Late November Lake Lanier Tournament

Last Sunday 11 members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our November tournament at Lake Lanier. Although the lake was nine feet low, we managed to land 33 bass weighing about 67 pounds. There were only two largemouth weighed in, all the rest were spots. Three fishermen had limits and two did not catch a 14-inch keeper.

Sam Smith won it all with five weighing 12.90 pounds and had a 3.82 pound spot for big fish. George Roberts had a limit weighing 9.37 pounds for second, my four keepers weighing 9.04 pounds was third and Niles Murray came in fourth with five at 8.52 pounds.

I had high hopes the spots would be feeding on wind blown points, and we had lots of wind. The first place I stopped I got a three pound spot on a spinnerbait on a rocky point in the wind, the pattern I thought would be good. Two hours of throwing spinnerbaits later I had not gotten another bite!

In desperation, I went to a clay point with a road bed on it and cast a crankbait across it and caught a spot weighing almost two pounds. There is some brush on the roadbed out on the point and I moved to it and caught a bare keeper on a drop shot worm. Then I got a 13-inch non-keeper on a jig head worm there. Although I fished I hard I did not get another bite.

With only an hour left to fish I went to a point near the weigh-in where there is some deep brush. After about 15 minutes of dragging a jig and pig through the brush I felt a tap and set the hook on another three-pound spot. That was it for the day, five bites and four keepers on four different bait.

After the weigh-in Sam said he caught ten keepers on a spinnerbait, culling down to five for the win. He said it was a special spinnerbait. I guess I did not have the special one!

The size of the spots at Lanier is amazing. We had many three pounders weighed in. I had one weighing a little over three pounds and another one almost exactly the same size. They pull hard and are fun to catch. I would fish Lanier a lot more if there was a way to get to it without fighting all the interstate traffic coming home.