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Follow my Fish of 2019
Hey fishing buddies. Bet yall think I quit fishing. I didn't. Don't think the thought hasn't crossed my mind, cause it has. But I dismissed the thought pretty quick cause my parents didn't raise no quitter.
But I've been struggling mightily this year. Losing tournaments and struggling isn't a new thing. I'm not a great fisherman to begin with, but when you have a year like this year following a year like last year, writing about fishing two days after getting curb stomped is hard. It's been tough to talk or write about fishing when you are doing your best to forget your performances from 48 hours ago. I'll go into that more in a later post, but let's just say that finally "getting on the board" this past week felt good and it made me feel like writing.
Some of you will snicker and say that it's easy to write in the good times. Hey, you're right. No one comes here to read "fished again yesterday and didn't catch anything."
As I alluded, last year was a banner year for me and my partners. While we struggled in the Alabama Bass Trail, we still managed a check in our first year and we absolutely cleaned up in our clubs. It wasn't just me because both Brad, Josh, and Wyatt were striking gold on their own without me. Brad won two really good club tournaments without me in the boat.
Conversely, we cashed one check in ABT and we've bombed essentially everything else we've fished this year. I mean, we've been MILES out.
The Thursday night Wildcat out of Ditto Landing has been fairly mystifying for us because of how locked down we had that lake leading up to the ABT 3 months ago and then being unable to do anything afterwards. That stretch of river can be mystifying. All last year, we had the lake clocked but the fish have not been in the same spots. They also haven't been in any spots they've traditionally been in, either. Truth is, the fishing for everyone has been really tough but we were determined just to go have a good time and hope to luck into some fish.
Josh and I ran up to the dam with no plan. We typically start near or at the mouth of a small feeder creek. Last year, it was lights out all summer but this year we've only managed to catch a fish or two on it each week. With only 3 hours to fish, you can't afford to have that happen. I've made the joke that when that spot is on, I've always caught this one fish on topwater on this exact cast. She's not been there all year and that's been a sign of how the evening would go. But I gotta make that cast, anyway because when she's there, she's a decent fish and she's a sign that we are going to do well.
So, I toss my XCaliber Zell Pop onto this clay bank that has a huge laydown on it and she's there. Slurp. I boat a nice river two-pounder. There's never been another fish there, so I toss my bait back and I'm not shocked that there isn't another blow-up. We fish the point a few casts with nothing to show. Then I decide to throw a Texas rigged worm into that same spot and as I'm swimming it back, the rod loads up and I swing aboard a second keeper. Josh pulls another keeper off the same spot. I snag a fourth on my next cast. We fish it a few more minutes without a bite, but don't get bit. Still, it's 5:47 and we have four good river fish.
The point doesn't produce, which it's struggled to do all year so we decide to make a move. We fish about three other spots that have consistently held fish in the summer without a bite. Since we have four decent fish, we don't mess with The Nursery, a spot that holds small fish in big numbers, but never any good ones. We decide that we need a kicker and with 45,000 CFS of current, a solid number in this time of year, an offshore rockpile smallie would fit the bill.
So, we motor over to a stretch of river that has four consecutive rock piles in 14-16 feet of water. We make some casts to the bank and bring it back to the boat. I lose a small fish, as does Josh. Then we begin working the main channel drop that has the rock piles on it. Josh picks up a jig and starts dragging it along the rocky bottom. I pick up a Strike King 6XD and start chunking and winding.
This spot is super sticky and IF the fish are there, the quickest way to make sure they leave is to get stuck and retrieve your lure. So, when my crank starts dredging the bottom, I slow it way down. As I'm crawling it, I get a slap but the fish doesn't hook up. I make the same cast but when I clear the boulder, I hit the brakes instead of crawling it. Rod loads up and I boat swing number five. I do it again and catch another. Then another. Because I am on the back and fishing at specific angle due to Josh's presentation, he re-positions the boat so we can both effectively fish.
The next 15 minutes were like what we experienced last year. Fish after fish after fish. It didn't matter what we threw, as long as we found the rockpile. The highlight was a 2.75 smallie I caught on the 6XD that went skyrocketing to the moon when I set the hook, which is totally a smallie thing. We catch a few here and there. Make some small culls, but the bite dies eventually and we didn't catch another fish the rest of the evening.
All told, we caught around 20 fish with our best five knocking on the door of 10 pounds. It wasn't the best bag and the struggles to find a good fish continue, but it was enough to pocket some money and finally get on the right side of the board. Winning bag was a little over 11 pounds. There aren't a lot of quality fish being caught on that end of the river. Don't know why. We know they are there!
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