was really tough, though it wasn't tough to the guys at the top, who did catch over 26 pounds to win, which is insane. We never saw anything to lead us to believe that was possible. We had assumed 18 to win and 12 to cash a check. According to the ABT story, locals believed in similar numbers. And, aside from that monster bag, it was dead on.  The ABT is going back to Weiss next year and I really believe we will do well. In the last hour or so, we really learned some important stuff. 

In the end, we caught only 15 fish on tournament day with even less in practice. We expected to have a tough go at it simply because we didn't practice and everyone else does....many three and four days straight. Our talent, such as it is, wasn't enough to overcome this, though it has been in smaller tournaments. Gotta adapt to these bigger tournaments. Logan-Martin up next. 

Fishing Report for Wheeler 5/3-5/2017

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We fishermen will do really silly things for this sport. Many would simply point to the money spent on boats, rods, reels, and having every color of our favorite baits in triplicate. Most of us would say "that's just the start of the obsession."

So when I tell you that I * VOLUNTARILY * woke up at 2AM Thursday morning in Philly (yes, the city of brotherly love) to fly home, get my truck, steal Josh's boat (cause, you know, mine is dead along with my hopes and dreams of winning the ABT-Wheeler), and fish at 5 PM at Ditto Landing, you know that I am certifiably nuts. 

And, if you need a refresher on how my last few weeks have been a tumble down the mountain that I call Tournament Fishing, you can read all about it in the link below.

Fishing Report for Wheeler Lake 4/19-21

But, Josh had demanded that I shake it off and get back on the water, which would make my other partner, Brad, happy as we had another club tournament on Wheeler this past Saturday. 

So we did and although Josh would be late, the day started off pretty good as I had two fish in the box by the time he came squealing into the parking lot of Ditto Landing on two wheels. We ran just upriver where we spent the better part of the next three hours essentially flipping backwater wood.

We had a limit really quick but we had two bites from quality fish that we couldn't get in the boat, one that Josh had throw the bait and I broke one off. We were doing nothing special but flipping shakey heads into shaded shallow laydowns. Several fish came off of bladed jigs as well. In the end, it took 10 pounds to win and we had six or so, though we caught a lot of fish and had fun, just couldn't get that one good bite, which is almost always the story when fishing Ditto for three hours. 

Friday morning, Brad and I took off to First Creek to prefish for our upcoming tournament. Brad had fished the previous Saturday and had knocked them out. As I was in Nashville watching the Predators get drilled, he was sending me pictures of all the fish he had been catching on one small stretch of the main river. By the end of the day, he had lost count of how many fish he caught. None of them were giants, but the mixed bag of largemouth, smallmouth, and spots would have put him in the 12-14 pound range. 

So as we drove to the ramp, we discussed how every year for the past four years, we had experienced the same thing over and over. That is, practice day was fairly easy and we almost always had 12 pounds and occasionally up to 20+. Come Saturday, we had never weighed in more than 12, though it was frequently enough to get a check and, even last year, win. 

Fishing Report for Wheeler 4/22/2017

Instead of hammering the spot Brad found, we tried to expand upon it. What we did is nothing new, if you are regular reader here. We targeted main river points, pockets, and pea gravel bluffs. The system we use is simplistic. Brad throws a quick moving search bait, such as a square bill or some other crank, while I throw a clean up bait on the back such as a shakey head, jig, or a small slow rolling swimbait. When on the points or in the pockets, we will occasionally throw topwater as well. 

We struck out for the first two hours, not really getting a single bite. A quick call to my buddy Naaman, who we had seen at the ramp, confirmed that he hadn't got a bite, either. So, as a sanity check, we went to the stretch that Brad had found and quickly picked up a limit of fish over the 200 yard stretch. The fist came on a variety of baits and only a square bill seemed to produce multiple bites. On the back of the boat, I caught fish on at least five different baits. A second trip down the stretch produced another five keepers and a lot of shorts. 

This was good and bad. It told us there were fish to be had, but they weren't overly aggressive and they all wanted something different, nor were they quality. The day ended with a big smallie that I caught on a small swimbait and it was really the only tournament-worthy fish we caught all day. Still, our best five went 10 pounds and from our experience, that means we shouldn't expect to hit that number on Saturday. On the flip side, it told us that we were likely a big bite away from a check. More good news was that we didn't catch that fish Friday, which I have done time and time again. 

Saturday had rain in the forecast all day. I can deal with rain. But TVA had drawn the lake level down overnight while pushing a ton of current Friday.

*Spoiler*

If you don't have current, don't fish the main river. 

We knew this but we really didn't think about it. We had caught enough fish over the last six days to think we were better than current driven fish. Wrong.

We've started the past three years on one specific point which always holds one big smallie. The last two years, we've wised up and haven't fished that spot until Saturday and we've by-and-large been rewarded by catching that fish. This year, we didn't go to the spot and elected to go to our milk run first. Ironically, one of our competitors DID go there and DID catch that big smallie and that fish won the tournament. Good for him. Dumb of us.

I wish I could give yall more information, but there isn't much to say. We caught just six fish Saturday with only three measuring. I don't believe we caught but a few fish on our milk run and had to nickle-and-dime around just to get bites. I couldn't even get bit on a shakey head. 

With drenching rain and low morale, we considered going home early. But our experience had always said that days like Saturday can be won on a single bite so we doggedly kept casting. At this point, Brad had 12 rods on the deck and I was down to two: a shakey head and the small swimbait. 

I expected to get bites on the shakey head and I expected to get just two or one bites on the swimbait, but I knew those would be big. 

I believe I got those bites on the swimbait, but after fighting a big fish for several seconds, getting her close to the boat, she turned and dropped the swimbait. This happened twice and made me consider if I was setting the hook right, if i had the right rod, or maybe the hook was dull. After it happened a second time, I was at a loss as I had fixed all three. The way those fish hit, fought, and turned the bait loose at the boat, I am pretty sure I had two three-pound class smallies on. Those buggers are hard fighting and smart. 

Unlike last year, there were no last minute heroics. Just a walk of shame to the weigh in station. It took 10 to win, 8 for second. Something else for third, but who cares at that point. 

It's been a tough stretch the last month and over dinner, Josh asked me if I was going to Weiss with him the next day. I looked at him quizzically and he informed me our next ABT tournament was this Saturday....

So, back at it.