Last Sunday five members of the Flint River Bass Club braved the 27-degree temperature at blast off to fish Jackson Lake for our January tournament. At least it warmed up to the mid 40 by the time we weighed in.

    There were no limits and two people did not catch a 12 inch keeper. We had a total of eight bass weighing 13 pounds.  I was happily surprised to see four of the eight were largemouth. 

    I got lucky and won with four weighing 5.73 pounds. Niles Murray came in second with three at 5.23 pounds and had big fish with a 2.58 pound largemouth.  New member David Picket, who has lived on Jackson and fished it all his life, had one weighing 1.99 pounds for third. 

    I knew it would be tough fishing with water at 47 degrees and heavily stained.  I started on a point near the ramp and, with my hood up, did not see another club member stop about 50 feet from me. I fished there a few minutes and left it to him.

    I’m glad I left. On another rocky point, I caught my first keeper, a spot, at 8:00 AM on a crankbait.  That made me start going to other rocky points but they didn’t pay off until 11:00 AM, when I caught a bare keeper spot on a shaky head. 

    On the next point I caught another keeper on a different crankbait. So three keepers on three different baits, but all on rocky points.

    The next point I fished didn’t produce anything, but when I cast a jig ang pig to a nearby dock I caught my biggest keeper of the day, another spot.  There were some rocks around the dock.

    When I tried to crank to go to the next point, my motor would not turn over, even with jumper cables. The battery shorted out. My electronics winked out one by one.   Rather than try to change batteries on the water, I spent the last three hours fishing back to the ramp. I felt blind without my electronics!