I went to Pickwick in northwest Alabama for my May Alabama Outdoor News article and fished with Cody Harrison. April Fools Day fooled us with high winds, strong current and cold weather but Cory showed how well he knows the lake and the habits of the bass there.
He landed two smallmouth in the 3.5 to four pound range, a largemouth that size and a pretty “meanmouth” bass a little smaller
Pickwich has largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass and they sometimes mate, especially smallmouth and spotted bass. That hybrid is common enough it is named a “meanmouth,” it has the colors of a smallmouth but they are brighter, and they have a tooth patch on the tongue like a spot. And they fight like crazy.
Cody likes some current in the river and said when the dam is releasing somewhere between 20,000 and 70,000 cubic feet per second of water it is good. Lower and the fish don’t bite very good, higher and it is hard to fish. The day we fished the release was around 90,000 CFS!
All his fish hit a bladed jig fished in current eddies along main river gravel banks. The fish were getting ready to span in those places. It was a fun but long trip, the longest I make doing these articles. We were in the corner of Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi, a long way from Griffin!
The Wednesday after my Oconee tournmqent I went to Blanton Creek Park to camp, social distance myself, and practice for the Potato Creek Bassmasters Club Classic on Bartletts Ferry Saturday. The campground was crowded, a lot of people seemed to think the same way about avoiding coronavirus. The lake crowd seemed to be like Memorial Day or July 4th weekend!
Thursday it was very cool so I waited to go out until about 10:00. I just knew the big largemouth would be moving in to feed in river sloughs so I looked at them. I had heard it took 17 pounds to win a Tuesday night tournament the week before, and 19 to win one on Saturday, so I just knew the big ones would bite for me.
Wrong. I never had a bite.
Friday I looked at some more river sloughs, marked some brush piles, and got no bites. The river was ripping with the West Point dam releasing water 24 hours a day. The current was so strong it was almost impossible to fish. At one point I drifted with the current as I got ready to move, and my GPS showed I was moving 2.5 miles per hour!
That afternoon I ran over to Hawalaka Creek where I usually fish. The water there is always clear and it is full of spots, but they are mostly small and I did not think I could do well in the tournament there. The first cove I went in I saw a two-pounder hovering by a small brush pile in two feet of water, then another one about that size go under a dock.
I cast a wacky rigged Senko for a few minutes and caught a 1.5-pound largemouth out of some shade by a seawall. That made me realize fish were easier to catch doing that.
Saturday morning I had high hopes to catch a decent largemouth in the river sloughs early, but in the first one I fished at daylight I caught four short fish and felt others nipping at my spinnerbait and bladed jig. They just were not hitting good.
I did make a couple of good decisions during the day. After fishing two more sloughs without a bite I decided to go to Hawalaka Creek and try to catch something. As I headed that way I decided to try one more slough.
Back in it on a point I landed a 2.07 pound largemouth on a shaky head. A little further down the bank I saw a swirl near a seawall, cast to it and landed another two-pound largemouth. That fired me up but after another hour of fishing the area, I had not gotten another bite.
I ran to Hawalaka creek and caught two keeper spots off the first dock I fished, then my fifth keeper on the next dock. With almost six hours left to fish I went back to the river trying to catch a bigger fish, but no bites.
I went back to where I had seen the fish the day before and caught two spots that did not help, then a largemouth that did cull my smallest spot. When I headed to the ramp I decided to fish one last place and caught another spot that culled again.
I did not think my little limit would do any good.
In the tournament 17 of us fished from 7:30 AM to 5:00 PM, landing 54 keepers weighing about 82 pounds. There were seven five-bass limits and three people did not have a keeper.
Raymond English won with four weighing 9.21 pounds and had big fish with a 4.76 pounder. Drew Naramore was second with four at 8.51 pounds. I was shocked with my five weighing 7.85 tied with Lee Hancock’s five for third place. Fifth was Edward Folker with five weighing 7.48 pounds.
I hoped to actually LAND a big one this weekend at Oconee in the Flint River tournament but it got canceled!
\The big one always gets away. Or for me, most of the time.
On Sunday, March 22, 15 members and guests, and one youth, fished our March tournament at Oconee from 7:00 AM until 3:00 PM. We weighed in 48 14-inch keeper largemouth weighing about 100 pounds. There were four five-fish limits and one zero.
Sam Smith re-joined the club and showed us how to do it, with five weighing 16.33 pounds for first. Zane Fleck had four weighing 11.45 pounds for second and his 6.62-pound big one didn’t get away until after it was weighed for big fish. Third was Billy Roberts with five at 9.57, Raymond English placed fourth with four at 9.36 pounds and my four weighing 9.23 pounds was fifth.
Niles Murry’s nephew, Tom Murray, fished with him and won the youth division with a keeper weighing 2.51 pounds.
My day started slowly, with no keepers until 10:00 when I caught a 4.38 pounder on a jig and pig, then a few minutes later I landed a two pounder on the jig. Just before 11:00 I landed my third keeper. Feeling pretty good but knowing I needed two more, I tried some of my best March places without a bite until 2:00.
I had pretty much given up but decided to fish one last place on the way to the ramp. At 2:15 I cast a shaky head to a dock and felt a thump. When I set the hook the fish made a huge boil in the two-foot deep water then ran under the dock around a post.
Somehow it came out without breaking my line. When I got it about ten feet from the boat I saw a bass every bit of eight pounds and got really excited. Then I saw my whole worm hanging on the outside of its mouth, showing it was barely hooked.
It made a surge toward the metal boat lift and I managed to stop it and get it coming to the boat again. I reached down and picked up the net, and suddenly my line went slack. The hook had pulled out.
Although disgusted and heartbroken, I kept casting and landed my fourth keeper on the same shaky head and worm by a grass bed. In desperation, I went back to the big fish dock and cast to it for the last five minutes before I had to leave, but the big one did not bite again.
On a more positive note, fishing is getting great.
As I left the campground at Lakepoint State Park a week ago last Monday, I stopped to talk to a fisherman loading his crappie trolling boat to go out. He was rigged with over a dozen rod holders for spider rigging. He said he had caught a few crappie the week before and it got much better over the weekend as the water level stabilized and the temperature warmed from the sun. And it cleared up a good bit. He expected to do even better that afternoon.
It was interesting that every fisherman I talked with had caught a lot of catfish. The high muddy water did not bother them. I caught an eight-pound blue cat on a shaky head worm on Thursday and several club members said they caught big cats fishing for bass.
Bass fishing was getting better every day, too. When I got home many of my “fazebook” friends were posting pictures of big bass they were catching. Bass were moving into the spawning areas and feeding. With schools out and many off work, a lot of folks are “Social Distancing” themselves by getting on the water and catching fish.
Now through mid-May is a great time to get on the water, anywhere from ponds and rivers to lakes and creeks. All species are feeding, and bass will start hitting topwater baits any day now. Most agree that is the most exciting way to catch them.
A few years ago I learned how early bass would hit topwater baits, earlier than I used to think. In an early March tournament, my partner and I had fished for about an hour without a bite. My front depthfinder did not show the water temperature. I ask him what temperature the back one showed. When he said “62” I said that was warm enough for topwater and picked up a popper. On my first cast to a dock with it, a five-pounder hit it. It was big fish for the tournament.
The most interesting thing about that fish was it looked like a female that had already spawned. That seems early, but I am slowly learning bass, especially the bigger ones, want to spawn as early as possible.
That is a survival thing. Many baitfish like shad spawn as soon as the water gets to 65 degrees, usually in early April. If bass spawn a few weeks earlier, their fry are big enough to eat the shad fry when they hatch, giving them a growth edge over the bass fry hatched in April fish that are too small to eat them. It also helps that the first week or two of their life the bass fry are not competing with the baby shad for plankton, the food both species eat after hatching. If a bass is stunted the first year of its life, it never grows to its potential.Nature is amazing!
Spring weather means fast-changing conditions for bass fishing. Two weeks ago, it was a ten-degree drop in water temperature in two days at Sinclair. At Eufaula the next week it was a drop in water level. Those are my excuses!
I got to Lakepoint Campground a week ago last Tuesday and set up my camper. A couple of folks camping near me stopped by to talk and told me they were catching a lot of catfish, but few crappie. One of them pointed to a five-foot-high pole by the boat ramp and said it and half the campground had been underwater the Friday before. The pole showed just over one foot of water on Tuesday.
A four-foot drop in water level in four days had to hurt, and my fishing seemed to prove it. I fished about five hours Wednesday and caught only two bass. Both looked like males that had moved in to find a bedding area in the 59-degree water. And the water continued to drop, going down .4 of a foot Wednesday.
Thursday morning I got up and drove south to put in closer to the main lake, hoping to find clearer water. It was even muddier! I did catch a keeper spotted bass and an eight-pound blue cat hit my shaky head worm.
I did get a thrill. While fishing grass beds between docks, I eased around one and looked at the post with my Garmin Panoptix. What looked like a fish was at the base of it about a foot off the bottom. When I pitched my jig to it and watch it sink, I saw the bass come up to it and the jig disappeared. I was so shocked I just watched; I had not seen that before. Then the fish almost jerked the rod out of my hand as it took off, and I did not hook it!
Friday, I rode around checking some creeks and found some clearing water that was 67 degrees back in one. I decided to start there Saturday morning in the Potato Creek Bassmasters tournament the next day. It was a good decision, but a lot of other folks decided the same place looked good.
Saturday morning, I put my boat in at the campground ramp and ran up to the bridge where we were to meet. Due to the Alabama Nation tournament with more than 60 boats and several other clubs taking off from the park, the ramp was a madhouse. It didn’t help that one set of ramps was closed due to construction.
Folks were backed up from the ramp all the way back to the highway, at least a mile and a half, waiting to put in before daylight. It was so bad Niles called me, got the campground gate code and drove around to put in there. He was at the bridge while most folks were still waiting.
In the tournament the first day, 27 members landed 79 bass weighing about 153 pounds. There were seven limits and four zeros. Lee Hancock did it right with five weighing 16.02 pounds and had a 4.88 pounder for first. My five at 12.70 pounds was second and I had a 4.62 pounder. Third was Caleb Delay with fiver weighing 12.26 and Edward Folker was fourth with five weighing 11.59 pounds.
On day two, Sunday, the fish bit better – for some. There were 10 limits and three zeros. We landed 58 bass weighing about 173 pounds. Stan Wick had five at 13.80 pounds for first with a 4.59 pounder. Raymond English had five weighing 13.68 pounds with a 5.11 pounder for second, Trent Grainger was third with five weighing 13.02 pounds and Edward Folker had five weighing 12.73 pounds.
Overall, Lee Hancock won with 10 weighing 26.80 pounds and Edward Folker was second with 10 at 24.32 pounds. Raymond English came in third with ten at 23.14 pounds and his 5.11 pound largemouth was big fish. Fourth was Trent Grainger with ten weighing 22.91 pounds. I caught only three keepers the second day and dropped to a tie with Drew Naramore. My eight and his ten weighed an identical 19.12 pounds.
On Saturday I quickly caught a keeper on a spinnerbait, then two more on a bladed jig. At 9:30 I laned my four-pounder on a jig. Then it got slow, I did not have another bite until 2:30 when I caught my fifth keeper on a jig then immediately caught another keeper on it. A few minutes later I set the hook and felt a good fish fight for a few seconds before pulling off.
Sunday did not start well. I did not get a bite until 9:00 and that fish pulled off the jig. I guess I set the pattern the last fish the day before. At 9:30 what looked like a four-pounder just came off my bladed jig. Then, at 10:00, in about ten minutes, I caught three keepers and a grinnel on the jig.
It got slow. Just after lunch I set the hook, my rod bowed up and the fish fought then came off. With 30 minutes left to fish I set the hook on a good fish, fought it to the boat, and reached for it with the net. It jumped, missed the net by THAT much, about two inches, and came off.
I had my chances, as did many others. There was a lot of talk at both weigh-ins of big fish lost. Part of the problem was the number of fishermen, especially on Saturday. All-day there were at least ten bass boats within sight in the small creek I was fishing.
Sunday at least four other club members were fishing the same area, it was get in line, go down the bank and hope you got a bite all day both days.
Right now is a great time to get on the lake to avoid the virus and catch good bass. That is my plan!
I am always amazed at fishing in Alabama. Tuesday morning, I met Curtis Gossett, a high school bass fishing team coach, and Chandler Holt, a senior on his team, to get information for my April article.
Curtis’s son, Zeke, is a senior on a college team. I did an article with Zeke six years ago when he was just a sophomore in high school with his dad as coach and was very impressed with him.
Chandler was impressive, too, with great fishing skills and knowledge of Lay Lake. He quickly caught a 3.5-pound spot then I caught a largemouth just over four pounds. A little later Curtis got a largemouth right at four pounds. So we had three nice fish in the five hours we fished, plus some smaller fish.
Chandler fished the High School Championship on Lay the following weekend and weighed-in on the Bassmasters Classic stage just before the pros weigh-in on Saturday. He placed Second.
On Sunday Zeke fished the college championship and weighed-in on the Classic stage that day, and he won. Zeke was practicing while I fished, and he caught five spotted bass weighing a total of 20.17 pounds in five hours!
Watch for both these young men next weekend and in the future!
After Ricky Layton’s great catch on Friday, I could not wait to get on the water Sunday morning in the Flint River Bass Club March tournament at Sinclair.
I should have known better.
After fishing from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, 13 members landed 20 bass weighing about 36 pounds. There was one five bass limit and five people didn’t catch a 12-inch keeper.
Travis Weatherly won with five weighing 9.02 pounds and his 4.99 pound largemouth was big fish. My three weighing 7.47 placed second and I had a 4.57 pounder for my biggest fish. Niles Murray placed third with three weighing 5.75 pounds and Brent Drake came in fourth with three weighing 4.20 pounds.
The cold air made me shiver on my run to my first stop. Luckily there was enough wind to keep the fog down, it was wispy and hanging just off the water. But there was enough to make it scary trying to watch for all the floating wood.
I stopped off a grass bed that was perfect for the pattern Ricky caught his big fish on Friday, but my heart sank when my temperature gauge hit 49 degrees. A nine or ten degree drop just had to affect the bass. It surely did affect my optimism! I fished three places in three hours without a bite.
Around 11:00 the weak sun was warming the water a little, raising the temperature to about 51 degrees in the cove where Ricky caught a six pounder. I cast a Chatterbait across in front of a grass bed, something thumped it and I set the hook. My rod bowed up and the fish headed for deep water. I just knew I had a six pounder on, but suddenly my line went slack. The fish just pulled off without me ever seeing it.
At noon I was in the area where Ricky caught two fish, hole #2. I was very down, fishing half the day without a keeper. The water had warmed to 52 so I had some hope. I cast my Chatterbait into some grass and hooked the four pounder I weighed in. That improved my attitude a lot.
After another hour of fishing without a bite, I caught a two pounder in front of some grass, then at 2:00 PM landed my third keeper, a one pounder, from another grass bed. That was it. I fished hard for the rest of the day without another bite.
On Monday, the weather guessers said it would be in the 70s all week as I got ready to go to Eufaula for a week. I hope they were right, the Potato Creek Bassmasters are fishing our March tournament this weekend at Eufaula.I think I kinda wish we were at Sinclair!
Call it a tale of two Sinclairs. Or a tale of three lakes in only three days. Last weekend showed how fast bass fishing can change this time of year.
Last Friday I met Ricky Layton to get information for my GON April Map of the Month article. The weather guessers were right for a change when they predicted high winds, bluebird skies and cold weather. That combination is usually the kiss of death for fishing in the spring.
Ricky said we would meet at Bass’s Boat House, an old marina where the clubs used to put in back in the 1970s. It was near the dam and the water might be slightly clearer in that area, and we would be more protected from the wind. All this spring the flooding rains have made our lakes fill up with very muddy water.
We waited until 9:00 AM to go out since it was cold. The first two hours seemed to show the weather and muddy water was working against us. Ricky took me to some places he had caught good fish the weekend before, but the water was even muddier than it had been and we got no bites.
At 11:00 Ricky was starting to look at the article pattern and caught an eight-pound largemouth on a bladed jig. The fish was up shallow near a grass bed, the pattern for April. That is a big fish for Sinclair, it has been a long time since I have seen one that big there, although there have been several that were close the past few years.
About noon we started fishing and marking places for the article, working bass bedding and shad spawning areas. Ricky caught a five-pound largemouth out of a grass bed on what will be hole #2. A few minutes later he caught one weighing about six pounds there.
The next place we fished Ricky caught another fish right at six pounds, on the same pattern, halfway back in a creek with grass beds up shallow on the bank. One of the last places we fished he landed his smallest fish of the day, one that weighted about 3.5 pounds. In all that time I landed one weighing about 2.5 pounds, but my excuse is I was too busy netting his fish and taking pictures and notes to fish.
Ricky ended up with five bass weighing a conservative 28 pounds. That is the kind of catch you dream about and expect on Guntersville, not Sinclair, especially under bad weather conditions. The water temperature was 58 to 59 degrees where we fished, making those big largemouth were looking for bedding areas.
On Saturday Ricky took his son fishing at Sinclair. Although colder, the weather was better, but the fishing was not. He said they did land a seven-pound fish out of hole #10 but their best five weighed “only” about 14 pounds, not great compared to the day before.
Sunday, February 23, 13 members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our February tournament at West Point. After fishing from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, we brought 31 keeper bass to the scales. Ten of them were 14 inch largemouth and 21 were spots over the 12-inch size limit. Three people had five fish limits and no one zeroed.
Russell Prevatt won with five weighing 11.04 pounds and Zane Fleck placed second with five at 10.17 pounds. Robert Proctor, fishing with Zane, had five weighing 8.30 pounds for third and Jay Gerson placed fourth with four at 8.10 pounds and had big fish with a 3.46 pounder. My four weighing 6.22 pounds was fifth.
Robert told me he and Zane caught at least 20 keepers during the day. That always amazes me, I struggle to get four fish and others catch a bunch of them, doing exactly what I was doing!
After the Potato Creek tournament the Saturday before, I felt hopeful, but when I ran to the creek where I caught fish the week before, the water had come up 18 inches and the temperature had dropped five degrees! It was still very muddy, and there was already another bass boat back in it fishing.
I caught a keeper on a worm before 9:00 but then it got slow. I probably should have left the creek and tried other places, but I was convinced bass were somewhere in that creek and stayed there all day. It almost worked, I landed my biggest fish of the day at 2:00 PM and just knew they were moving up as the water warmed.
I had my chances, too. About a dozen times I got bites and brought in half or no worm after setting the hook. They could have been small spots that are notorious about grabbing a worm but they are so small the tail of the worm is in their throat but the hook still outside their mouth.
But on one hookset, the fish was swimming to my left. When I set the hook, my rod bowed up and drag on my reel slipped, then the line went slack. I reeled in my jig and worm. It could have been a gar that my hook could not stick, or it could have been a big bass that was clamped down on my jig head so tight the hook could not move and stick it. I will never know! Thats fishing!
Here’s a look at what some of the competitors think might be the winning combination at the Bassmaster Classic, kicking off today at Guntersville, Alabama.
Whether the fish move shallow or remain around offshore cover and structure this week, Bassmaster Classic competitors will catch many big bass on crankbaits, Rapala pros agree. Other go-to baits will likely include lipless crankbaits.
“A lot of those baits that will be key this week are your standard, classic springtime baits,” said Rapala Pro Seth Feider, a three-time Classic qualifier from Minnesota. “I don’t know if that will change, even with changing conditions. The colors you tie on might change if the water gets real dirty.
But I can guarantee some fish are going to get caught on a Rapala DT-6, no matter what.
”First-time Classic qualifier Patrick Walters agreed.“DT-6, of course,” said Walters, a second-year Elite Series Rapala pro from South Carolina. “Some DT-10 too. I think your key baits are going to be shallow- to mid-diving crankbaits and lipless crankbaits. I think we’ll be getting reaction strikes on something moving fast with trebles on it.”
DT stands for “dives to.” A DT-6 dives to a max depth of six feet; a DT-10 to 10 feet. Built of balsa wood, Rapala’s signature material, DT-series cranks wobble while swimming and deflect off cover to trigger bites from bass around both grass and rock.
If stable or falling water positions Guntersville’s bass this week in offshore, submerged vegetation, Classic competitors will swim DT’s over the top of it, making occasional contact and ripping free. If rising water draws bass to the bank, the pros will cast them around hard-bottom shorelines, making constant bottom contact on the retrieve and caroming off wood and rock cover.
The lipless crankbaits you’ll see Rapala pros slinging in the Classic are Rapala Rippin’ Raps and Storm Arashi Vibes. Those baits, along with DT-6’s, are “pretty traditional, Guntersville-type baits,” said Cody Huff, a collegiate Rapala pro-staffer competing in his first Bassmaster Classic. “You’re going to catch ‘em on those.”
A Storm Arashi Vibe helped Rapala Pro Ott DeFoe win last year’s Bassmaster Classic on Fort Loudon Lake, another Tennessee River reservoir. On the 2019 Classic’s first day, four bass in DeFoe’s 20-pound limit came on a Vibe, including a 6-pounder that was the biggest bass caught that day by any competitor. A 4-pound, 7 ounce bass he caught in the championship round on a Vibe allowed him to cull a smaller fish, solidifying his win.
Lipless crankbaits like the Vibe excel in the spring, when bass are first pulling up from deeper water and moving close to shallow spawning areas. Vibes start swimming at slower speeds than do other lipless crankbaits. They fall slower too, allowing you to fish them in shallower water at a slower speed. Featuring a soft-knock rattle, Vibes emit a unique single-cadence, low-pitch sound that attracts attention without alarming tentative fish. Storm is a Rapala Respected Brand.
First-time Classic competitor Bob Downey said he will be among the pros slinging DT-6’s and Arashi Vibes this week. “The DT-6 I don’t think will be a surprise to many people,” said the first-year Elite Series pro, a Minnesota native. “I’ve been catching some pretty good fish on it – good quality keepers and some that are above average.”
Offshore grass or shallow banks? Especially in the spring, when weather and water conditions can change quickly, bass tend to move a lot.“The more the water level drops, the more fish are going to be caught around deep water, with deeper-running crankbaits, towards the main river,” Walters predicted. “The more it comes up, the more they’ll be caught in pockets and up on the bank.”
Rapala pros interviewed on Monday said they were expecting higher water by Friday, because a lot of rain had been forecast. And higher water, they said, would likely pull bass away from offshore grass in which many were found last weekend in practice. Although not all the Rapala pros want that to happen.Feider, for one, said he hoped water levels wouldn’t rise, because that would keep offshore grass in play.
“I’d rather fish in the grass versus around the bridges or the riprap,” he said.
Huff expressed similar wishes.“What I’m really hoping for is that we don’t have too much rain,” he said. “I hope the river continues to drop, and not rise. If the river continues to drop, they’ll start to group up really good on some of those good offshore places in the grass, where you don’t have to just catch one here, one there. It’s a lot more fun when you can pull up, make one cast to get the school fired up, and then catch ‘em one after another.”
Walters, on the other hand, will be happy if water levels rise and pull bass to the bank.
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” he said Monday. “I’m a bank-beater by heart.”
If the bass move shallow, Walters said, those fish could be relatively unpressured – a rarity on a popular tournament and recreational-fishing reservoir like Guntersville. “They’ll be up there and we’ll kind of get the first stab at them,” he said.
Interviewed Wednesday evening after his final practice round, Downey said water levels and conditions had not changed dramatically in his areas.“I caught most of my fish [Wednesday] similar to how I caught them last weekend,” he said. “So it didn’t really change a lot for me yet.”
Late Wednesday evening, more rain rolled through the area and continued through mid-afternoon Thursday. Clear, sunny skies were forecast for Friday and Saturday with clouds returning on Sunday.
No matter how the weather ends up positioning the fish, Rapala pros agreed they will need to tailor their gameplans to prevailing conditions.
“All I can do is start where they were and then just kind of let the day unfold,” Feider explained. “I’m just going to have to keep an open mind and adjust.”
“I enjoy fishing pretty shallow,” Downey said. “If they pushed shallow – more towards the banks – I wouldn’t mind that at all. But I would have to make some adjustments.”
