A week ago last Sunday 15 members and guests of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our July tournament at Jackson Lake. We also had one youth competitor. After fishing from 5:30 AM to noon, we brought in 38 keeper bass weighing about 43 pounds. There were no limits and one fisherman didn’t catch a keeper. There were 11 largemouth and 27 spots landed.

Glenn Anderson won with three weighing 6.52 pounds and had big fish with a 2.38 pound largemouth. Niles
Murray placed second with four weighing 5.54 pounds, Kwong Yu was third with four at 4.96 pounds and Jay Gerson had three weighing 4.03 pounds for fourth.

Jackson Terry, our only youth competitor, had one weighing 1.59 pounds and won that division. And he beat me and several other adults!

Fish were reportedly caught on a variety of baits, from buzzbaits to shaky head worms. I guessed wrong. I had gone to Jackson on Thursday to look around and went way up the Alcovy River where the water was cooler, had a little stain and was flowing. I caught one keeper and lost two more in the hour I fished there.

In my vast wisdom I figured all the rain the two days before the tournament had muddied up the river, so I stayed in Tussahaw Creek. Of course, several of the people that finished in the top five or six said they went up the Alcovy and the water was not muddy.

I could not get a bite on anything but a shaky head worm and landed one keeper. Several other fish made a fool out of me. At least three times I cast right beside a seawall and when I started tightening up my line it stayed slack. By the time I caught up with the fish it was all the way out back under the boat and I did not get a good hookset and lost the fish.

I did learn from those first three and when it happened the fourth time, as soon as I realized my line was slack I set the hook, and landed a 1.10-pound spot, my only keeper. Then I got lazy and let two more get back out under the boat before setting the hook. In my mind I should have landed five more fish, and I saw two of them as they came off that looked like keepers.

I did catch several spots about 11 inches long and kept them to eat. That size bass tastes good, is easy to filet and need to be killed. Spots have overpopulated some of our lakes so badly there is no size limit on them. If you go to Jackson, West Point or other lakes with lots of little spots, keep some to eat.