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Follow my Fish of 2018
Our club had a tournament coming up on Saturday on Guntersville. Typically that means that Brad and I are getting ready to fish and we try to put a few days on the water. This week was different for me. I had a family reunion on Saturday and a trip to Logan-Martin to prefish for the Alabama Bass Trail(will add article later) on Sunday, so I wouldn't be fishing with Brad. I did, however, have a FANTASTIC time catching monster bass with my kids. If you follow me on Facebook (and you should), you've already seen my six year old catch a five pound beast on a zebco. Here is the report.
But, Brad and I are partners and though I might have a big tournament on Logan-Martin, I still want to see him succeed, even if I am not there. I agreed to fish with him Friday, just a few hours after finishing 3rd in the Ditto Wildcat.
Report for Guntersville 6/1 and 6/3 2017
Last year was really tough and by all accounts, the Big G is on the upswing. While I personally have not experienced that, I have no alliance to the lake like most people and I'm not willing to wade through the bad days. I'll just go somewhere else.
Don't misunderstand, I crushed personal bests on the G in my last tournament last year and first tournament this year by weighing in a 7-3 and a 9-0. However, with the good days come the bad and the G is notorious for living on the very ragged edge of each with nothing in the middle. That's why I avoid it.
So, when Brad had a phenomenal day two weeks ago when he quit counting five pounders that he was catching on one of our hot ledge spots that we used last year to finish 3rd in this same event, I kinda knew that we were do a bad trip. But, to be fair, we were doing about 2/3rds scanning and 1/3rd fishing.
That still resulted in no boated fish for us, but it wasn't just the fish to be blamed but essentially everything else. Wind was whipping at a 25MPH clip and it combined with the current to create enough flow to make it impossible to do anything off shore short of cranking, which the fish didn't want. In addition, all of our ledge spots had a boat on them and typically, one would leave about the time another was running in to sit on it.
Most ledge spots, which included main river shell beds as well as off-main drains and humps didn't have fish grouped up. At most, some would have four or five golf balls sitting on them, hardly enough to warrant fishing. In my opinion, the vast majority of ledge spots are getting broken up by mid-morning by fishermen. If you find one that has more than five or six bass sitting on the ledge, preferably 10 or more, you need to sit on that spot.
We were chased off by storms around noon, but the last spot we marked was easily the best spot. This was the entrance into Allreds. There is a pile of brush that is sitting on the bottom on a steep ledge. As we idled towards the ramp, we graphed between 10-15 golf balls sitting near this brush, but the current, wind, and incoming storm kept us from fishing. But, I suggested that Brad and his partner, Mark, start there as it was the best thing we found all day.
That paid off handsomely for the two as they won. They took 11.72 in a three fish tournament to take the win. In all, the two caught around 20 fish, all on soft plastics, which shocked me considering how well Brad had done cranking ledges just 10 or so days before. It was a great feeling for me because I felt like I had at least helped them eliminate water. I joked with several friends that our success isn't on me, as Brad has now won two tournaments in the last few years without me even in the boat. We also have to give Basswhacker Guide Service props, once again, for helping us with learning ledges. His information over the years has been invaluable.
Here is a quick lesson he gave us years ago:
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