And two club tournament results
I have learned a lot from my Garmin Panoptix I installed in November 2019. This system is a sonar that shows a live picture of what is underwater on the screen, much like shining a spotlight at night shows what is in its beam. And it shows movement as it happens, not as a line on the screen like older units.
One of my first surprises was how many fish are down there. I see schools of crappie and hybrids and clouds of baitfish suspended over deeper water this time of year. And I can see fish moving along the bottom, probably catfish and carp.
Fish hovering around stumps, rocks and brush, or holding right on a drop off, are probably bass.
And there are lots of them. But seeing them does not mean they will hit my bait.
Time after time I see my bait move through them and they ignore it. Even worse is when I watch my jig fall on the cast or hop it and see a fish come up to it and follow it back down but never hit it.
I have always heard bass move tight to cover in muddy water. In November and December, Jackson was very clear and I could see bass holding just over rocks and other cover, and they would slowly move around it. But after the rain Jackson muddied up and now I see bright dots indication bass right against the rocks or down in the brush. And they don’t move, they just sit there.
I know a bait cast out and sinking will swing back toward the boat, and to get it to go straight to the bottom I “feed” line to it as it falls. That is important when trying to get you bait to the bottom under docks and down to brush.
Watching my bait swing back toward the boat as it falls amazes me. A half ounce jig with a twin curly tail trailer cast on 14-pound fluorocarbon line makes an arch back toward me no matter how much line I feed to it. It moves back toward me about a foot for every five it falls, so if I cast to a brush pile 20 feet deep I have to cast at least four feet past it to get my bait to hit it.
I am just exploring lakes with my Panoptix and hope to learn a lot more in the coming months.
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Final 2019 standings for the three Griffin bass
clubs are out. During the year points are awarded at each tournament based on where you place.
In Flint River and Potato Creek first place gets 100 points, second 90 on down to 10 for tenth. Anyone catching a keeper but finishing below 10th gets five points. In Spalding County, first gets 25 points, second 24 on down to 1 for 25th. We also keep up with numbers of fish weighed in and total weight for the year.
Last year in Flint River, I won with 1340 points and 47 bass weighing 78.21 pounds. Niles Murry placed second with 900 points, 40 bass and 67.42 pounds and Chuck Croft came in third with 880 points, 36 bass and 65.2 pounds.
Fourth place was won by Don Gober with 790 points, 34 bass weighing 45.79 pounds and his grandson Alex Gober placed fifth with 660 points and 22 keepers weighing 28.41 pounds. Doug Acree rounded out the top six with 410 points, 12 Bass and 16.12 pounds.
In the Potato Creek club, I won with 890 points catching 73 bass weighing 130.39 pounds. Trent Grainger placed second with 840 points, 61 bass weighing 106.03 pounds and Doug Acree came in third with 825 points and 70 bass weighing 111.79 pounds.
Mitchell Cardell placed fourth with 790 points, 56 bass weighing 95.03 pounds and fifth went to Kwong Yu with 700 points, 57 bass and 97.77 pounds. Raymond English came in sixth with 670 points, 60 bass weighing 100.19 pounds.
For the Sportsman Club, I won with 316 points and 65 bass weighing 129.94 pounds. Kwong Yu placed second with 270 points, 51 bass and 82.11 pounds, Raymond English came in third with 266 points and 65 bass weighing 124.44 pounds.
In this club fourth went to Jay Gerson with 250 points, 55 bass and 84 pounds, Wayne Teal was fifth with 247 points, 44 bass and 68.24 pounds. Billy Roberts rounded out the top six with 241 points, 37 keepers and 57.22 pounds.
Since joining the Potato Creek club four years ago, my goal has been to win all three clubs one year. I was very happy to do it this past year while fighting health problems. I guess I can retire from fishing now – not.
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Last Saturday, 19 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our January tournament at Sinclair. After eight hours, we brought 71 keeper largemouth weighing about 126 pounds to the scales. There were 10 five-fish limits and two members didn’t weigh a bass.
I won with five weighing 13.0 pounds and had a 6.71 pound largemouth for big fish. Kwong Yu placed second with five at 12.85 pounds anchored by a 3.91 pounder. Third was Tom Tanner with five weighing 12.58 pounds and had a 4.09 pounder. Dan Dupree came in fourth with five weighing 12.44 pounds and second biggest fish of the day with a 5.61 pounder.
Add in the 4.43 pounder Raymond English had and the three pounder my partner Mike Scoggins weighed in and you can see it was close and there were a lot of quality fish caught on the cold, rainy day.
Fish were caught on a wide variety of baits. My big one hit a crankbait, I also had a three pounder on a spinnerbait, another keeper on the crankbait, three on a shaky head and one on jig and pig. The only consistent thing for me and others seemed to be fishing shallow in the 53-degree muddy water