Read about all of my Fishing Adventures!
Follow my Fish of 2019
I know, I know....you guys are looking for info on Smith Lake, right? Chill out, we will get there. And yes, I have been prefishing on Smith, but with back-to-back tournaments coming up including the Alabama Bass Trail event, I don't think it's wise to air out my laundry.
I will say this about Smith. Smith Lake Park is essentially out of water and you are taking your boat's health into you own hands going there. Josh and I were on fish, but with the water level so low, we didn't bother fishing this week because I think that it would lead me astray. But, then again, what if the water doesn't rebound? It's a guessing game at this point, so I am not going to worry about it until late this week.
Wyatt and I needed to get on the water, but with a date later that night, I couldn't go to Smith or Pickwick. That left Wilson, Wheeler, or Guntersville. I ruled out the G simply because of the number of boats that would be on the pond. I've fished Wheeler too much this winter, as it is. It hasn't been bad, but it hasn't been fun enough to continue to keep going. That left Wilson.
I was surprised at how many trailers were in the parking lot at Safety Harbor. The lot was almost completely filled, but we hardly saw any boats on the main river with only about four or five anywhere near the dam.
You can ask my wife, I don't take hints so we fished the dam anyway, getting started about 9:45 AM. I thought the day was going to go terrific because within five minutes of fishing the 100,000 CFS flow, I boated the nice smallie pictured above. Another 15 minutes without a bite and I decided to leave. This wasn't a tournament day, this was fun fishing and I didn't feel like fighting that kind of current for hours just to get five bites.
Joke was ultimately on me, at least in terms of the numbers of bites. We fished the face of the dam, no bites. Ran to Bluewater Creek, no bites.
I decided to start running some of my better bluffs where I have caught huge 20+ pound bags, such as the one from this report: Fishing Report for Wilson 3/19/16.
It didn't take long to get on the board. Wyatt boated two chunks on a wacky rigged stick boat in two consecutive casts and missed another one on the third cast. I boated keepers four and five on two different cranks before we moved down the bluffs.
At the time, my experience told me that fishing these bluffs was about covering water, not location specific. In addition, it also told me that the A-rig would be the best way to get bit.
I didn't get a single bite on the rig, nor did we get a single bite anywhere else. Before we knew it, it was 1PM and we had to hit the road after a scant three hours of fishing. Still, our best five went 12 pounds, which wasn't too bad. I just wish we had gotten more bites.
According to Mr. Johnston of Heartland Anglers, they had 28 boats with it taking 26, 25, and 22.5 pounds for checks. Like I said, I didn't see many boats fishing the river, though I was on the South side and the wind and waves are bad on that side and not many brave it. I believe most people were in the major creeks.
Water was 52-53 degrees. About a foot of visibility. There was solid chop on the water.
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