Last Sunday 13 members of the Flint River Bass Club tried to catch keeper bass at Lake Sinclair in our November tournament. After eight hours of casting we brought 29 fish over the 12 inch limit, most of them just barely, weighing 37 pounds. There were three limits and two zeros.

Chuck Croft won with five weighing 6.70 pounds, Niles Murray placed second with five at 5.87 pounds and my limit of five fish weighed a whopping 4.36 pounds was fourth. JJ Polak, fishing with Chuck, caught only one fish but it was the right one, weighing 4.34 pounds and giving him big fish and fourth place.

Wes Delay fished with me and we had high hopes. After an hour of casting topwater, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, worms and jigs to cover in the creek where I won the last Sportsman Club tournament we had missed two bites. They may have been bream.

We went out to a rocky point with a brush pile on it and I could see fish around the brush. Wes caught a keeper there but that was the only bite we got. That was very frustrating but it got even worse. At noon Wes had caught one throw back and that was the only bite either of us had in those three hours.

At noon in desperation I went to a creek where I fish a lot. I have spent enough time there to know where the little brush piles and rocks are located and which docks usually produce fish. In the next hour I caught six keepers and a throw backs on a jig head worm.

I used all my skill on my second and third fish. The first one hit under a dock where I have caught lot of fish. After we started moving down the bank to the next dock I cast my jig head worm ahead of the boat, put the rod under my arm, and got rid of some used coffee.

As the boat slowly drifted forward I realized my line was not getting slack like it should. About the time I got the rod back into my hands a bass took off and I landed it. Wes said he now saw the pattern to use!

As we moved up the bank I kept an eye on my depthfinder as I always do. We were in about ten feet of water a good cast off the bank. I saw something on my front sonar and as the back of the boat went over it I could tell on my downscan it was some brush with fish around it.

I told Wes we went over some fish and turned and cast to it. I felt my jig head hit the brush then a thump, and I landed a keeper. Throwing right back produced a throwback.

I caught my fourth keeper, one that some call a line burner since it just barely touched the 12 inch line, in some brush in front of dock then caught my fifth one under the next dock we fished. Fortunately I was able to cull the line burner when I caught one 12.1 inches long on a seawall.

We fished hard the rest of the day but neither of us caught even a throwback in the last two hours.