Fishing Report for Wilson 3/31/17

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First of, let me thank each of you for reading this blog. It's a lot of work for something that doesn't earn me a red cent. This past month, the blog went over 200,000 hits. Sure, that's a trifle for some bloggers, but it's a massive accomplishment for me. Consider that the viewership has done exceedingly well the last six months. I don't know why or how I am getting new viewers, but I suspect it is because you guys that read the articles and pass it to your friends. So, thanks! 

In case you missed it, the streak of cashing checks on Wilson came to an abrupt end two weeks ago. We never found fish, or at least couldn't get them to bite. Occasionally we could catch some good ones, but finding five good ones wasn't in the cards. You can read the report by clicking the link below.

Fishing Report for Wilson 3/16-18/17

I was able to have a "get right" day with my wife last week when we put in two hours on Wheeler and sacked up a ton of fish. Sure, none of them were big but it was still a lot of fun. You can also read about that trip below. 

Fishing Report for Wheeler 3/28/17

So, the NASA fishing club had a tournament on Wilson. I wasn't sure I wanted to fish it because we have a lot going on right now with all three kids playing ball. Additionally, the lack of bites just made the thought of fishing another day cringeworthy.

But then a funny thing happened. During the draw process, me and Brad, one of my regular fishing partners were paired together. That certainly changed something things, and not just because I had faith we could catch them. No, my daughter had a softball tournament in Muscle Shoals and fishing out his boat meant I could both fish AND watch her play without dragging Big Booty Judy all over the Florence area. 

After a very rough week at work, Brad and I decided to fish Friday and see if we could find some fish for the tournament. Well, that didn't happen. We spent the vast majority of the day at Wheeler dam hoping to find the magnum smallmouth that we have done so well at catching in the past. Catching fish wasn't an issue. We caught a ton of stripers and drum, just no bass. 

The next morning, we tried to formulate our game plan. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) had been pulling decent current Friday (40,000 CFS) and the right generators had been running, but no fish. According to the TVA app, only about 19,000 CFS was planned on Saturday. We assumed that was a bad thing and decided that we would try to fish for largemouth bass in the few spots that held grass, specifically in Shoals Creek. 

Now, wouldn't you know it that there was a boat sitting in the five yard stretch we wanted to start upon. We had forgo that spot and move deeper into Shoals creek to another spot we have had a lot of success upon. Fishing this spot ended up not being nearly as much an issue. Throwing a combination of C-rigs, cranks, and Alabama Rigs, we were struggling to get bit. That's when we noticed that bass were running bait in the grass. I picked up my buzzbait, which I had tied on as mostly a joke, and worked it in the grass. After seeing a swirl in the grass, I shot the buzzbait in and a fish turned the water into a toilet bowl. We netted a solid three pounder.

Moving on, I boated another keeper on the buzzbait and Brad added two keepers on the Alabama rig. It was 8:20 and we had a decent start. We spent the next hour trying find that number five. Wilson is such a small lake that it is very hard for us not to fish the same stuff we have always fished. Even telling ourselves we wouldn't do that, we still overlapped a good bit. But, there was one particular main river point we wanted fish, which Brad had located some fish on the previous week. Luckily, the wind was keeping everyone in the pockets and we could fish all the main river points we wanted to, but it meant dealing with waves like this:

I had decided on Friday evening that I would throw a Carolina Rig that day simply because we knew fish were around and our typical power fishing approach just wasn't working. Using a PowerTeam Lures 6" Gator and a half ounce weight, I drug the C-rig on the bottom. The one bite left no question in my mind what I had on as a four pounder slammed the lizard bait. Brad netted the toad and we had a solid limit for about 10 pounds. While we knew that even 10 pounds was a decent sack on a day like that, we wanted to leave no doubt.

So, we did the one thing we knew to do when looking for a kicker: we went to the dam. That was a tough decision to make, considering the dam hadn't produced much in the past few trips. Still, we knew that it was a matter of time at the dam. If you fish there enough and you throw the right bait, you will get bit and chances are, it will be a big one. A quick look at the TVA showed that they had far exceeded the 19,000 CFS expectation and were pushing over 40,000 CFS.

10 minutes later, we were in line with five other boats who were also fishing the eddy line. We ranged back and forth, checking the eddy, checking the current, checking the slack water but never could find the green or brown bass. Again, white bass and drum were easy to come by as we threw a combination of crankbaits, scrounger headed swimbaits, and A-rigs. One by one, all but one other boat left and we were looking to do the same.

That's when the other boat swung aboard a six pounder. Minutes later, they swung another toad. What were they doing differently? They were certainly fishing the same things we were, but I noticed they were throwing a standard lead-head swimbait just like every other boat I had seen. No scrounger head. No underspin. Certainly not an A-Rig or a crank. We pulled up and talked to the two, who were also fishing a tournament. Eventually it came out that they had about 25 pounds, but had just five bites all day.

Both of us sat down and retied. I went with a PowerTeam Lures Swinging Hammer in green pumpkin with blue swirl while Brad went with a standard sexy shad.

It took the better part of an hour, but Brad finally had that big bite that didn't turn into a drum. I netted his five plus pounder. Another hour later and Brad had another bite and, again, I netted a solid four. We culled up about seven pounds and knew we probably just won this tournament.

It turned out that the fish wanted a combination of a specific weight, color, and retrieval speed and I just didn't offer that, much to my dismay.

We weighed in 16.24 pounds, beating second place by double. Brad's toad went over five and a half pounds. While the two of us are always happy with a win, we both wonder "what might have been" had we not been so stubborn the past few days by throwing what we wanted to throw and not what the fish wanted. For me, it was tough to throw the same thing everyone else was throwing, especially as I watched others call it quits and leave.

That's tough for the average "fruit jar" competitor to do, especially compared to "big money" tournament guys. The latter accept that they may not cash a check in two, three, or four tournaments. But, when they sack them, they are going to win. The former aren't willing to spend $500 to make $100.  I guess it's the old 'Vegas mantra of "scared money makes no money."

Fishing Report for Wheeler 3/28/17

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Between all the work associated with fixing my Yukon after it was totaled, thanks to a deer, and some of the work on my boat, I had been really nervous about getting Big Booty Judy out on the water. 

Guess I am turning into a nervous fellow in my old age. I reckon when your job is to find broken rocket parts and bad hardware, it makes you that kind of guy. Granted, I had put hundreds of miles on the Yukon since I received the rebuilt title for it and I had even pulled Judy out of the shop and let her run since putting on a new impeller and flushing the engine. Still, I had worries that the lower unit wasn't sealed up and running down the river at 60+ miles and hour isn't my way of finding out. Nor had I towed with the Yukon since its face to face encounter with a deer that smashed up every coolant component in the front end. 

But when my wife suggested that I meet her down on the river after work, well, I figured I'd risk it. 

Pulling the boat to work wasn't an issue and I didn't expect it to be. Still, I kept a close eye on the trans temp gauge and the water temp gauge. No issues there, aside from the new exhaust is, uh, loud. See, I MIGHT have put long tube headers and built a custom 3" exhaust through a Magnaflow muffler.....

Anyways, after work I dunked the boat. Lower unit fluid didn't come bubbling up, so that was a start. I really wanted to fish inside of Ditto. This time of year, the fish get stacked inside the marina to spawn. But, even though that's a quick 3 miles, I didn't want to run that far quite yet. 

There was decent current and the water color was surprisingly clear on the main lake but the banks were fairly muddy. You know what they say, muddy fish are the dumbest fish. 

As we putted around, Alyse pointed to a culvert that was spewing water. She said she thought we should start there. With the water in Wheeler being so low and all the cover being out of the water, something like that would create muddy eddies and current, both should bring in fish.

After making a couple of casts with the Bama rig, I noticed bait being chased right up on the bank, so I picked up my AKRods custom squarebill rod with an Ardent Elite 5:3 reel and shot a Spro Little John as close to the bank as I could. 

Smack! I boated a healthy white bass. No, it wasn't a green fish, but I wasn't going to be picky today. After all, we had only a few short hours until dark. After catching a few more, I handed Alyse the rod and I picked the Bama Rig back up. Nothing for me, though she caught several whites. I picked up my other cranking rod and cast a Luhr-Jensen speed trap. I couldn't manage a bite, though she continued to catch them nearly every cast.

So, I cut off the speed trap and tied on an identical Spro Little John. First cast, fish. Second cast, fish. Third cast, fish. But that third one broke off when I set the hook. Sad face. There's $10 down the drain.

I didn't have another one, so I tied on the closest thing I could find which was a Normal Little N in ghost. Set the hook and it broke again. Apparently, I had a bad section of line so I stripped off several feet. I found out that I did have a Little John MD, so I tied it on and began catching whites, though I had a tough job of catching up with my wife, who refuses to deal with unhooking white bass.

On one of my casts, I cast to the eddy created by the flow instead of into the flow itself. Though I did catch a white bass, a largemouth followed the white bass to the boat. I decided to make some casts to the eddy and that resulted in several largemouth. Following my lead, Alyse made some casts and soon caught her very own largemouth.

Over the two hours, we caught white bass after white bass but mixed in around 10 largemouth. 

Also, the boat ran fine.....so far. 

Fishing Report for Wilson 3/16-18/17

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As Brad and I pulled out of lock six ramp and headed towards highway 72, I broke the silence and said what we were both thinking. 

"Just because we prefished two days doesn't guarentee that we would find fish. There is a very real possibility that we are just going into tomorrow with no legitimate chance to do well." 

Let's back up about 24 hours. 

I was certainly feeling a lot of pressure, going into this tournament. Wilson has, for some reason, been the lake I have done the most damage upon. Brad and I have cashed three checks including two outright wins in the last five tournaments we have fished on Wilson. In addition. I have won (or placed) in countless tournaments on Wilson over the last few years with various other partners. Now, factor in the tournament we fished on Smith that equated to a second place finish, we felt like we HAD to continue the momentum though we both agreed that the odds of continuing that success was against us.

I had just gotten back from being in Florida on business on Wednesday afternoon. Brad and I were headed to Wilson early Thursday morning. Though we had fished the previous Friday, a lot had changed, notably several days of freezing weather. We knew we needed to relearn the lake. 

We began fishing some of our down river smallmouth holes. With the trends in the weather, we both felt like that fish had pulled up shallow with the 70s the previous week though the cold snap would likely push them back to the first contour break. Throwing a combination of moving baits such as the Alabama rig, cranks, and swim jigs but to no avail. We hit a variety of points and shallow pockets as well as bluffs. In the past years, we have always found smallmouth in some of these places. Nothing.

On a whim, we headed into Shoals Creek and stopped to fish some grass, thinking maybe the largemouth would still be shallow. Indeed, some were. I boated this nice one on a chatterbait with a PowerTeam Lure's grub before Brad bagged a nice keeper on the A-Rig. 

We left that stretch of grass and headed deeper into the creek to find more. When that turned out to be a bust, we checked the grass on the way out. It produced another fish on the 'rig while a fellow fisherman boated one on the same stretch. We quickly moved.

We headed to the dam where we thought we could find some smallmouth. TVA was pulling 50,000 CFS and had the number 11 and number 9 generators running. Looking at the dam, that would be the left-most turbine (11) and one just two to the right (9). Based upon our success, this pushed the current a bit too far to the left for where the most productive areas had been for us. We initially fished the eddy line before deciding to fan cast the slack areas adjacent to the eddy line. This produced two very solid fish, one a five pound largemouth and this smallmouth, which I caught on my custom AKRods cranking rod and a Jackall crank. 

We called it a day before we turned around the next morning to try it again. We tried to build on what we had found the day before by eliminating water. We couldn't get anything to bite anywhere except at the dam, which only produced drum. Still, we have learned that catching drum means that you are typically are around bass. It was a tough day that lead us wondering if we would have any luck in the morning. 

Our game plan on Saturday was to hit the grass early. I had told Brad that I believed that the slight warming trend on Friday and early Saturday might turn the largemouth on, so I was going to start out with a buzzbait with a PTL Swinging Hammer. Brad initially thought I was joking until we pulled up on the first spot and I made my first cast. That first cast provided a keeper. I thought I had called my shots and we might actually be on some fish.

Alas, we hit the grass thoroughly and didn't get another bite. We jetted down river just to check some of our favorite spots. The first was a bust and the second produced two fish, one a largemouth and one a smallmouth, neither over three pounds. Both were caught on the same Jackall crank.

Eventually, we moved on to our planned destination: the dam. We knew there were quality fish at the dam and we may only get two bites, but that's all we needed. As we arrived, we saw that TVA had indeed held the current to the predicted 19,000 CFS. This time, instead of one of the preferred left hand generators, one of the right hand ones was flowing water. All of this resulted in a lot of slack water over the best rock piles. A very, very bad thing. We quickly gave up on it. 

And that was it for the day. We covered point after point and pocket after pocket. We went back to the grass time and time again. We even fished all new water. We chased birds and bait but none of it mattered. With shame, we headed to the dock knowing that our streak of luck had ended. 

It took just over 14 pounds including a 5.94 to win the tournament. Big fish was 6.01 and third place was just over 10 pounds including said 6-pounder. In all, the day was very, very tough for everyone and few weighed in limits. Still, the aggravation persisted for me, not because we lost, but because people who didn't prefish nearly as hard as we had, had done better than we had. In truth, not prefishing had kept some of the club from making any sort of judgment calls and it had worked out for some. For us, it meant a lot of sunk cost and a great amount of frustration. 

I suppose it is fitting that we had a tournament like this. As I had said, Wilson had been our source of two of our three checks last season and four of our last five in our larger club. After all of the accomplishment we felt on putting in the work on Smith and having it lead to a solid win, it was fitting that the same amount of work on a lake we exceed at fishing would shut us out. 

In the end, tournament fishing is always a learning process. In this case, we had firmly come to believe that, with enough work, we could win any tournament on any lake. The truth is, prefishing is no guarantee of success and hard work doesn't always translate to wins. Sometimes the fish get lockjaw. Sometimes people get that lucky bite. Sometimes you just lose. 

Product Review of AKRods Custom Magnum Crankbait Rod

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Every fisherman in the world has different ideas on how a rod should feel and act. That's why the average bass fisherman owns dozens of different rods. What works for one fisherman won't work for the next. The issue is, when fishermen go shopping, they are all shopping for the exact same rods though each man is different. 

Take me, for example. I am a very short guy with fairly short arms. I love to throw crankbaits, specifically those deep diving plugs. The mass produced options that I could find that would give me the balance of castability, retrievability, and fish-fighting power were far and few in between. For years I had relied on the Wright & McGill Skeet Reese magnum cranking rod. It could certainly cast those big cranks but I had some issues with it, namely that the butt length was too long for a short armed guy, the rod had no accuracy, and the weight was ridiculously high. After even 30 minutes of casting, my forearm would be burning. Furthermore, if I could make the exact cast I needed and could find the fish, my side would be rubbed raw from the butt. And, of course, yellow and black aren't my colors, but I digress. 

I wanted something that had the length I needed to make long casts yet had a versatile loading profile to allow me to make accurate short casts on top of those long ledge busting ones. In addition, I wanted a handle and a butt that fit me, not the average guy. Most importantly, I wanted the weight to be trimmed way down. Also, a little customization never hurt anyone, right? 

I contacted Anthony at AKRods, whom I had bought several custom rods from in the past. While he had built me custom, hand built rods with quality components, I had never special ordered a rod built to my specification. I told him what I wanted, everything from the handle and butt length to the quality of the components I wanted to the very colors of the wrappings. A month later, my custom cranking rod arrived. 

Here are the specifics on the rod:

• Mudhole MHX CB906 Crankbait blank
• 7'6" | 10-17 lb. | 3/8 - 1 1/4 oz. | Mod-Fast Action | Medium-Heavy Power | 1 Piece | 5.5 Tip | 0.573 Butt | Slate Finish
• Custom Orange and Blue wrappings
• Custom orange and blue EVA grips
• Fuji FCS reel seat
• Fuji Alconite micro guides

The rod weighed in at just 4.3 ounces, a ridiculously low weight for a rod meant for magnum crankbaits. I paired this with an Ardent Elite 5.3:1 reel. I was simply blown away with the low weight which made a day on the water a lot easier, especially for someone who relies on big cranks as much as I do. 

However, what I was truly blown away with was the loading of the rod. Unlike some of the other magnum cranking rods which would not load up unless you really heaved them, which made short accurate casting impossible, this rod would easily load for short, precise casts. Being able to roll cast to laydowns on bluff walls from 10 yards away was just as important as casting all of the line out to cover a ledge for me and this rod did that perfectly. 

When it came to needing to make those long casts, I didn't have to really exert a lot of force to make the rod load up, which is particularly important when casting into the wind. That prevented me from having the bird's nest or the associated snapping off of those expensive cranks. I could easily make those long casts thanks to the ease of loading of the rod. 

That didn't come at a cost to fish fighting, either. I really put this rod through its paces in its first tournament. Our biggest fish of the day came off this rod including some nice magnum spots on Smith Lake. 

Obviously the customization is important to most people, whether that is color matching it to your boat or to your own body, but the ability to have high end components shouldn't be overlooked, nor should the benefits of a hand-built rod be ignored. For example, each hand-built rod has its spine identified, marked, and incorporated so that it  maximizes its internal strength. 

I am incredibly happy with this rod and the fact that it is customized to my demands makes it even better. It isn't a $75 rod that you went to your local sports store and bought. This is a $300 dollar rod that took a month to build and, as such, I received a far, far superior product than I could go to any store and purchase. I am typically a very cheap guy, but these rods, which have specific uses, are worth every penny. 

Not only do I highly recommend AKRods, but I would highly recommend this particular rods as good crankbait rods are all but impossible to find. Contact me for more information at best5zach@yahoo.com 

Fishing Report for Smith Lake 2/18/17

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Whew. I know a lot of you don't like really long articles and while I do plan on writing a documentary on this weekend and the prefishing that led up to it, I figured I'd write a more streamlined fishing report. 

A few months ago, our club president sent out the 2017 schedule. Unlike past years, we wouldn't be starting on Guntersville. We would be starting on Lewis Smith lake due to the decline of Guntersville. 

Talk about a change of scenery! Everything about Smith is virtually the opposite of Guntersville from the depth to the type of fish we would be targeting. One thing was for certain: come February, there would be good days and there would be tough days. Could we find fish and would they be active, considering the volatile weather we typically have this time of year.

Since I had fished Smith lake just one other time, back in the fall of 2015, we figured it would be best if we put some serious hours on the lake.  So, though Josh and I would be competing against each other in the tournament, it was best if we teamed up, considering we hadn't seen the lake. Therefore, we hit the lake up mid-way through January. You can read the report by clicking on the link below.

Fishing Report for Smith Lake 1/16/17

It wasn't a great day, but we had a decent little limit though we didn't find any real pattern. We fished within two miles of the Smith Lake Park ramp and all the fish came off of completely different lures, covers, and depths.

Brad and I took a day off two weeks later. This time, we put in at the dam so as to cover more sections of the lake. You can read that report by clicking the link below.

Fishing Report for Smith Lake 1/28/17

After a morning without a bite, we covered miles of water scanning with our electronics. On a lake where the blue back herring are supposed to school up (along with the spotted bass who feed on them) all we found was miles and miles of gin colored water. Eventually, we did stumble into water with some color. Though it didn't provide any fish, we did make a note of the rarity of the stained water.

A week later we checked back in at the park and made another day of scanning. We covered even more water but a single fish was all we caught. We were beginning to get frustrated. 

Fast forward a few weeks. It was Thursday the 16th and it was tournament week. In the three previous trips, we had caught less than 10 fish and none of them over the slot limit.

Brad and I put in at the park again. Thanks to some intel we had received, we were going to spend the entire day looking for exactly one things: shallow cuts, coves, and slews with stained water. We had to cover a lot of water, but eventually we found the first area that matched what we were looking for. In this case, it was actually two shallow cuts, so there were three points. The area was in the shape of a "W."

After days without consistent bites, Brad quickly had two bites and I had one. We didn't hammer on the fish, letting them pick the bait up and run with it before shaking them loose. Both of us were using some sort of bait on a shakey head. In my case, a green pumpkin PTL 5" Sick Stick. Going down the points, I began casting a PTL Swinging Hammer swimbait on wood and picked up a solid largemouth. 

We quickly left and pulled up on similar cut. A few casts and we had two fish in the boat. We moved to another slew and I made a single cast with a Strike King 5XD on my new custom AKRods cranking stick. One cast is all it took and we boated our nicest fish of the day.

We spent the afternoon looking for more spots similar but we couldn't find any good stain. We put it on the trailer having only put three fish in the boat, but thinking we might have begun to get on a pattern. After all, we had more bites in 30 minutes in those few spots than on all the other trips combined. 

There was only one place that I really hadn't covered yet and that was the Sipsy River, which was on the far end of the lake from the ramp we would be using. Still, I felt like I had to make sure we weren't missing anything so I called up John, who fishes the area a good bit. We agreed to turn it around the next morning and hit it.

24 hours later, I had marked the Sipsy off the list. More importantly, I had now covered virtually every creek and river on Smith and had found exactly one area that seemed to have biting fish. 

Now came the hard part: the 12 hours before the first tournament of the year, knowing that I hadn't caught a ton of fish and that I could likely strike out again. Though there was the possibility that we had found fish, there was also the possibility that Smith lake could be Smith lake, as many had said. That is, it could change on us in 24 hours. 

That night, I sat in the shower for 45 minutes trying to convince myself that we had a shot. After all, we aren't that bad of fishermen and we had put in some serious work at least eliminating water. 

3:30 AM came early and  I was off to Brad's. 30 minutes later and we were headed to the park. At 6:15, we were off and running, making a 2 mile run to where we had located water with all the attributes we needed. All we needed was the fish to bite, if they were still there. 

We found the water was a good bit clearer than it had been 24 hours before but still had some decent stain. Surprisingly, we saw schooling fish for the fish time in all of our prefishing as the rain began to drizzle. After a few casts with an underspin and a PTL grub, I picked up the AKRods custom cranking stick and began casting it to the center of the pocket. 

It took two casts before the rod loaded up. This was no spot under the slot limit. This was a big fish. The fish rolled on its side about 20 yards from the boat and both our hearts began pounding. It was both the quickest and biggest bite we had had in all of our prefishing. With a superb net job, Brad lifted a chunk of a fish into the boat. It wasn't a 5-pounder, but it was a solid 3, which was a perfectly fine start. 

A few casts later and I boated another over the slot keeper on the 5XD. Brad missed a fish that had picked up the shakey head and run with it. I had a fish pull off the 5XD before picking up the shakey head with the sick stick and having it also pull off. However, we were relatively certain that both fish would have been in the slot. 

The rain stopped and so did the bites. Occasionally, a fish would pick up the shakey heads. These fish weren't thumping it. Instead, the bait would either simply lose contact with the bottom or the line would get heavy. 

We moved out to the first point. Brad broke off a fish and as he retied, I took the trolling motor. Sitting in 25 feet of water, I began to mark fish on the depth finder right under the boat. So, I would play the shakey head all the way to the boat. In back to back casts, I would vertically jig the bait and it would get heavy. I would set the hook and swing aboard a nice spot. 

We had 4 over the slot fish now and we felt like we were in great shape. The sun got up and we entered a four hour dry period. 

That doesn't mean we didn't catch anything because we did. Eventually we did boat a fifth keeper, two unders and two slots. But, we had a 15.25 inch fish we wanted to get rid of. 

Around noon, we began to get a lot of bites as we fished both sides of each of the three points. The issue was that the fish were picking the baits up and quickly dropping them. We began catching them after adding a combination of chartreuse dye and PTL Hog Tonic. After catching a few buck bass, we sat down to eat lunch and talk.

We came to the conclusion that we were catching the males. These fish were very pale even though we were catching them shallow. Based upon this, we figured that the spawn was beginning and the males were making beds.

With an hour left, we decided to move off of the points to the first big drop where we thought the females were holding. 

After several good thumps, which we hadn't had all day, Brad hooked up with a beautiful spot, culling the smallest fish. This gave us a solid 12 pounds with one more small-ish fish in the livewell. 

With 30 minutes to go, a fish thumped my shakey head. I set the hook and slow played a nice largemouth aboard. 

We culled the smaller fish and headed to the ramp. 

As we put the fish in the bags, we had several people come over and talk to us. Both of us were fairly distracted and when Brad asked me if there were five fish in the bag, I made the assumption he was worried about having too few fish. But, I fished around in the bag and touched five fish, so we were all good.

At the weigh in, we weighed in our big fish which wasn't big enough to take home that check, so we began to toss in the rest of the fish. After we got five fish in the basket, I looked down and saw that there was another fish still in our bag. And, worst of all, it was one of the better fish. So, we were forced to weigh in one of our smaller fish. 

Luckily, it didn't really cost us. We weighed in 12.5 pounds with the smaller fish, which was good enough for 2nd place, about two pounds off the 14.5 pounds it took for the win . In all, we caught around 15 fish, which was double the amount of fish we caught in all of our prefishing. It was the prefishing on Thursday that put us on the fish, even though it wasn't much. 

Product Review for Masterbuilt 40" Electric Smoker

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For my birthday and Christmas my dad bought me this Masterbuilt 40-inch electric smoker from Academy. At the time, it was on sale for $249, though it is now listed for $299.

I wanted an electric smoker because, well, sometimes I like to be lazy. I love smoking with charcoal, don't get me wrong. But, especially in late November and December, getting out of bed at 5AM and walking to the shop isn't fun. Additionally, dealing with wind and low temps are aggravating. So, I wanted to have the option to set it and forget it.

It took about 30 minutes to set up and I was pleased with the ease of operation. Set the temp, set the time, add water and wood chips and walk away. You can even use the bluetooth to monitor the situation from your phone. I particularly liked the meat thermometer.

That's when things fell apart.

• The Bluetooth has a range of about 15 yards, if that. Which means it is virtually useless. 
• I don't like how small the grease trap is. It's ok for one butt and maybe a few smaller items, but multiple fatty meats would overwhelm it. 
• I don't like how small of a wood chip compartment is. Now, it is nice to be able to add without opening the main door, but I don't always use small chips. Sometimes I like to use chunks. 
• After three weeks and about five uses, it died.

I went out one day to smoke some meat for dinner. As I set the temp and time, the digital readout said the internal temp was 310 degrees. Obviously that was incorrect and I noticed that the heater wouldn't turn on. I turned it off and even unplugged it. Eventually, I did some research and found the truth: the controller on these units is renowned to fail and it is a complete and irreversible failure.

According to several websites and forums, the venders such as Academy and Sam's have known about this issue, which stems from a cheap controller their sourced from overseas. Instead of pulling them off the shelf, the vendors had decided to sell the remaining stock, forcing buyers to bring them back.

Another option was for the buyer to contact Masterbuilt directly. However, Masterbuilt's solution was to send repair parts. These repair parts were not modular and repair apparently meant disassembly of the controller including the power cord and resoldering it. In some cases, this had caused some electrical fires, for which Masterbuilt would not be responsible. In addition, it might take weeks or months to receive the repair parts.

Owners were encouraged to simply return them and get their money back, if they had the receipts. Because mine was so new, that wasn't an issue. Since Academy didn't have a replacement (at the time, other than another 40-inch unit), my dad simply got a refund. I took the refund and bought the 30-inch version from Academy. Soon as I have a more complete picture of how it works, I will let you know.

Until then, this unit is one that should be avoided. I know of many people who have it and have not had any issues with it, but it DOES have a high failure rate which will likely leave you stranded.

Fishing Report for Smith Lake 1/28/17

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Things weren't so good on our last trip to Smith lake. You can read about that fishing trip by clicking the link below.

Fishing Report for Smith Lake 1/16/17

To be honest, between our grand total of 6 fish on 6 total bites all day and the information that we gathered from others, it sounded like the first trip to Smith was a combination of the wrong end of the lake and the wrong type of weather. Sure, the weather was horrible: high skies and post frontal. The water temp was in the mid-40s and the lake was at the 498 foot elevation. Still, we had a limit and, all things considered, it wasn't a BAD limit. 

So, Brad and I decided to get out and keep learning the lake. This time, we would put in at the dam instead of Smith Lake park. Though the weather looked to be against us (again) the water elevation had improved drastically. It was up to the 504 foot elevation, which meant that some of the rip-rap and laydowns would be in the water.

Furthermore, we had watched some videos on fishing Smith this time of year, ranging form Tim Horton Outdoors to coverage from the 2015 FLW tournament. We thought we could figure it out and we believed it started with finding the bait.

So, we started scanning. We scanned and we scanned and we scanned some more. We found a grand total of two bait balls. It was so bad that we began to wonder if we were reading the Lowrance units incorrectly. We swapped between the 800kHz and the the lower frequency transducer (435kHz?) trying to get a combination of penetration and resolution. Still, we went from point to point and bluff to bluff. Nothing. 

We covered who creeks with a combination of jigs, crankbaits, and shakey heads. We didn't get a bite. We never felt like we were around fish, which seemed impossible because we scanned and scanned to the point we began to wonder if there were any fish in the entire lake. 

It really isn't a good feeling when you have a tournament coming up and you can't muster bites on multiple days of prefishing. 

But, hey, that's fishing, right?