I hate it when a bad fishing day gets worse, like it did for me last Sunday when a bad tournament day gets worse near the end.. In the Spalding County Sportsman Club tournament at West Point 14 members and guests fished for eight hours to land 41 keepers weighing about 75 pounds. There were three five-fish limits and one person didn’t have a keeper. There were 14 largemouth and the rest were spotted bass.

Jay Gerson won with five weighing 8.78 pounds, Sam Smith was second with two at 8.52 pounds and his 5.64 pound largemouth was big fish, third was Raymond English with five weighing 7.54 pounds and Kwong Yu placed fourth with three at 7.32 pounds.

Jordan McDonald fished with me and I caught a keeper spot on one of my first few casts with a DT 6 crankbait, then Jordan caught three keepers on a Shadrap in the first hour. We thought it was going to be a good day but we fished a lot of places and patterns for the next six hours and I got one keeper spot on a Carolina rigged Baby Brush Hog.

With an hour left to fish I pitched a jig and pig to a shallow brush top and felt a thump. When I set the hook there was a big flash in the water as the bass headed to deeper water. I yelled for the net and Jordan grabbed it. Then the bass jumped and threw my jig ten feet into the air.

That broke me down. I hate losing fish, much less a big one like that. Jordan said he thought it was bigger than Sam’s fish and I think it was close. So a tough day got much tougher and disappointing at that point.

We fished for the rest of the time left and I got a keeper largemouth, again on the DT 6, and Jordan caught three more keeper spots on his Shadrap. He culled down to five and had 6.74 pounds for fifth place. My three at 5.57 pounds put me in eighth place.

The water was about 50 degrees and heavily stained. Many people caught fish in shallow water. The cold weather last week will probably slow things down, and the lake rose three feet and got even more stained from the rain last week.

Everywhere we went there were a lot of people trolling for crappie. We counted 12 boats near the second shoal marker in Whitewater Creek. On the depthfinder there were schools of crappie everywhere out over the deeper water in the cannels, and a lot of baitfish there, too.

If you want to fill up your freezer, head to West Point with some Hal Flies and troll them along the channel edges. Most of the crappie were down about ten feet deep. If you have a good depthfinder you can see the fish and know how deep to run your baits. If not troll different depths until the fish show you how deep they are feeding.

Last Friday I went to Oconee to get information for my March Georgia Outdoor News article. Ethan Thomas, a student and fishing team member at Georgia College in Milledgeville, took me to show me his patterns and baits and ten spots to catch March bass on Oconee.

The Georgia College fishing team is ranked first in the nation right now by the Cabela’s School of the Year Rankings. Ethan lives on Oconee and fishes it a lot. He showed me some good places to fish on a cold day but we had a tough time catching much until late afternoon when the sun started warming the water.

At about 3:00 PM Ethan caught a keeper on one side of a dock and I got a four pounder on the other side. In the next hour or so Ethan caught five or six keepers while I tried to get another bite. The sun warming the water back in the coves definitely helped make the fish bite better late in the day.

There were a lot of fishermen out trying to catch crappie. They were trolling and drift fishing out on the creek channels and around standing timber. This is a great time to fill up your freezer with good eating crappie on most of our area lakes like Oconee, Sinclair, Jackson and West Point.

– Saturday morning I was excited to head to West Point Tournament for the Potato Creek Bassmasters tournament. I had a good feeling about catching fish based on my luck this year. Unfortunately, I proved it has been luck, that I am not a good fisherman. A good fisherman is consistent, a luck fisherman goes from catching to not catching like I did.

In the tournament JJ Crompton had 8.16 for first, Jack “Zero” Ridgeway had 7.33 for second and Raymond English placed third with 7.20 and had a nice 6.15 pound largemouth for big fish. I think I was the only one of the 14 fisherman without a keeper!

The day was the kind of day I most hate this time of year. A strong cold front came through, giving us bluebird skies and strong winds. I may have let the weather mess up my mind but I tried to concentrate on catching fish, not how tough it was.

After fishing shallow for an hour I went to a rocky bluff bank where I can usually catch at least a keeper spot this time of year, but never got a bite. For the next three hours I fished shallow and deep without a bite.

In a creek mouth with standing timber in 35 feet of water I could see scattered fish in it on my depthfinder. A few years ago I landed a five pound largemouth there in January and caught a keeper spot the next day in a tournament.

I jigged a spoon in the timber and got one bite. The fish fought good but I was disappointed when it came to the top and I saw a five pound striper. I invited I home for dinner and spent the next two hours jigging there, thinking that stripers and black bass like I was after ate the same thing so there should be something I could weigh in. But I never got another bite.

I finished out the day hitting several places that should be good this time of year but never got a bite. I heard the fish were caught shallow and there were several nice three pound plus largemouth and spots brought in, including Raymond’s big one. Most of the fisherman said they got only one to three bites all day. I fished several good shallow areas but no luck.

Some days are just like that.

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Last Sunday 12 members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our February tournament at Lake Lanier. After eight cold hours of casting we brought in 20 keeper bass longer than 14 inches that weighed 46 pounds. There was one five-fish limit and four members didn’t have a keeper.

Chuck Croft won with a nice limit of spots weighing 14.09 pounds and had a spot that weighed 4.46 pounds, a big one! My four weighing 10.95 was second and my 5.34 pound largemouth was big fish. Third was Don Gober with three weighing 6.39 pounds and Travis Weatherly, Chuck’s partner, came in fourth with two weighing 4.46 pounds.

I had heard a lot of big spots were being caught on a Fishhead Spin in the ditches at Lanier. But I have never been able to catch a fish on one even though I have been in the boat with guys catching them on it. So I have no confidence in it.

I started at daylight fishing that bait and others in ditches and on points. After almost three hours with no bites I went into Mud Creek to a deep brush pile I had been shown for a magazine article. It looked like fish were on it 35 feet deep on my depthfinder so I started jigging a spoon, and caught a 2.5 pound spot. That encouraged me!

Three hours and several brush piles later I had not had another bite. I decided to do something different the last two hours by going back in a creek and fishing the way I like to fish.

I was riding one last point looking for brush pile when Chuck pulled up to talk to me. He seemed surprised I had only one fish – he said they were hitting in the backs of the pockets on the Fishhead Spin. Of course I thought he meant in shallow water in the backs of the ditches but found out later he was catching them 30 feet deep!

I started to try that but went back in Flat Creek instead, going to my first idea. I smiled when I stopped on a rocky point and saw the water was a little stained and 52 degrees, several degrees warmer than the lake.

I quickly caught a keeper spot on a DT 6 crankbait, then missed a bite on a jig and pig in a shallow tree top. The next small pocket had a log in the back of it about two feet deep. I could see the whole thing, the water was not that stained. As soon as my jig and pig fell by the end of it the five pounder hit. It was great to catch a largemouth at Lake Lanier

The next small tree top about two feet deep produced another keeper spot, giving me my four. I am very glad I guessed right and went to shallow water and used baits I have confidence in!

What a difference a week makes! After my best catch ever at Sinclair two weeks ago I could not wait to go to the Spalding County Sportsman Club tournament there last Sunday. And in it, after eight hours of casting, I had exactly one bite and caught one Lake Sinclair bass!

In our tournament ten members and two youth fished from 8:00 AM till 4:00 PM on a day that started very cold but warmed up a lot. We landed 11 keepers weighing about 25 pounds. There were no limits and six fishermen didn’t land a keeper.

Sam Smith won with four bass weighing 9.87 pounds and Niles Murray came in second with two at 5.54 pounds and his 4.34 pound largemouth won big fish, beating Sam’s 4.33 pounder by one one-hundredth of a pound! Robert Proctor had one keeper weighing 3.21 pounds for third, Raymond English finished fourth with two t 2.71 pounds, my 2.15 pounder was fifth and Russell Prevatt round out the folks catching fish with one at 1.68 pounds for sixth.

Sam said he caught his fish on a spinnerbait fished beside dock post first thing that morning. Robert said he caught his on a jig head worm. Raymond and Niles fished together and said they caught their fish on Carolina rigs.

I had my good catch the weekend before on a Rapala DT 6 crawfish colored crankbait and I made hundreds of casts with it, but got only one bite. Garrett Macyszyn fished with me on the youth side and cast a variety of baits but I just could not get us where the fish were feeding.

At Dennis Station at daylight the water was in the low 40s, about ten degrees cooler than the week before. But down the lake I saw water as warm as 52 degrees, only a few degrees cooler. But the sun was bright after the cold front that came through here after the snow, and I think bluebird skies and high pressure always hurts the fishing. Bass just don’t like those conditions and don’t feed much.

The water was still very muddy but that had not stopped the bass from feeding. The day before we fished, on Saturday, I heard there was a 12 team tournament in the high winds. Only five of the teams caught fish but two of them had limits, and there were three bass weighing over six pounds each weighed in.

As the water starts warming the end of February Sinclair should produce some outstanding catches since there seems to be a lot of four to six pound bass there this year.

On a fun note, I finally joined the Potato Creek Bassmasters. I had been thinking about it for years but fishing three tournaments a month seemed to be too much. But now I seem to only get the energy to go fishing when I have a tournament or an article to do, so I joined to make myself go more.

There is an old saying “even a blind hog will find an acorn every now and then.” I got real lucky in my first tournament with the club at Sinclair last Saturday and felt more like a pro than a Joe. Days like that make me wonder why I can’t do it more often.

In the Potato Creek Bassmasters January tournament at Lake Sinclair, 16 fishermen brought in 25 bass weighing 58.59 pounds. There were two five-fish limits and four people didn’t land a 12 inch bass in the seven hours we fished.

I won with five weighing 17.98 pounds and had a 5.59 pound largemouth for big fish. Niles Murray came in second with a limit weighing 11.39 pounds, Raymond English had three at 7.24 for third and Buddy Laster was fourth with2 at 5.76 pounds.

I had the kind of day I usually only dream of having. We started at 9:00 and at 9:15 I landed a four pound bass on a DT 6 crankbait off a dock post. Then at 10:15 I caught the five pounder on the same crankbait off a boat ramp.

For the next four hours I fished docks and rocks and landed two more keepers off dock post and lost two.

Then at 3:30 I caught another four pound bass on a clay point, again on the same crawfish colored crankbait.

The Sportsman Club is at Sinclair today for our February tournament. I probably used up all my luck last week and won’t catch a keeper today!

After an unusually warm, wet December the weather turned normal just in time for the Flint River January tournament, making for a slow January tournament on Lake Sinclair. It was very cold and windy all day last Sunday. But the lake water was still unusually warm. And it was as muddy as I have ever seen it from the December rains. You could almost track a deer across the coves.

Back in the 1970s and 80s Sinclair got muddy every winter. But even when the lake was muddy some of the lower lake creeks like Island and Rocky stayed relatively clear. Not this year. On most of the lake a chartreuse crankbait disappeared when it was about two inches deep. It was not much better anywhere I checked.

The water temperature was in the mid 50s, almost ten degrees warmer than most years. It was 55 at Dennis Station where we launched and I saw water as warm as 58 degrees in a creek near the dam. When I saw the temperature I was just sure I could catch lot of bass, especially after hearing about the Berry’s Tournament on Saturday.

In that tournament about 140 teams competed. It took five bass weighing 24 pounds to win! That is a lot but sometimes a team just gets lucky. But this time the top four teams all had five bass weighing more than 20 pounds, and it took five at almost 14 pounds to finish in 21th place and get a check!

As I talked about last week, our club fishermen are the “Joes” when it comes to fishing and some of the teams in the Berry’s tournaments are the “Pros.” The conditions didn’t change much from Saturday to Sunday so we can’t blame that. And the fish did bite for some on Sunday.

I was meeting Grant Kelly after our weigh-in to get information for my February Georgia Outdoor News Map of the Month article. He lives on the lake and is good friends with guide Matt Henry. Grant had called Matt and asked him to try to catch a big bass for us to use for pictures. Matt showed up at 3:30 with four bass, a five pounder, a three pounder and two more about two pounds each. And he said he had just lost another five pounder that jumped and threw his bait. So bigger fish did bite for some on Sunday.

In the Flint River Tournament eight members and one youth fished for eight hours to land 14 bass weighing about 29 pounds. There was one limit and four people didn’t have a keeper.

Don Gober had the five fish limit and it weighed 9.59 pounds for first. My three at 7.87 pounds was second and I had a 4.43 pound largemouth for big fish. John Smith had three weighing 5.98 for third, Niles Murray’s two at 3.22 pounds was fourth and Jack Ridgeway had one weighing 2.40 pounds for fifth. That was it!

Tyler Gruber fished with me as a youth. All our tournaments are adult and youth tournaments. I was worried since I knew fishing would be tough and I was afraid Tyler would get discouraged, but he fished hard the whole eight hours.

We started on a steep bank with rocks, fishing crankbaits, spinnerbaits and jigs. The wind was already bad, making it cold and hard to control the boat. For over an hour we did not get a bite, then something thumped my crankbait between two docks. I never hooked it and suspect it was a small white bass or hybrid.

After working into a creek we came to some brush off a seawall. I pitched my jig right to the seawall and moved it a foot or so and hit the brush, then a fish grabbed it. When I set the hook I yelled for the net since I could see it was a good fish but it was so close to the boat there was no time for Tyler to get it.

I lifted the four pounder out of the water, it hit the side of the boat, balanced there for a second and then came into the boat – and the hook fell out of its mouth! I came that close to losing it. That is why I hate lifting one over the side.

After spending another half hour fishing up the river we ran down to the dam. One of my favorite banks had wind blowing down it so it was hard to control the boat and cast, but on one of my cast with a crankbait right beside a seawall a keeper bass grabbed it before I could even turn the reel handle. I fought it to the boat and Tyler did a good job netting it. It was barely hooked on one of the back hooks.

An hour later, just after noon, I realized my trolling motor batteries were almost dead from fighting the wind. They are supposed to hold up better than that, they are only 14 months old. So I went to a protected area on a different sea wall to fish.

Some brush just off the seawall caught my eye and a pitch to it with jig and pig brought a thump. When I set the hook a two bass flew out of the water over my head into the water on the other side of the boat. When I got it back over the boat it fell off the hook. That made two of my three I really should have lost!

Not long before we had to head in I felt a thump on my jig and pig in front of a dock and landed a two pound catfish! That was the only other bite we got.

When fishing is tough like it was Sunday all you can do is make a lot of casts and hope.

Three at Sinclair

Had a very good day for me at Sinclair today – my first tournament with Potato Creek Bassmasters. Had five weighing 17.98 pounds – my best five fish limit ever, I think, and definitely my best ever at Sinclair. All hit a dark brown crayfish DT 6 – three around docks, one on a boat ramp and one on a clay point. Biggest was 5.5 pounds, other two in pictures were around 4 each. One four pounder was first fish at 9:15 this morning, other four pounder was last fish at 3:30 this afternoon

The last tournament of the year didn’t go exactly as planned for me. I fished hard for eight hours and got exactly one bite. A fish hit my crankbait and jumped and threw it. It looked like a throwback but that was the way my day went. Congratulations to the folks that did catch fish.

At Jackson last Sunday 23 members of the Flint River Bass Club and the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our December tournament together. There were 37 keeper bass weighing about 54 pounds brought to the scales and all but 13 of them were spotted bass. There was one limit of five fish and 8 of us didn’t catch a keeper.

Chuck Croft won it all with a good catch of five fish weighing 12.34 pounds and his 4.85 pound largemouth was big fish. Brandon Stooksbury had three keepers weighing 5.12 pounds for second, third was Niles Murray with four at 4.98 pounds and Brian

Bennett had four weighing 4.40 pounds for fourth.

The water was in the upper 50s, three or four degrees colder than when I had fished with Jordan McDonald there on Tuesday. And it was much more stained. On Tuesday I could see a crankbait down about a foot, by Sunday I could see it down about four or five inches.

Now that the tournaments are over the clubs have their top six set. Those top six fishermen are the tournament committee in each club and the top fisherman is the tournament chairman for the coming year.

In the Spalding County Sportsman Club Raymond English won the point standings and had big fish for the year with a 6.61 pound largemouth caught at Clarks Hill last April. Zane Fleck was second, I came in third, Chris Davies placed fourth, Sam Smith was fifth and Billy Roberts rounded out the top six.

In the Flint River Bass Club I won the point standings, Chuck Croft came in second and had big fish for the year with a 6.02 pounder caught at Clarks Hill in August, Niles Murray placed third, Jordan McDonald was fourth, Jack Ridgeway came in fifth and Don Gober was sixth for the year.

At each tournament during the year the members catching fish earn points. In the Sportsman Club 1st place gets 25 points, 2nd 24 on down to 1 for 25th place. In the Flint River club 1st gets 100 points, 2nd 90 down to 10 for tenth place.

Some clubs use total pounds and ounces for their standings each year. The point system seems fairer to me. With points each tournament is worth the same. With weight the tournaments in the spring and fall are worth a lot more than the winter and summer tournaments when fishing is tough.

A January tournament is usually won with less than ten pounds, but in April a two day tournament may be won with 25 or more pounds. That makes one tournament worth a lot more based on pounds and ounces.

I keep a spread sheet for both clubs showing total fish caught each year as well at total weight. It is amazing how close the weights follow the points. For example, in Flint River I had 47 keepers weighing 85.23 pounds, Chuck Croft had 27 bass weighing 63.93 pounds and Niles Murray had 45 fish weighing 82.5 pounds. So Niles and Chuck would have changed places based on weigh.

In the Sportsman Club Raymond English had 52 bass weighing 88.68 pounds, Zane Fleck had 46 weighing 71.97 pounds and I had 51 weighing 94.46 pounds. The top three would have stayed the same with a pounds system but we would have changed order.

What really hurts is to zero a tournament. When that happens you get no points and no weight! It is very hard to win the points standings for the year if you have even one zero in the 12 tournaments.

All three Griffin clubs start new years in January. The Flint River Club meets the first Tuesday each month and fishes the weekend after the meeting, with tournaments on Sunday. The Potato Creek Bassmasters meets the Monday after the first Tuesday and fish their tournaments on the Saturday following the meeting. The Spalding County Sportsman Club meets on the third Tuesday each month and fish the following Sunday.

This is a good time to get in on the fun and join a bass club, or two or three of them! I fish with two clubs but some of the members fish with all three. We have a lot of fun, learn about bass fishing from each other and each tournament, and enjoy a little competition.

You don’t have to have a boat to join a club. Dues are about $75 per year and each tournament entry fee is about $30. There are also a variety of side pots in each club. There is not much money involved and you can’t really win enough to even pay for gas for your two vehicle and boat in a tournament, but it is not about the money. For those wanting to win money there are all kinds of pot, buddy and individual trails for that.

I joined the Sportsman Club in 1974 and the Flint River club in 1978 and have not missed many tournaments in either club in all those years. I do enjoy the meetings and the tournaments and plan on fishing club tournaments as long as my health will allow.

Last Sunday at Lanier 12 members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our November tournament. In 8.5 hours we landed 14 keeper bass weighing about 34 pounds. All were spots, not a single largemouth was weighed in. There were no limits and four people didn’t have a keeper.

I managed to win with four weighing 11.84 pounds and my 4.30 pound spot was big fish. Niles Murray came in second with three weighing 6.49 pounds, Raymond English placed third with two at 4.71 pounds and Billy Roberts was fourth with one at 3.26 pounds.

I was looking forward to this tournament since I had won the Flint River tournament at Lanier two weeks earlier. In that tournament I landed three keepers the first two hours on three points not far from where we launched. So in this tournament I headed to those points as soon as we blasted off.

After three hours of casting with nothing to show for it I was real frustrated. In the Flint River tournament wind was blowing in on the three points where I caught fish but in the Sportsman Club tournament the wind was not hitting them.

A little after ten I ran to Mud Creek and stopped on a rocky point where I had caught my biggest spot ever, a 4.27 pounder, in a club tournament about ten years ago. The wind was blowing in on this point, so hard I had trouble fishing it, even with a spinnerbait.

As I rounded the point I saw some brush on my depthfinder but the wind was too strong to stop on it. After I got around to the lee side of the point I put down my spinnerbait and picked up a rod with a four inch soft swim bait on a quarter ounce jig head tied on it. I had never caught a bass on a swim bait but I knew it should be good.

After a few casts on the point I felt my line tick as the bait sank in about 15 feet of water. I managed to set the hook and finally land a spot that weighed 4.03 pounds. That really cheered me up!

I made a few more casts with the swim bait then picked up a jig and pig since I was in a good position to fish the brush I had seen. As the jig came through the brush a fish hit it and I landed the 4.30 pound spot, my biggest ever! That gave me two four pound spotted bass at Lanier in one day! Enough to win the tournament, but at the time I didn’t know that.

I got those fish recorded on my GoPro camera and it is a real comedy watching me try to get the fish to the boat, pick up the net and get them in the boat since I was by myself. What you can’t see is the fact I could see the fish in the clear water the whole time I was fighting them and was scared I would lose them.

I fished that point another hour without a bite then tried a couple more similar rocky points with wind blowing in on them but didn’t catch anything. At about 1:00 I went to a point back in Mud Creek and found a brush pile on it. After throwing out my marker I cast a jig head worm to it and landed a spot that was just barely 14 inches long.

When I got on top of the brush I used a drop shot and immediately got a bite. After a long fight on the light rod and eight pound test line I landed the two pound spot. That was it for the day although I fished hard until the end at 3:30. It was weird, I caught two fish two times within ten minutes of each other but nothing else in the 8.5 hours! That’s tournament fishing.