Zach's Pages

Monday, April 25, 2022

Alabama Bass Trail on Weiss Lake 4/23/22

 



(Photos Courtesy of Alabama Bass Trail)

Another post where I apologize about not having updated in a long, long time. I used to be so good at that, but, life just isn't what it used to be. I know everyone can identify. 

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. 


Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Alabama Bass Trail on Neely Henry Lake

You may have already heard, but, this was a tough event with virtually no fireworks. Not for me. Not for anyone, really. Oh, sure, it took twenty pounds to win. That's a great bag, anywhere. Even the sixteen-pound bag that took second was impressive. 

You didn't have to scroll far to see how the day truly went. I'd love to keep you all in suspense about how we accomplished a Seventh-Place finish in the first event of the year, but it would be extremely anti-climatic. Which, ironically, is EXACTLY how the weekend went. 

Let's set the stage.

We have fished Neely Henry in May or June, I believe, every time Josh and I have fished it. It's been pretty poor each year we've fished it but each year we learned a bit more. Being in Gadsden, it's pretty far for us to come just fun fish it. Even making it to practice a few times is a struggle. But, just as we were learning the lake and fishing it's nuances late in the spring, the ABT moved it to February. 

You can read about last year's tournament here: ABT on Neely Henry 2021

Life made it impossible for Josh and I to prefish leading up to the week of the tournament. Plus, we knew a really bad front was moving in late Thursday, which would likely change a lot, anyway. But, I strolled into town Thursday at 10AM and put in at Coosa Landing. I was greeted with 20-30MPH winds, lots of current, low water levels, and a lot of stain on the water. I decided to start fishing up river because I had a suspicion that I could eliminate that entire end of the lake pretty quickly, simply because of the water level and stain in the water. 

I checked every current break I could. Using forward facing sonar, I could see that there was a lot of bait positioned and occasionally I might see what I was pretty sure was a bass or two, but by the time I was blown off the river a 1PM, I hadn't caught a fish. 

No matter. I accomplished what I had hoped to do. 

We rented a really nice tiny house in a nearby campground with a few of our friends. We hung out Thursday, got some wings, had some laughs, and discussed fishing. Our friends had gone down river and had caught a good bag flipping wood in creeks. Pretty much the opposite of what I had done.

Josh arrived early Friday morning to pretty serious post-frontal conditions. Not QUITE as bad as what would take place Saturday, with the blue-bird skies and all, but pretty bad. 

Fishing in a few creeks, Shoat and Canoe in particular, we had two bites all Friday. Both on a chatterbait. 


But, hey, if you're only getting two bites....why not a $200 tag fish and a five-pounder.

We had lunch at Little Bridge BBQ, a new tradition we've had the last few years. Except this year, instead of coming out of the June heat, it was warming up from the February cold. 

We had no more bites Friday. 

At dinner with our friends, we all compared notes. We had the notes of a lot of really good anglers including a few ABT event winners. We couldn't scratch up a limit among us from Friday. At this point, it was "catch five fish and be happy." The thing with qualifying for the ABT Championship is, you can't really qualify the first day (unless you win) but you can sure lose your chance. Been there. Done that. Sometimes you just want to place around 100th and move on. 

One thing we did notice was, most of the fish catches were all coming from Canoe creek. So, we decided that we would head to Canoe and hope for the best. 

Saturday morning was cold. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. There wasn't a lot of joy emanating from the fishermen around us. Expectations were obviously tempered. I had paired down my tackle to just four rods: a texas-rig, a black and blue jig, a chatterbait, and a spinnerbait. Our plan was simple: set the boat down in Canoe and start covering water. If we got bit, we'd slow down. In the afternoon, we would start hoping over to where I caught the big fish and hope it wasn't a fluke. 

The first couple of spots didn't result in anything. No surprise. We had said that any fish caught before noon was a bonus and since we were boat 205, we had until 4:30 to figure it out. Cloudless skies. Lots of water color. Water temps hovering around 54 degrees. 

We found a pocket that held some really clean water and some nice looking grass edges. When we made it to the back, I had a bite, but the line broke. Josh had a bite that didn't hook up. There was another boat in the pocket and we watched them catch two or three fish. All were small, but they were catching them off the point of the pocket and were sitting in the same spot, making the same cast. 

I suppose that got Josh's mind turning and we headed back to the mouth of the pocket, about 100 yards or more away for the other boat. He stopped on the first drop from the long flat. Working down the outside of the cove, he hooked up with a decent fish on a chatterbait. 

So, we slowed down. Minutes later, he hooked a bit larger fish...probably a solid 2.5-poudner on a shakey head. Minutes later, I caught a three or so on the texas-rig. Three good fish. A good start. The spot went dormant. We ran to our big fish pocket, but had no bites so we came back.

Josh boated our largest fish, again on a shakey head. We were fairly ecstatic at this point. None of these fish were small. We figured that getting a fifth fish....any fifth fish....would result in a check. 

The hours went by. We covered water. Came back to the same spot. Rinse and repeat. Nothing. Time was slipping away. 

There was this one dark spot that both Josh and I had cast at dozens of times nearby. It was some sort of structure but it was so shallow that couldn't tell what it was. But it just looked like it should hold a fish. With about an hour ago, Josh made what was probably his tenth cast to it. Except this time, a fish bit. Then she ran right into the heart of whatever it was. It turned out to be a rock. His line frayed and popped. The fish jumped, trying to throw the bait. It wasn't huge, but a two-pounder would have been huge for us. 

We started making our way up river, stopping at some spots that we felt might have a random fish on it. But on one of these stops, I pulled up the live leaderboard and I was floored with what I saw. I knew we had around ten-pounds and at 4PM, that was good for third place. I didn't think we could scrounge a five pounder to catch the 16 pound bag ahead of us, but I also knew a LOT of boats hadn't weighed in. 

But a lot had. As I scrolled, it was already a mathematical certainly that we would at least get a check. I had counted over 100 zero'd out boats and anyone who had a fish was getting a check.

Alas, we never got another bite, but as the line dwindled, it became apparent that we were going to finish in the Top 10 with four fish for 10.18. Good enough for 7th Place. 

A Top 10 finish is exactly that. I guess it's something to be proud of? It's not the way I wanted to get my second Top 10. Last year's 7th Place Finish on Weiss Lake was the complete opposite. It was surprising and satisfying because we really crunched the variables down, made some terrific choices, and were simply flawless in clutch time. 

Not this time around. 

But, as I said, you can't win your qualification to the Championship on the first tournament, but you can dang sure lose it. Not this time.