Read about all of my Fishing Adventures!
Follow my Fish of 2019
First, let me apologize for having to re-use a picture (again) for this post. Couple of reasons for that: first and foremost, I didn't catch but three fish in two days of practice. Second, I had ASSUMED that about the time I caught a big largemouth on Saturday, we would have our picture taken on stage or we could at least get a screen shot of weigh in. Wrong there as well, as the live feed cut out when we were weighing in to cash a check for a 34th place finish on Weiss with 14.25 pounds.
But, hey, yall ain't here for the pictures of us. You want to hear the story and BOY do we have a story for you!
Last year, we fished Weiss lake for the first time for the May Alabama Bass Trail event. You can click the link below to read about that event.
Fishing Report for Weiss: Alabama Bass Trail North Division
Suffice to say, 100th wasn't where we wanted to finish, but we were in the log jam at 10 pounds where what those fish ate that morning meant the difference between 100th and 40th. So, going into this year's event, we had a few things we wanted to work out.
First, if the tournament was won at the dam last year, we owed it to ourselves to at least see what the dam offered. So, last Friday, we made the run all the way to the dam and despite knowing how many miles it was, we didn't appreciate just how far 50 miles of winding Coosa river is. When we finally got there, we discovered that the rains from the last two days made for 10-foot high water levels and ripping current. We couldn't fish, heck we couldn't even really get the lay of the land. It was basically a wasted day.
Friday before the tournament, we wanted to check a lot of off-shore stuff. That's something we are good at and with our boat draw of 193, we figured the only way we could likely get on some clean water was going off shore. Last year, we didn't really find off-shore stuff, but we at least found fish on the end of long points. So, we idled a lot. We fished a little. We never got a single bite on off-shore stuff, whether it was channel swings, underwater bridges or roadbeds, or whatever.
In fact, we caught only three fish and had six bites all day. The common factor? First, shallow seemed to be the only way to get bites, with four or so of the bites we did get coming on one small stretch of docks on a north facing bank. It was the warmest water we had seen.
With the lack of bites anywhere else, we decided that we would pray something changed positively in that one small stretch. So Saturday morning, we ran to that pocket and began fishing the north bank.
Along the way in, there was a boat on the point of that pocket and they were just wearing the fish out. We counted essentially six fish on six casts for these guys before we even dropped the trolling motor. Seeing that caused us to be more patient than we likely would have been, otherwise.
So after we fished the docks the first time with a combination of top water and soft plastics, we made another pass simply because the other boat was still there and we planned to fish that point when they left. On this second pass, I picked up a red square bill, the lone consistent bait from last year but one I had not thrown in practice at all. I targeted the west side of those north docks which was holding the little bit of shade still left in the morning.
As I brought the square bill past the dock pilings, the square bill stopped. The rod loaded up. I knew this was a good one. A big largemouth had crushed the crank and we netted easily the biggest fish we had ever caught on this lake.....except that it was spawned out. Still, this is the kind we needed.
Next cast on the same side of the next corner of the dock, rod loaded up. Not as big, but still good. Next cast, another decent largemouth. Josh added one and we had four. Minutes later, we had our fifth. They weren't huge, but we had ten pounds at 7:30. That made the day acceptable by both our standards, real quick.
Another pass through those docks was fruitless and we figured (largely confirmed now) that the morning bite was absolutely crucial and since we only had about a 20 minute window to fish that low-light, we got what we got, even if there might have been more to be had.
Josh and I both culled one fish apiece on the boat now vacated by the spot from earlier that morning. After that, Josh culled twice more and I had just one bite for the rest of the day.
We weighed in our 14.25 pounds and were initially 28th place with about 50-75 more boats to weigh in. We quickly slid to 31st and I didn't think we would make 40th, so we headed home. I was shocked to find we made it to 34th when the scales closed. We moved up to 105th in points, which was huge considering our dreadful Smith Lake tournament and a sub-par event on Wheeler.
Fishing Report for Alabama Bass Trail on Wheeler
We fished super clean, with me missing just the one bite. We never lost a fish that we hooked. It wasn't great, but it was a lot better than expected! On to Pickwick in a short two weeks. We aren't where we hoped to be when it came to my Look Ahead post, but, that's why it's fishing!
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