I know I haven't posted a lot this year. Same for 2020. COVID made it hard to post, which is probably counter-intuitive. You might think that working from home in 2020 would have made it easier. Nope. In the time I wasn't at my computer for work, I was working around the house. Sure, I did fish. I just didn't update.
2021 was very similar, except that I started a new job that required a lot more time than I was used to having.
Anyways, let's talk fishing. 2020 and 2021 were decidedly tougher. I blame COVID. Everyone was out fishing a lot more. Even in the wintertime when NO ONE used to fish. When I would fish Ditto Landing, there might be a few trailers in the parking lot and most of them were crappie or catfish rigs. The past two winters, there might be a dozen bass boats on the river.
It's definitely made the Alabama Bass Trail tougher, with everyone able to fish a lot more. But, hey, we made the championship (finally) and had a decent finish along with a Top 10 finish on Weiss Lake.
But let's talk Wheeler and winter time.
You may recall that Josh and I won the 1st Annual Dry Creek Marina Open back in 2019. COVID caused the 2020 event to be canceled, so this year was the second ever event. You can read about that tournament and how we sacked up 21 pounds of smallies by clicking this link.
I've been spending a lot of time on the river, as I typically do in the winter. Last year, the fishing wasn't nearly as good with smallmouth and the big spots being hard to find. This year has been even rougher. I blame fishing pressure and the fact that we haven't had a lot of current, equally. The fish simply are not schooled and the smallies are impossible to come by.
That's not just for us, either. We've had two Ditto Landing Winter Wildcat Series events and there have been less than five smallies weighed and we've had 15 and 20 boats, respectively. I've yet to catch a measuring one. And the massive schools of spots? Nowhere to be found.
What we've found the last few weeks is, there are more largemouth biting than any of us can ever remember. It's not in typical largemouth places, either. It's out on the main river. But, to my discredit, I've essentially ignored this until the last week. I've hunted spots and smallies day after day after day, to no avail. But, I could go down very specific stretches and catch largemouth by the dozens.
So, starting a week ago, I completely abandoned my typical current-driven fishing with my go-to baits, like swimbait, A-rig, and jig and started evolving the rods on the deck focusing on what those largemouth were biting, and it truly was one bait: a shakey head.
In practice, Wyatt and I decided that we would spend all of our time expanding a very specific pattern in preparation for the Dry Creek Marina tournament, although he did spend one day down around Decatur, but he was doing essentially the same thing I was doing up river. He had a good practice. I had a good practice. We had a great practice together in the one full day we spent in preparation. It was so good that when we wanted to check one of our spots and a crappie fisherman was sitting on it, we politely asked if we could make two casts on it, which they happily agreed to. Wyatt shook off a five pounder and I shook off a three pounder and we left among the laughter of our fellow fishermen.
When asked by fellow fishermen Saturday morning, I said that I expected to catch 15 pounds, but would be surprised by anything over that. I knew we would have a limit quickly and it would be decent. But would each spot give up a five? That remained to be seen. I had serious doubts as we just weren't seeing that kind of size. Plenty of 3s. Occasionally a 4. With over 60 boats and a lot of really, really good fishermen, that wasn't going to be enough, without a lot of things going right. In truth, my feelings had gone from wanting to win the now-$5000 pot (thanks to Dry Creek) to just wanting to put on a good showing and not being a one-hit-wonder in 2019.
What we needed: stable water level, about 30,000 CFS of current and a lot of sun. What did we get Saturday? Water had dropped another foot, virtually no current and 100% cloud cover for the entire day. Bad for us. Worse for ANYONE not fishing for largemouth.
After the 45 minute run up river, Wyatt caught a heavy four and a heavy three within the first 15 minutes. He also put several smaller fish in the boat, all of which we quickly threw back. But, since they seemed to actively feeding, I picked up the spinnerbait and tossed it. The rod loaded up, I yelled for the net. It was a monster. And the monster simply pulled off.
What proceeded for the next three or so hours was me getting in my own head. Wyatt caught fish after fish. I couldn't connect on any bites and I was getting severely frustrated. When I did eventually get a big bite, I pulled a drum off a lay-down. Right spot for the big fish. Right type of bite. But not the right type of fish and that just made more questions start swirling in my head. Our first stretch might have provided a limit quickly, but it was also quickly obvious that the 50 yard stretch of productive bank had shrunk to more like 5 yards and eventually we caught all the fish on that stretch.
My next spot was a collection of brush piles about 100 yards long on a point directly across the river. In practice, I had noticed that there was another boat that had been fishing it, but I had hoped they hadn't figured it out. They must have, because they fished it all morning. We didn't bother fishing it and moved to our next spot, a spot that is probably my 3rd most productive spot, historically. Another boat sitting on it. No surprise. It's obvious.
Moving further up river, to the most up river spot I planned to fish, we began fishing a spot Wyatt has made a ton of money on in the last two years. But, it's also current driven, even for largemouth. It did provide a nice spot and a few other fish, but no big ones. That was quite a surprise because that 200-yard long stretch consistently provides big fish.
So, now what? We ran back to the spot that had been occupied a few hours earlier. It now had a catfish boat on it and another bass boat that had obviously given up on it and was now drifting down river. Nothing there but a few small ones.
It was now noon and I knew that it was a 45 minute run back to Ingalls Marina and I wanted to save an hour to fish the spot that Wyatt had found in practice. That left precious little time. I pulled the plug on the up-river stuff and started the run down river. We stopped at a few junk fishing places that sometimes have good fish on them. Nothing but small ones.
With an hour remaining and about 12 pounds in the live-well, we finished our long run down to the 100-yard stretch that Wyatt had found. We were still dealing with cloud cover and water levels and I was afraid that might have killed what bite he had found. Still, while he went to work with his shakey head, I decided that I would cover water with a spinnerbait.
First 100 yards yielded one short fish. But, I had faith in my partner and kept my head down. Finally connected with a good one and boated a three pounder. Another 50 yards and another one a little smaller, but clearly a cull. Wyatt pulled off a miracle when my spinnerbait came flying out of the fish's mouth right as the fish made its last attempt to escape. Wyatt literally caught the fish in mid-air with the net.
With 15 minutes to go, I turned and told Wyatt that I was putting the trolling motor on high and for him to pick up the spinnerbait. We covered water as fast as we could, to the point where he was essentially dragging his spinnerbait behind us, but that didn't seem to bother the next three pounder he boated.
Both of us were ecstatic that we had turned the day around and we were proud of our finish, even though we knew that it wasn't enough to even scare for the lead.
Except that the dock talk told us something different as we loaded the boat. At the time, 15 pounds was in the lead and I knew we had something around that. We were about two spots from weighing in when the winning sack of 18 pounds was weighed, so I knew then that we weren't winning and there were another 10 sacks behind us. Knowing fishermen the way I do, I knew it was likely that someone was grand-standing and even if we were in the Top 5 now, someone would edge us out.
But I was wrong. We weighed in over 16 pounds to finish second. A huge surprise, but a welcomed one.
Make sure you follow our Ditto Landing Bass Fishing page. Our next event is this coming Sunday, the 11th. Information can be found on the Facebook page.
