I DO plan on eventually writing about the Alabama Bass Trail on Smith Lake and I DO plan on updating on our Ditto Landing Bass Tournaments. I just have to find the time. New-ish job. Three kids playing multiple sports apiece at the same time, blah blah. The reality is, I'm not even fishing enough to really post about anything. I'm fishing the Thursday nights (and struggling) and fishing ABT. That's it.
Let's revisit some things on Weiss. Going into this event, we had fished it three other times and cashed two checks, including a Seventh-place finish last year, our highest ever finish in ABT until this year when we finished Seventh at Neely-Henry. You can read about those tournaments by clicking the links below.
Alabama Bass Trail on Weiss Lake 2021
Josh was able to fish Weiss last Monday, five days before the event. He didn't find much. Each year, we've tried to find those Coosa river spots off-shore and been largely unsuccessful. He did find a few off-shore humps that would occasionally have spots on it, but the highlight was finding one that came off the main channel and peaked in six feet that had a good largemouth on it.
Otherwise, it was a bite here and a bite there. Same as the lake always has been. If you didn't bother clicking the links (you should), you'd know that practice has been terrible every single year and then, more often than not, tournament day would take a spot that had one or two small fish and kick out big fish.
We arrived at Leesburg close to 3PM Thursday afternoon. We didn't put a single bass in the boat.
Friday morning, we began fishing as most everyone likely approached the lake. Swim jigs, chatterbaits, swimbaits, spinnerbaits, etc. Nothing to show for it. We alternated between main river stuff, both shallow and deeper, and into the backs of creeks fishing docks and grass.
By noon, we had put a few fish in the boat, but they were all small and had come off completely different baits: two on a weightless fluke, one on a wacky rigged stickbait, that kind of thing. No moving baits, what-so-ever.
In the afternoon, we went deep into a big creek as far back as we could get. The trolling motor was up as high as it could get and was still dragging bottom. Josh was flipping a brushhog into shore grass while I was throwing a texas-rigged worm. He began getting bit. I did not. But I continued to rotate baits while he stuck to the brushhog. I had heard from some of our friends that the only bite WAS dirt shallow, but there was no consistency to their bite. Yet, Josh was getting bit very consistently.
When we got off the water and headed to the house we rented on VRBO with six other guys, it became apparent that, yes, the fish WERE dirt shallow. No one was catching them elsewhere, and the ability to find the right bait was eluding everyone. To be fair, we DID have a few friends that HAD caught them on the brushhog, but that just further emboldened us.
We went to bed with a lot of hope. We had some areas from the previous tournaments that we had confidence in which we hadn't fished in practice. We had MAYBE a hump or two that could hold fish, if we got desperate. But we also KNEW we could catch five in the grass if we glued the right bait in our hand.
So, Saturday morning we head to Leesburg and were cautiously optimistic that we had the chance to really do something. We knew the fish on this lake got bigger on Saturday and that we had a pattern that was going to get us bites. I even texted my wife to tell her that we weren't just trying to get five and advance. We were going for the win.
Boats 1-69 rolled out ahead of us and we made the short 2 mile run to our first cove where we had multiple bites in practice....just to find over five boats already in it. We flipped the Legend around and made the ten minute run to where we had about the same amount of bites, just praying that it wasn't filled with boats. It did have a few boats, but we quickly saw that they were all sitting further back, throwing moving baits.
The plan was for Josh to throw the brushhog exclusively while I rotated moving baits like a buzzbait, spinnerbait, and chatterbait. Josh stuck a keeper quickly and that got our blood flowing.
But that had nothing on what happened minutes later. Flipping his hog up on some cover adjacent to grass, the lined screamed as he set the hook. A monster jumped right before she wrapped him up in a tree. We couldn't see her, but Josh could feel her pulling. It took a painful few minutes, which seemed like hours, for that fish to unwrap herself from the limb. I spent these minutes yelling at Josh to get his clothes off and get in after her. Fish like this don't come easy on this lake. But, we netted her. Fist-bumps all around.
Cover water.
He caught a third keeper, decent pounder or so. I caught a short.
Another piece of cover in grass, another hook set. A three pounder.
Next piece of cover, another three pounder.
It got real, real quick. 8:30 and we had a solid limit. At this point, we already knew we were getting a check. Now it's time to win.
At this point, I put down every rod but the brushhog. We fished this entire cover twice, I had some bites I didn't hook up with, he caught a few fish that didn't help. We left the cove with about 15 or 16 pounds.
Friday afternoon, we had spent the last two hours marking nothing but grass, but try as we might, none of the spots we now ran to quite had the right make-up. So, we transitioned to offshore humps.
The wind began to blow a bit, so we tried moving baits. Nothing. Down to a Carolina rig. Nothing. Finally, I picked up a shakey head and after working it for 30 minutes, I set the hook on a good fish. We boated a 3-pound spot that culled out our last small fish. That put us at 17 pounds and into a place where we needed just one more big bite. Despite the trust I have on my partner, I just didn't think an offshore hump was where we could get that big bite and even though he had caught a good largemouth on this very hump, I just couldn't believe it.
Josh proved me wrong just minutes later. I set the hook expecting another good spot, but a stream of expletives exploded across Weiss lake when a beast jumped into the Alabama sky. Please stay hooked. Please stay hooked. She jumped and jumped. I've caught some big fish in my day. I've landed tournament winning fish. But it's always been "ok, cool" with a fist bump. This was a shake your fist at the sky and scream until your hoarse kind of fish.
It was now 11:30 and we had three-and-a-half hours to go and those those hours crawled by.
We believed we had 20 pounds but we also knew that 20 pounds isn't anything that can't be overcome on this lake, regardless of how tough it is. We also don't big-eye fish and ABT scales typically weigh a pound heavy. We didn't catch another fish for the rest of the day.
If that three-plus hours felt like an eternity, it was NOTHING to waiting in line to weigh these fish. As we climbed the steps to the stage, we knew that Mitchell and McCollum (four-time ABT winners) had 19.90. We got this. We also believed the fish I caught was at LEAST a five and that would be big fish of the tournament.
Now, scroll up to the last picture I posted at the beginning of this post. Judging by that look, what do you think happened?
That big fish WAS a great fish. A week ago, it WAS a six-pounder. But, she was on that hump for a reason. She had spawned out and even though she had a six-pound mouth and length, she was down to under five pounds. That was the difference between winning and losing......or second, in this case.
We had to wait another two hours before it was official and I spent those hours pissed. No other word for it. Pissed.
It's one thing to cash a check in the ABT. It is another to get a Top 10. Being in contention is extremely hard but to win takes so much more. for those of us who are human (not one of these five or so teams that are consistently in the Top 10) it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be in that moment.
That all changed as Kay handed us our plaques, checks, and contingency money. The disappointment melted away.
Love it or hate it, Weiss has been very good to us. Two Top Tens and three checks in four years.
The points from this event moved us up to 2nd in the AOY race and while it isn't our goal to be AOY, it does put us ever closer to what IS our goal: the Bassmaster Team Championship.