Georgia’s Great Outdoors
Its scary how fast my attitude can change at a club tournament. Many times I have gone from disgusted to happy in a few minutes when I suddenly caught several bass or caught a big one. And it goes the other way, too when I lose a big fish or miss several bites on a tough day.
Last Saturday I went from disgusted to happy at the Potato Creek Bassmasters June tournament on Oconee. After fishing hard all day I had three small keepers to weigh in. I just knew everybody else would have a limit of big bass based on reports I had been getting. The weekend before it took 19 pounds to win a local tournament.
At 6:00 Robert and I ran down to a grassy point where I can usually catch a keeper at first light this time of year on a spinnerbait or buzzbait. After 30 minutes of casting the sun came up and neither of us had a bite.
I was hardheaded and kept fishing the grass, concentrating on shady banks. At about 7:00 I decided to fish out deeper on a rocky point. I told Robert I saw what looked like big fish moving on the bottom about 15 feet deep.
I cast a jig to them and felt a thump, but before I could set the hook my rod almost got jerked out of my hand. Almost as soon as I started fighting the fish I told Robert it was probably a catfish based on the way it rolled when it pulled.
Sure enough I got a six or seven pound blue cat to the boat. It was hooked in the tail, I guess that is why it took off when it bumped my jig. I used my pliers to pull the hook out without landing the fish.
Going into the next cove Robert got a keeper largemouth on a whacky rigged worm behind my buzzbait. That made me put it down and go to a slower moving bait.
In the back of the cove I caught a 13.5 inch largemouth on my jig. That set the pattern for the day. Largemouth must be 14 inches long to be kept at Oconee. A few minutes later as I reeled in my jig for another cast a thump made me set the hook and I landed a barely keeper largemouth on the jig. One for me at 8:00!
For the next three hours we tried a lot of different things, from rocks to docks. At about 10:00 I made a blind cast out on a shallow point as we rounded it to fish the next dock and saw my line moving out. When I set the hook I landed a 14.5 inch keeper, my biggest of the day.
Talk about a blind hog finding an acorn. There was no cover to hold a bass out there, but I believe in keeping my bait in the water at all times I can. That accidental keeper shows why.
After another hour of fruitless casting I decided to go back to the grassy point and try it. As I told Robert, they had to be hungry since they didn’t eat earlier.
After 15 minutes of casting my jig to the grass I had about given up. As happens all too often, not paying attention cost me. I cast my jig to the grass and before I could engage the reel a bass took off back into the grass. I hooked it a little and felt a strong pull before it came off.
That got my attention and in the next hour or so I caught at least a dozen bass from the grass on my jig. Unfortunately, although I measured several of them that looked like keepers only one was over the 14-inch line.
Robert had quit fishing since his back hurt and was sitting down in the boat with 30 minutes left to fish. I told him there was a deep brush pile on the way in I wanted to fish. My first cast to it produced another 13.5-inch bass on my jig.
That made Robert get up and fish, and sure enough his first cast with a Carolina rig produced a two pound keeper, our biggest of the day!
That was it. I was pretty disgusted.
At weigh 17 members of the club brought in 32 keeper bass weighing about 55 pounds. There was one five bass limit and two members didn’t have as keeper.
Lee Hancock blew us all away with a five bass limit weighing 11.75 pounds for first and his 3.60 pound largemouth was big fish. Doug Acree had three at 5.45 pound for second, third was Jason Turner with three weighing 5.19 pounds and my three at 4.13 pounds was fourth!
I really needed that last bass Robert caught! But fourth place cheered me up a lot!
Till next time – Gone fishing!