In the March Potato Creek bassmasters tournament at Eufaula, 23 fishermen cast for 16.5 hours to land 107 bass weighing about 211 pounds. Most of us caught fish but not as many as hoped. The cold, muddy water made fishing tough.

Tom Tanner won with nine bass weighing 22.60 pounds and had big fish with a 4.53 pound largemouth. Trent Grainger was second with nine at 22.23 pounds,
Lee Hancock was third with ten weighing 19.15 pounds and Mitchell Cardell placed fourth with nine at 18.36 pounds.

I knew I was in trouble when a couple of local fishermen told me most tournaments were being won on deeper ledges fishing big crankbaits. I am worse at that method than any other. And they were catching them near the dam, a 30-mile run by water from Lakepoint. With the wind and cold I knew that was not something I would do.

On Thursday I caught a couple of fish on spinnerbaits while checking out some creeks closer to our launch. Friday, I went out for just a couple of hours, mainly marking a GPS trail to follow to where I wanted to fish during the tournament.

We started well before daylight, trying to beat all the other tournaments. Lakepoint has two launch areas, one with six ramps and a parking lot that can handle about 150 vehicles with trailers, but there was a big high school tournament using it. We put in at the smaller launch, with a ramp barely wide enough for two trailers at a time and parking for about 50 rigs.

It was crowded, too. When we came in there were 35 boats sitting out from the ramp waiting to take out. There was a big tournament using it, too.

I did not want to run far in the dark so I started on the riprap and landed a small keeper spot at 7:50. After trying a bunch of other things I went to a creek and, as I idled across a point going into a cove, I saw fish on it, but could not get them to bite.

I did catch a three-pound largemouth in the cove on a spinnerbait, but that was it for me for the day, two fish.

Sunday, I went to that creek and caught three keeper largemouth on a jig and pig before 10:00, then tried the point. The fish hit, I landed four keepers on my first four casts and for almost an hour caught fish every time I got to the GPS waypoint and made the right cast from it. I landed 14 bass in that hour, so I had a limit. I really needed three of them the day before!

Sunday, March 10 only five members showed up for the Flint River Bass Club March tournament at Sinclair. Maybe the weather scared most off. After eight hours of casting we brought in 38 keeper largemouth weighing about 38 pounds. There were three limits and no one zeroed.

Niles Murray won again with a limit weighing 11.16 pounds and Chuck Croft placed second with four at 8.50 pounds, including a 4.25 pound largemouth for big fish. I placed third with five at 7.22 pounds, Doug Acree had five at 5.82 pounds for fourth and Brent Drake was fifth with four at 5.35 pounds.

The cloudy weather and fairly warm water temperatures had me excited. I just knew quality bass would be shallow and hit crankbaits and spinnerbaits. The day before Niles had placed fourth in an ABA tournament there with just over ten pounds but it took about 14 to win, so I thought bigger fish would hit.

Oddly enough, for the second tournament in a row, two of us headed to the same place to start.
Brent said he caught one there, but nothing hit for me.

At 10:30 after three hours of casting, I had not had a bite. I tried a bunch of different things, fishing deep and shallow and everything in between, with no luck. I finally caught a 2.23 pound largemouth on a crankbait on a deep rocky point, but others similar to it produced no bites.

At 1:15 I was even more disgusted Then I cast a shaky head worm to some deep brush and caught my second keeper, and the next cast to it produced a short fish. But repeated cast to it didn’t work.

The sun came out about 2:00 so I started skipping a shaky head under docks into the shade. I quickly hooked and lost a keeper, but then landed four more keepers on docks by 3:00. I was happy to finally catch some bass!

Last fall 13 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our November tournament at West Point. We landed 47 keeper bass weighing about 71 pounds. There were at least four limits.

I won with five keepers weighing 9.75 pounds, Mike Cox was second with five at 7.66 pounds. Raymond English placed third with five weighing 7.55 pounds and Frank Anderson had five at 7.19 for fourth. Kwong Yu’s 2.94 pounder was big fish.

In comparison, Highland Marina held its Georgia State Championship that weekend. That tournament in invitation only that includes the top fishermen from clubs and other tournaments in Georgia. Entry fee is $300 per team and some of the best fishermen in the state, many of them West Point guides and experts, fish it. They are attracted to fish it due to the guaranteed first place prize of $12,000!

Guide Ken Bearden fished it and after Saturday, the same day we fished, was in fourth place out of 114 teams. He had 17 pounds! The two-day tournament was won with over 30 pounds. That just shows what really good local fishermen can catch on West Point!

I started slowly, not getting a bite the first hour we fished. I had heard some quality largemouth were feeding way back in the creeks and that is usually a good pattern this time of year. Shad move back in the creeks as the water cools and bass follow them.

At blast-off I ran to the back of my favorite creek. There are several brush and rock piles in it that I thought would have some feeding fish on them. Unfortunately, there is a boat ramp in it and when I arrived there were two jon boats, a kayak and a Bass Hunter boat fishing the key places.

That must have been a good pattern, since within five minutes of me getting there three boats from the big tournament came in the back of that creek, too. All day I saw fishermen in that tournament run into backs of creeks. But I never got a bite back in where I started.

After an hour I went out to a main lake rocky point and caught a keeper spot on a jig and pig, then a largemouth off a blowdown on it. So I started fishing those kinds of places. At 10:00, two hours later, I had my five-fish limit but all but the largemouth were just 13 inch spots.

I started fishing a little deeper on those kinds of places and caught my biggest fish, a 2.5-pound spot, at 11:00 and a keeper largemouth a few minutes later. With only 30 minutes left to fish I went to another deep rock pile and landed two good keeper largemouth and lost one. So I managed to cull all but one of the first five I landed and had four largemouth and one decent spot for the win.

From now to Christmas is one of my favorite times to fish. After Christmas the water gets cold enough fishing gets tough until late February, then it gets real good again. Enjoy the cool weather and good fishing while you can!

Last Sunday eleven members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our February tournament at West Point. After eight hours of casting, from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM, we brought 45 keeper bass weighing about 84 pounds to the scales. There were seven limits and everyone caught at least one keeper.

Wayne Teal found the right five and won with five weighing 12.12 pounds and his 7.15 pound largemouth was big fish. My fived weighing 11.63 pounds was second, Niles Murray placed third with five at 9.65 pounds and Robert Proctor came in fourth with five weighing 8.91 pounds.

With seven boats in the tournament, who would have ever thought two of us would head to exactly the same place on that big lake. Jay had told me he and Wayne had fished there on Thursday and caught a lot of bass. I wanted to start on the point where I had landed 14 keepers the weekend before.

When we took off I took my time, letting everyone else get out of the way and not running fast. I saw Jay was ahead of me but did not worry, until he turned into the mouth of Whitewater Creek. Sure enough, he stopped on the point I wanted to fish, so I turned and went back to another point nearby.

The wind was dead calm at first but as I fished the point and around a cove, a breeze started blowing, a good thing. When I got to the secondary point back in the cove where I caught my biggest fish the weekend before, the breeze was just right, and I got my first bite, a keeper spot, then caught another one.

After a few more casts I looked and could see the point Jay had stopped on, but he was gone. I ran back to it and quickly caught two keeper spots, giving me four at 8:30. At weigh-in Jay told me the only thing he caught there was a carp and a catfish. The wind had made the bass start biting, but he left too soon.

I fished there for another hour and finally caught my fifth keeper at 9:30. The sun had come out and moved the bass off it, I guess. I knew the sun was warming the water so I decided to try fishing very shallow to catch a bigger fish.

At 11:00 I was back in a pocket with very muddy water. I almost decided to leave it was so muddy, but as my trolling motor got stuck in the mud, I cast a spinnerbait to a stump in about a foot of water and got a thump.

It turned out to be a 5.35 pound largemouth, second biggest fish of the day. It was a miracle I landed it, it got wrapped up in my trolling motor. But somehow, I got it unwrapped. My line was badly frayed for about two feet, but it did not break.

That fish convinced me to fish a spinnerbait very shallow the rest of the day, and I landed two more largemouth and a spot, culling three of the four spots I caught early. But it was not quite enough.

Last Saturday,24 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our February tournament at West Point. After eight hours of casting, we brought 68 keeper bass weighing about 104 pounds to the scales. There were nine five-fish limits and six members did not land a keeper.

Buddy Laster won with five weighing 11.54 pounds and his 4.01 pound largemouth was big fish. Michael
Cox was second with five at 8.51 pounds, Doug Acree placed third with five at 8.27 pounds and Dan Dupree came in fourth with five at 8.10 pounds.

I had fun catching them most bass I have caught in months although the day did not start that way. We put in at Pyne Park where tournaments are held every weekend. Since released fish restock that area constantly, I started fishing near the ramp.

A short spot hit my crankbait soon after starting and I got two more bites on it I missed, so I felt I was using the right bait. But then I got a bite on a shaky head worm and my line broke near may reel when I set the hook.

That I a stupid mistake. Using a baitcast reel, if you get a loop in your line and don’t get it out, the next cast will cause the line to burn against the reel and weaken it. I am sure that is what happened. I lost so much line I had to sit down and respool that reel, filling it with 14-pound test line.

Soon after that I caught a keeper spot on the crankbait but at 11:00, after fishing several places near the ramp, I had not caught another fish. I decided to go to another creek where I had found a small drop with rocks on it that usually hold fish.

As I entered the creek, I saw a boat fishing near it so changed to my next stop, a rocky point in another creek. But there was a boat fishing there, too. I am glad that happened. I went to my third choice, another rocky point in another creek.

On a rock ridge that runs off it I quickly started catching bass. They were all small and mostly just keeper spots, not weighing much but fun to catch. I stayed on it for over two hours and landed 14 bass, including a keeper largemouth and several short fish. But I had my limit.

I probably stayed on it too long having fun, but I did catch two decent size fish and kept hoping bigger ones would move up as the sun warmed the water. And I was having fun. The most frustrating thing was I broke my line setting the hook three times. I tried to check it after every cast since I knew the head bumping the rocks would fray it, but I was not careful enough.

The worst was when I pitched the shaky head to a stump barely visible under the water. A fish picked it up without a hard thump and started swimming toward the boat, often a sign of a bigger bass. I didn’t have much line out and when I set the hook the fish did not move, but then my line popped. I will never know how big it was.

With a little over an hour left I decided to try something else and with just 15 minutes left I caught my biggest fish of the day, a largemouth weighing just over two pounds. It hit on a small rocky point back in a cove. I ended up with 7.76 pounds, fifth place but not quite enough.

Sunday, February 10 only three members of the Flint River Bass Club and one guest showed up to fish our February tournament at Lake Sinclair on a cold, damp day. In eight hours of casting, we managed to land eight bass weighing about 11 pounds. There were no limits, but everyone did catch at least one keeper.

Niles Murray continued his winning ways with three bass weighing 3.78 pounds, my two weighing 3.09 was second, Brent Drake placed third with two at 3.07 pounds and guest Mark Hawkins, fishing with Niles, was fourth and had big fish with a 1.92 pounder.

Compare that to a tournament the day before. It took five bass weighing more than 19 pounds to win and more than 12 pounds to finish in the top ten. That is amazing. The same lake only one day earlier produced that kind of weights, but we did terrible. There are lots of excuses and I have plenty of them.

In the Potato Creek tournament last month on Sinclair I didn’t do well but caught two good keepers and lost one the last hour on one point, so I headed there at 7:30 when we started Sunday. Within a few minutes I landed my biggest keeper on the same crankbait I caught my fish on last month, so I was encouraged. But two hours later, after fishing five different baits there, I had not had another bite.

Next, I went to a point that turns into a big flat just off the channel. It has a small patch of hard clay on it where I have won several winter tournaments in the past but got no bites there. I fished another place that usually holds a bass or two around docks, rocks and brush but got no bites there, either.

I had checked the Solunar Feeding times on my phone before we started. At times bass seem to get more active on them, and a minor feeding period, the only one during our fishing hours, was starting, so I went back to the point where I caught my first fish. I just knew I would catch something there but was wrong. After more than an hour fishing it nothing hit.

I decided to change tactics and went out on the main lake. The first place I stopped I realized the current was running strong down the river, something that often makes the fish feed. I fished that place, a brush pile on a dock, but nothing hit.

Current moving on riprap is a good thing, and the bridge in Little River has a lot of released fish on it from tournaments at the marina that restock it every weekend, so I decided to try it. When I stopped, I saw the river current was so strong it was pushing water upstream in Little River, with current going up and under the bridge. It doesn’t matter to the fish which way the current moves, but they do set up and feed in different positions, so I adjusted the way I fished and almost immediately caught my second keeper.

Since I had more than three hours left to fish I just knew I could catch some more, but after trying everything I thought might work, I got no bites. That makes for a frustrating day. Everything seem right to catch fish but I either fished the wrong places, used the wrong baits or fished too fast, or too slow. Some days are like that.

Saturday, April 16, 15 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters held our April tournament at Lake Lanier. James Beasley won with 9.95 pounds, Lee Hancock placed second with 9.60 pounds, Pete Peterson came in third with 9.18 pounds and Mike Cox was fourth with 7.34 pounds and had big fish with a 4.27 pound spot.

It was a very frustrating day for me. I had been seeking pictures on Facebook of a lot of big spotted bass being caught at Lanier and some of the guides were saying they were shallow and on a predictable pattern and easy to catch.

Kwong Yu fished with me and we started on a rocky island, the kind of place I had been reading about and also a place where I had caught some three pounds spots this time of year. Everything seemed perfect, with a little wind blowing in on the rocks, and we tried a variety of baits but had only one short strike there.

We tried a couple of more places that I like to fish and Kwong got a good keeper on a jig and pig. I missed one on a spinnerbait. But after three hours we had only one bass in the boat.

Kwong suggested a place down the Lake and we went there, but one arm of the creek was unfishable due to the wind blowing into it. The other arm was more protected and I managed to catch a keeper spot on a Carolina rigged lizard. And we both caught some spots shorter than the 14 inch limit.

With about an hour left to fish we went to some docks near the weigh-in site. Kwong fishes them a lot but I don’t usually fish there. I caught a 2.5 pound spot on a jig head worm from one of them, and we caught some more throwbacks, but that was it for the day.

Two keepers weighing a little over four pounds in eight hours was not what I expected at Lanier. I had heard the best bait was a Rapala Wake Bait, a new version of an old bait, but I didn’t have any. I went by Berry’s Monday and they have ordered some. I just have to have the hot bait, even if the hot bait will be something else next week!

Fishing this spring has been unusual, just like it is every spring. It seems like the weather swapped for April and March, with warmer weather in March than so far in April. That is one thing that keeps fishing so interesting and frustrating, the only thing that is consistent about fishing is it is inconsistent!

Closer to home the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our first tournament of the year at Sinclair last Saturday. The water was very muddy in the Little and
Oconee Rivers. Even the creeks at the dam, usually clear, had very stained water. I do not like cold muddy water, especially like it was Saturday when my chartreuse crankbait disappeared about two inches deep.

In the tournament, seventeen fishermen caught 45 bass weighing 80 pounds. Niles Murray showed us all how it can be done in cold muddy water by winning with five that weighed 14.50 pounds. Edward Folker placed second with two weighing 8.54 pounds and had big fish with a 5.79-pound bass. Doug Acree came in third with five at 8.10 and Ryan Edge was fourth with three at 6.65 pounds.

Niles is in the groove fishermen love. It happens sometimes that everything just seems right. Maybe he is getting that “sixth sense” that some have. He has won three of four club tournaments in the past month and also placed third in the Berry’s tournament in January against some of the best fishermen in the area.

Me, not so much. At Sinclair I started on a mud flat with a small hard clay patch I found years ago. It has produced some good fish for me over the years, especially in January. But my hopes fell when my crankbait did not show up in the muddy water.

I fished that area for about 90 minutes without a bite then decided to run to the dam to look for clearer water rather than fish the next place I had planned in Beaverdam Creek. Rocky Creek usually has the clearest water on the lake, and its rocks are good this time of year, but the water was very stained, even there. My chartreuse crankbait disappeared about four or five inches deep, better but not great.

I fished that area for over four hours and had two bites, one on a jig and one on a shaky head worm but missed both. They could have been bream or crappie, or a big bass, but I will never know. I made the decision to go back to Beaverdam Creek for the rest of the tournament.

I again fished the clay spot but got no bites, and a deep brush pile where I won a Sportsman Club tournament last January, but nothing. At 2:00 I went to where I did not go that morning. At 2:20 I hooked and landed a largemouth a little over three pounds, then a few minutes later landed a keeper on a spinnerbait. The hooks fell out of both in the net, so I knew the fish were just nipping the bait. I was lucky to land them. That was enough to make me decide to fish that point the rest of the day.

At 3:00 I hooked a fish on a crankbait. It rolled on top and I could see I had barely hooked it on a back hook and was another three pound plus fish. I carefully worked it toward the boat and put the net in the water. As may line got close to the net I could not see the bass in the muddy water. I did see it as it swam by the net and for a second though it was in it.

No such luck, the front hooks of the plug hung in the net as the fish swam under it and the bass pulled off. I ended up with about 5.5 pounds. That fish would have put me in second place, but the big ones always seem to get away. I needed Niles’ luck and skill!

Sunday, January 6, 14 members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our January tournament at Lanier. After eight hours of casting we brought n 34 keeper spotted bass weighing about 65 pounds. There were no largemouth caught. Two fishermen had five fish limits and two did not catch a keeper.

Niles Murray won with a very good catch of five weighing 12.77 pounds and Jack Ridgeway had five at 10.0 pounds for second. Chuck Croft placed third with four weighing 9.16 pounds and Travis Weatherly came in fourth with five weighing 8.16 pounds. Dan Phillips had big fish with a 4.39-pound spot.

I had just interview three Lanier guides for a January Georgia Outdoor News article on how to catch fish out of ditches at Lanier, and Chuck and Travis said they caught their fish that way. Seems like I could have used what they told me, but after two hours without a bite trying it, I did my usual, going to places I have caught bass in the past.

I thought I was on something when I caught a 2.5-pound spot from some brush 30 feet deep on a jig and pig. So, I spent the next two hours trying that pattern without another bite. That made me run to the back of a creek and fish shallow, another pattern that has worked in the past, but it produced only one keeper and one throwback the rest of the day. I placed sixth with 4.93 pounds.

When I got home, I saw on Facebook that a friend had landed 18 pounds in another tournament that day on Lanier and did not win. He said he caught more than 20 keepers in the fist ditch he fished that morning. It took over 19 pounds to win and several fishermen had over 15 pounds. Most caught their fish from ditches.

Fish bite for somebody somewhere on a lake on any day. It is fun to get out there, try to figure them out and catch them. It can be frustrating but
I love it.

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Congratulations to Niles Murray and Sam Smith. They placed third in the Berry’s tournament at Sinclair last Saturday. There were about 120 boats in that tournament, so it was very competitive!

I can always come up with lots of excuses when I don’t catch bass. But fishing tournaments and looking at results from other tournaments on the same lake the same day tell me they are just excuses.

The fish just didn’t bite, it was a bad day. The water was too muddy, or it was too clear. The weather was too sunny, or it was too cloudy. I fished the wrong depth, lure, place or speed. There was no current or there was too much current.

The water level was too low, or it was too high. The water was rising, or it was dropping. I didn’t spend enough time on the lake. I just don’t fish this lake enough. I’m getting old and can’t fish hard like I used to.

All are good excuses, but they don’t seem to apply to everybody else that fished the same day, for some reason. When I do everything I can think of for eight hours and catch only two bass in eight hours, like I did last Sunday, its hard to admit I am just not that good a fisherman.

Good fishermen don’t make excuses, they just figure out how to catch bass. Even though everyone, even the top pros, have bad days and don’t do well, they are much more consistent than I am, and that is true of most club fishermen. There are different levels of expertise.

I get to fish with some of the top pros in the US doing “research” for magazine articles. The BASS Elite Series and FLW Tour have some of the best bass fishermen in the world on them. Of those pros, I have spent the day in the boat with 11 guys on the Elite Series and seven of the Tour guys.

I have written about 275 Map of the Month articles in Georgia Outdoor News magazine in the past 23 years and about 100 in Alabama Outdoor News over the past eight years since it started. Not only do I go out with the top pros, I do those articles with other good fishermen, including local tournament fishermen, college and high school fishermen and men and women that guide on the lake.

Looks like I would learn how to catch fish. And I do learn and pick up tips and skills from them. But all of them have one thing in common, they go out and figure out what the fish are doing that day and are adaptable. They do not keep doing the same thing and getting the same bad results as I tend to do.

I think the really good fishermen have some “sixth sense“ for finding and catching bass. I get little glimmers of it some days, just knowing if I do certain things they will work even before I go fishing. But it is not consistent.

Some say that sixth sense comes from time on the water and experience. Maybe for some, but it has not worked that way for me.

Way back in 1983 I almost qualified for the BASS Classic through the federation route, missing going by one two-pound bass in a three day Regional tournament. I thought I was pretty good, so I signed up for the Redman Trail, the BFL now, the next year. After fishing all six in 1984 without getting a check I thought it was first year jitters.

I fished all six the next year and again did not get a check. That made me decide I am a pretty good club fisherman but not above that level. Some trips make me wonder about being good even at that level, as the results below show.