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Follow my Fish of 2018
Last week (I guess it's actually TWO weeks ago now) was a good week. Josh and I have cashed a fair amount of checks in the Thursday nighter out of Ditto, but never won it. Well, we finally slayed that beast and we managed to do it without catching a fish over three pounds, which is fairly rare. Usually the winning bag has some sort of limit and a kicker. We weighed in 9.90 on our way to a win. You can get the scoop by clicking the link below.
Thanks to the continuing rain and TVA's attempts to keep up with water levels, 60,000 CFS was being pulled out of Guntersville while at least eight flood gates were open. Contrast that to 45,000 the week before without the flood gates. Typically, we've struggled when current reaches that kind of levels. 60K is a strong amount of current and makes it tough to stay on spots or finesse fish. The further up river you go, the harder that gets.
The conversation was pretty much settled because of the week before. We had the winning limit at 5:35 and that's with the 12 or so minute run to the dam. While the bite died off pretty quickly that day, we felt like it might still be holding fish. So, we made the run.
Last week it was all about shakey heads and 7' worms. This week was a Strike King 6XD. It wasn't as if we didn't throw both of those each week, but I'm assuming that the increase in current made the fish want a moving bait and it was hard to keep a shakey head, even with a 1/2 ounce weight, in the area.
It took even less time to get a limit. At 5:25, we had caught a limit and upgraded several times. Truthfully, we were getting bit each and every cast. Of course, due the nature of crankin' we didn't fish nearly as clean as we had the week before where we essentially boated ever bite we had.
This hurt us really, really bad. After wading through literally dozens of fish, I finally got that big bite that you have to have to win. The fish jumped several times, but stayed buttoned up. As I maneuvered the big one around the back of the boat. I changed my rod angle from a 45-degree arc to straight up because she had gotten into the current and I needed to reign her in. The change in rod angle popped the crank loose and she went swimming off.
That's a tough pill to swallow. You can go weeks and weeks up there without getting that bite, but you have to get her in the boat. The chances of getting that bite again were slim to none and I knew it. That kinda stinks considering it was just 5:30 and we still had three hours to fish.
All told, we caught around 20-25 fish off of the one spot, a current break within a mile of the dam. Then they were done eating, so we started moving around.
Josh was able to catch several smallies on rip-rap around the dam. Most of these fish were very tight to cover and the cover was typically on a current break of some sort. As he flipped the cover, I tried to keep the fish honest by fishing the current, but never really got bit.
With a few minutes left to go, we moved to a straight section of rip-rap that was essentially current facing. I began throwing a Strike King series 3 and if i could cast it just to the edge of the water, I could get bit. I caught five fish on consecutive casts including our largest fish of the day, a 3.30 smallie.
We came up short of a win at weigh-in but did manage third, just behind my high school buddy, Matt, who managed a second place finish all by himself, which is really impressive. We had 10.90, a very very solid sack for this time of year. Unfortunately, this begins the tough time of year where the water gets hot and stagnant.
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