Yesterday (Saturday, December 6, 2014) the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished their last tournament of the year at Jackson. Today the Spalding County Sportsman Club and the Flint River Bass Club are fishing a two club tournament at Jackson to end the year in both those clubs. The point standing winners for the year in all three clubs will be decided at this tournament.

I love bass club fishing. In 1974 I joined the Sportsman Club and four years later joined the Flint River club. I have missed very few club tournaments in the 40 years since I first joined a club. It is strange, I never was competitive in anything. I never played sports, don’t like games much and just don’t compete.

But after fishing my first bass tournament in April 1974 I was hooked. There is something that attracts me to competing in a sport that is supposed to be reflective and calming. I like that I am not really competing with others, I am competing with the fish. It really does not matter how others do, it depends on how I do.

All three clubs will start new years with January, 2015 tournaments That would be a good time to join a club and see how you like it. Dues range from $60 a year which affiliates you with BASS to $75 to be in the FLW federation. If you join the BASS federation you also have to pay dues to BASS. The FLW dues include annual membership in it.

Consider joining a bass club next year.

Early spring fishing can be crazy

If it wasn’t for bad luck with the weather, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. Two weeks ago it was uncomfortably cold the whole day during the Flint River Bass club tournament. By the middle of the next week it had warmed up and fishing would have been great – if I had not been stuck at work.

By the time I got a chance to go fishing last Sunday, it was cold, cloudy and foggy. After a nice day Saturday I was really looking forward to a trip to Oconee for a Georgia Outdoor News article, but the weather did not cooperate. Going fishing was more fun than sitting at home, but much less comfortable!

On Saturday, I fished with Bobby Ferris from Jackson and he really made me feel bad talking about the 17 bass he caught the day before at Jackson Lake. The fish were on the shallow water pattern we would fish at Oconee, moving up into the warming water in the backs of coves.

Without the sun on Sunday there was no warming water and the bass stayed hidden. Bobby caught one nice keeper the first place we stopped that morning, but that was it. We fished until 3:30 without hooking another bass.

The places we fished will be good in March, especially after a few warm days like we had last week. I wish I could have gone back to them on Wednesday or Thursday, but I was back at work. I bet the bass would have almost jumped in the boat those two days!

Spalding County Sportsman Club members are fishing today at Jackson for our February tournament. If my luck holds, it will be cold and windy, and probably raining. Maybe the fish will bite, though. Catching fish always makes the bad weather much more tolerable!

And the tournament on Sunday:

I found out last week how much fishing with a good bass fisherman can help. Bobby Ferris had taken me to Oconee Sunday before last to show me some patterns for a March Georgia Outdoor News article. I met him through my bass club partner, Carson Browning. Bobby and Carson’s mother work together and Carson had been telling me what a good fisherman Bobby was.

Bobby took Carson to Jackson Saturday morning to practice for our tournament the following day. Either they hit it just right on the warm, cloudy morning, or Bobby’s knowledge put them on fish. When I picked Carson up Sunday morning he was so excited he could not wait to get to the lake.

Fishing for just a few hours Saturday morning they had caught a lot of big bass, including a 7 pounder and several more over 4 pounds. Carson said their best five, a tournament limit, would have weighed 25 pounds. That is the kind of bass you see caught on the TV shows!

Carson and I headed to the first spot Bobby had shown him, and we were a little disappointed to see the water temperature had dropped 10 degrees overnight. The cold night and wind had cooled the surface temperature from 60 on Saturday morning to 50 Sunday morning. That is not good for bass fishing this time of year!

I did manage to catch two keepers in that cove but they were small one-pound fish. We headed to the next spot, and I soon caught a 1 3/4 pound fish, my best of the day. Since it was still early morning, I was sure I would get a five fish limit before weigh-in at 4:00! I felt a little sorry for Carson since he had not caught a fish, but not too much!

Soon after I caught my third bass Carson set the hook and started saying he had a huge fish on. He fought it to the boat and I put the net in the water, but could not see the fish because the water was so muddy. When it came close enough, I was able to net it and it was big – 9 or 10 pounds!

I was picking at Carson, holding his huge fish over the water in the net, when it gave a mighty flip and jumped back out of the net! Carson’s plug had tangled the net and the hooks were keeping it closed, so the fish was not down in it like it was supposed to be. When the fish flipped out of the net back into the water, the plug stayed tangled in the net. Carson lost his huge fish.

We both would have been real sick, and I would have never been playing with the net like that, but Carson’s big fish was a bowfin. It was the first mudfish I have ever seen at Jackson, and it was a big one! I really did not want it in the boat, anyway!

I guess that changed Carson’s luck. He caught five bass before I landed another keeper! He ended up winning the tournament with five weighing 5-1, smaller fish than the day before but enough to win. My four weighed 4-9 for second. Kwong Yu had two at 3-8 for third and Billy Roberts’ two at 2-11 placed 4th.

Sixteen members of the club fished for 8 hours for a total of 23 keeper bass, so Carson’s guide really helped us, even thought the big bass never showed up on Sunday. I hope he can show Carson where to fish in all our tournaments this year!

All three bass clubs in Griffin are wrapping up their tournament years in the next couple of weeks. Both the Flint River Bass Club and the Spalding County Sportsman Club have one tournament in December, a two club tournament at Jackson Decemher 7th, and the Potato Creek Bass Masters have their last one at Jackson on December 14th.

Potato Creek fished at West Point two weeks ago. They had nine fishermen competing and they caught 29 keepers weighing 48 pounds. Pete Peterson won with five bass weighing 13.47 pounds and had big bass with a 5.65 pounder. James Beasley was second with five at 9.67, Bobby Ferris placed third with five at 7.49 and Raymond English was fourth with four bass weighing 4.54 pounds.

Last Sunday ten members and guests of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished at Lanier. We landed 24 bass weighing about 51 pounds. There were two five-fish limits and two people didn’t land a 14 inch keeper. All of the fish caught were spotted bass.

I won with five weighing 10.72 pounds, Kwong Yu was second with five at 9.57, Niles Murray came in third with three weighing 7.42 and had big fish with a 3.83 pounder and Russell Prevatt was fourth with three at 6.51. We had five spots weighing over three pounds each.

For some reason Lanier usually kicks me down. I have a hard time catching keepers. Lanier is so different from the other lakes we fish, with clear water and deep water patterns, they I just can’t figure it out. But I did ok at two November tournaments by fishing fairly shallow. Niles Murray fished with me two weeks ago in the Flint River tournament and caught the first two bass in about eight feet of water, showing me they could be caught shallow.

Sunday was rainy, cloudy, rainy, windy, rainy, cold, rainy and we had thunder and lightning. Did I mention it rained? I found out at noon my water proof boots weren’t, and by 1:00 I was squishing in them. That made the last two hours of the tournament uncomfortable. I actually came in thirty minutes before the tournament ended, a first for me. I usually cast up to the last second!

I started on a rocky point where Niles and I had started and where I had caught two throwbackw two weeks ago. On the corner of a dock that came within 20 feet of the point I hooked and landed a solid 15 inch keeper on a spinner bait at 7:20. At least I wouldn’t zero this Lanier tournament.

After that I went to a nearby hump where Niles and I had caught four keepers but never got a bite, even though I tried four different baits on four passes around it. On the next point I caught a barely 14 inch long keeper on a jig head worm at 9:40 and felt even better.

Then I went back to the first point I fished and landed my biggest bass, a 3.08 pound spot, on the jig head worm at 11:30. I had got hung up on the rocks right on the bank and got my bait free by going to the bank in the boat. Then I caught the big one by pitching the worm to the end of the dock right where the first bass had hit. The bait never hit the bottom but started swimming out. I thought I was too close to it in the clear water, but I guess not.

Jigging a spoon is usually good this time of year so I went to another hump with brush on it that Ryan Coleman had shown to me a few years ago. There were fish on it, I could see them on my depth finder and caught two ten inch spots, not good since fish in a school are usually about the same size. I tried the bridge pilings on Browns Bridge, usually another good pattern, but never got a bite.

Thunder started rumbling and I could see flashes from lightning, something I really am scared of on the lake. I ran back to the point near the first hump I had fished and was able to stay near the bank and cast out on it, thinking the trees within a few feet of me would attract the lightening from my lightening rod graphite rod in my hands. The very first cast I caught a three pound spot so I fished the next two points the same way, very slowly, .

At 2:15 I went back to the first point, pitched to the end of the dock caught a solid keeper. That gave me my limit and I my cold feet really started bothering me. I worked around the point then back to the dock and caught another keeper in the exact same spot, culling the second fish I had caught.

I could not believe I caught four of my six keepers from a spot about a foot wide. On one cast I felt something like a small limb hung up on the bottom in that spot in about six feet of water. I guess that is what attracted the bass.

After culling my smallest bass it was 3:00 and although I had 30 minutes left to fish I decided to go in and get some dry shoes. Everyone else had already come in except Raymond and Niles so most of us were ready to get dry!

Last Sunday at Lake Sinclair, 13 members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our second tournament of the year. The cold front that came through, producing bright blue skies, high pressure and wind, did the usual to the bass – made them not bite at all!

There are a lot of theories about why bass do not feed after a cold front. Some say the high pressure affects them and makes them feel bad. High pressure can give people headaches, so it might affect bass, too. I often wonder about that, though, because a change of a few inches in depth of water will change the pressure on a bass much more than any cold front possibly could.

The bright sunlight is another factor that may make the bass less likely to feed. Bass are ambush predators and darkness and shadows help them get close enough to their food to catch it. When the sun is bright, they tend to feed less. They definitely stay closer to cover after a cold front produces bright sunlight.

Wind associated with a cold front often makes it very difficult to fish. That affects the fisherman much more than the fish, but it can contribute to the problem of catching bass. It is hard to cast on target, boat control is difficult at best, and the cold wind makes exposed skin miserably uncomfortable.

Some bass can be caught. The 13 of us managed to bring in a total of four bass after eight hours of trying. Greg Calhoun caught two of them and won it all with a total weight of 1-12! His partner Bruce Goddard had big fish and second place with one bass weighing 1-1. And my partner George Hamby had the other bass, a 15 ounce keeper, for third place. The other 10 of us watched the weigh-in with our hands in our pockets.

George and I tried all the usual patterns at Sinclair to catch a winter bass. We fished grass beds with spinnerbaits, riprap with crankbaits, brush piles, docks, deep points and other structure, all without a strike. During the day we talked about how much luck can be involved in finding bass to catch in a tournament.

A press release I received the week before highlighted this to me. I told George how a fisherman finishing in the top five at a big BASS tournament said he accidentally found the structure holding the bass. He was riding in his boat and saw something on his depthfinder. He checked it out and caught enough bass to win several thousand dollars.

At about 2:30 PM, 90 minutes before the end of the tournament, I pointed out a sudden drop that showed up on the depthfinder as George and I idled away from a place we had fished. The bottom dropped from 26 to 35 feet deep and there was brush on the edge of the drop. When I turned and went back across the drop, we saw what looked like fish as well as more brush.

I stopped the boat and started jigging a Little George, probing the bottom and the brush. George started fishing a worm on a Carolina rig and suddenly set the hook. He landed his keeper bass! A few minutes later, after switching to a Carolina rigged lizard, a fish almost jerked the rod out of my hand when I was not paying careful attention. It was the only bite I got all day, and I missed it!

We stayed on that drop off for over an hour, and George caught a small crappie that hit is worm. We found the drop had rocks as well as brush on it. It is a place I will fish in the future for bass as well as crappie. I am sure it will hold both kinds of fish year round, and I look forward to catching more there.

Although the spot did not pay off for me in the tournament, it did produce a keeper for George. If we had been lucky enough to find it earlier we might have caught more than the one bass. As is was, we were lucky to find the spot, George was lucky to catch a bass there, and I was unlucky, or unskillful, and did not catch anything when I got the chance.

Someday I wish I could get skillful and not have to depend on luck to catch bass!

I am very glad I got to fish Lake Burton and Lake Lanier before this cold weather hit. Both are beautiful lakes and the changing leaves made them even prettier. And both have quality spotted and largemouth bass. I managed to catch some of both in both lakes.

On Tuesday I met Joe Thompson at Burton to get information for a Georgia Outdoor News December Map of the Month article. Joe is a recent graduate of Young Harris College where he was on the bass fishing team and has lived in the Lake Burton area all his life.

I met him at noon since I didn’t want to face a cold morning on the water or the terrible morning traffic going up I-285 and I-85. He already had several nice spotted bass in the live well. We fished until the sun went behind the mountains shortly after 5:00 and I landed five bass, one largemouth and four spots, while he landed about seven spots.

While showing me around the lake Joe pointed out Alabama football coach Nick Saban’s huge lake house, and told me country singer Alan Jackson also had a house on the lake. The houses around the lake are big and pretty, with many looking like castles sitting on the steep hills rising from the water. And the docks are big enough to be lake houses on many other lakes.

We caught fish mostly on jig head worms but Joe says he usually catches bigger bass on a Super Spin, an underspin grub type bait, and a jig and pig. He had a couple of spots just over three pounds and I had a spot and a largemouth about three pounds each, so I thought the ones we caught on jig head worms were pretty big.

Last Sunday 13 members and guests fished the Flint River Bass Club November tournament at Lanier. After fishing nine hours we brought in 24 keepers over the 14 inch minimum length, and they weighed about 49 pounds. All but three were spotted bass and there was one limit. Four people didn’t have a keeper.

John Smith won it big with five weighing 13.13 pounds. My four weighing 8.71 pounds was second, Brian Bennett had three at 6.32 for third and his 3.54 pound spot was big fish, and Travis Weatherly came in fourth with three at 5.20 pounds.

Niles Murray fished with me and we had a slow day. We got a couple of short bass on the first point we fished then went about an hour without a fish. On a hump Niles quickly caught two keepers and I got one. Niles caught his on a Carolina rig and mine hit a jig head worm.

After working that spot hard and trying a couple more like it in the area, I told Niles I wanted to run up the river. There were three points I wanted to try about five miles from where we were fishing. Early that morning only three boats had come down the river so I figured there was a tournament taking off from up there, but it must be a small one.

Just my luck, we got to the first point and a boat was sitting on it. My best point in that area also had someone fishing it, as did the third place I wanted to fish. We tried a couple of places but got no bites, so we headed back down the river.

Back on the hump where we had caught three that morning I quickly caught a nice spot. We fished all around it and another place nearby but got no more bites, so we ran back into the creek where we had to weigh in. With about 90 minutes left to fish we hit two points and got only a small throwback.

With about 30 minutes left I had pretty much given up, deciding the two I had were all I would get. Niles suggested we go up the creek and fish a series of small points so we took off. The second one we hit I landed a largemouth close to three pounds, then on the next one got a barely 14 inch long keeper.

I was surprised to come in second with only four fish, but three of them were pretty good fish. Several guys in the club fish Lanier a lot and know it well, so I expected them to have limits. Nobody had more than three keepers except John and I.

Lanier is a very pretty lake, too, with clear water and changing leaves, but the big yachts cruising on the lake make it rough fishing and riding after about 10:00 AM. It does have a lot of big spots, but fishing pressure makes them tough to catch.

Burton is another hour away from us, but it would be a much better trip if you want pretty scenery and big spots. And Burton is stocked with trout. We saw them in the water and dimpling the surface in a couple of places we fished. I was wishing for a light spinning rod, a #6 hook and a can of kernel corn.

Give Burton a try for bass or trout. And you will probably catch a chain pickerel. Joe landed three. There are even walleye in the lake so you have a chance at a lot of different kinds of fish.

January bass fishing can be good, but it is often not consistent. Two club tournaments and a trip to Lanier proved this point during the past few weeks. Some people catch fish and some don’t this time of year, but that is true at any time of year.

Ryan Coleman and I fished Lanier last Sunday. The weather the week before had been so nice we had planned to fish all day, but the rain and cold wind made us quit after only a little over four hours on the lake. We started just before 9:00 AM and headed in when the rain got hard a little after 1:00 PM.

Ryan caught four spotted bass, two of them over the 14 inch size limit, and I had one 13 inch spot during that time. On light tackle, those bass really put up a fight. Spots seem to fight twice as hard as largemouth, and in cold water they really let you know they do not like being hooked!

Our trip was for a February Georgia Outdoor News article. Ryan grew up in Griffin and lived here until a few years ago. He now lives within two miles of Lanier and fishes it often. We fished main lake points for spotted bass since the cold air had made the largemouth we had planned on catching head for deeper water.

Ryan caught his fish on a Texas rigged 5 inch Finesse worm and mine hit a 1/4 ounce jig and pig. All the bass were near the 30 foot depth level and fought hard. They were fun to catch, and the one I landed was my first bass this year!

If you go to Lanier, try little worms and jigs in about 30 feet of water on main lake and creek points. Rocks and brush help, and the bigger fish usually stay tight to the cover. Shake your bait when you hit the brush to make them bite.

Potato Creek Bassmasters fished their first tournament of the year last Saturday, and Bruce Odom started it out right by winning with two bass weighing 2.68 pounds. He also had big fish with a 1.78 pound bass. Twenty three members fished at Jackson for 9 hours to catch 12 keeper bass.

In that tournament, Lee Hancock placed second with two keepers, Donnie Willis was third and Chris Corley finished fourth. Ten of the 23 fishermen landed a bass big enough to bring to the scales on that cold, clear, windy day.

Members of the Flint River Bass Club did not fare as well on the weather for the first tournament of the year. Held two weeks ago today, the pouring rain kept all but six members at home. Bruce Willis had a good day, catching three bass weighing about six pounds to win. Three other members caught a bass or two, and two other members did not catch a keeper, if my information is correct.

George Hamby fished with Bruce and said they caught their bass in shallow water in a 30 minute span about an hour before the tournament was over. They fished hard all day, and really worked that pattern after catching four bass fast, but did not catch any more. Fishing is really hit or miss this time of year. If you are in the right place, you hit. Otherwise you get lots of casting practice.

The Spalding County Sportsman Club is holding its first tournament of the year today, at West Point. Hope we have good luck and nice weather, but that is always a gamble this time of year. Being in a club does make you go fishing even when the weather is not perfect, and sometimes I need that little nudge in January.

All three clubs in Griffin have tournaments scheduled in February. Visit one and consider joining. You can meet lots of nice people and maybe learn something about bass fishing. Or you may teach us about it. Come on out and join us for fun, fellowship and fishing!

Get out on the water and go fishing. You might catch some bass, or you might just cast a lot. Either way, it is better than sitting at home wishing you were fishing!

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” That quote from ‘Tale of Two Cities” pretty well sums up my fishing at the Georgia Bass Nation Top Six tournament at Lake Eufaula last Friday and Saturday.

I went to Eufaula Wednesday morning, registered the Flint River Bass Club team, got a campsite, and put my boat in the water to look for something that would work in the tournament. The first place I stopped I quickly caught a two pound largemouth and a 13 inch spot on a ledge, so I felt I at least had something to rely on.

After about six more hours of riding ledges watching my depth finders looking for fish, I had found a couple more places that looked good. That night I tried to think of what to do the next day, the last day of practice, and in the tournament.

Niles Murray and Jennifer Spell, the other two team members, met me the next morning at the boat ramp and we headed out just as the sun came up. We tried some shallow lily pad fields and a couple more places and Niles caught one fish. Then we went into a small creek. Niles and I cast at about the same time to a rocky bank with overhanging bushes and we all three saw a nice bass come up and eat Niles’s Trick worm.

He landed a four pound bass and when I picked up my rod I had a nice keeper on the jig and pig I was fishing. I told them I knew where I would start the next day. They were both co-anglers, fishing with someone else in the tournament from their partners boat. I would be fishing from mine.

We then fished a brush pile and I caught a five pounder on a jig and pig. A little later Jennifer caught a good keeper off some riprap, then added a 2.5 pound fish from the edge of some lily pads in a cove. After looking at a ledge in the area that was covered with fish we could not get to bite we went in for the drawing.

I was boat 20 so there were only 19 boats ahead of me the next morning at blast off, but after running five miles to the small creek there was already a boat fishing there. So I went to the brush pile where I had caught the five pounder the day before. That fish hit at noon, with the sun high. The sun was just coming up when we stopped.

Neither my partner nor I caught a fish from the brush, so we went to the riprap. I quickly caught two solid 15 inch keepers on a Bitsy Bug jig and pig. Then we fished the lily pads and a 3.5 pound bass hit my topwater frog. I felt pretty good with three keepers at 9:00.

After fishing the pads we went to the ledge where we had seen the fish and I caught a 14 inch keeper. At 10:00 I went back to the brush pile and within a few minutes I landed two bass just under three pounds each on a Rattleback jig with a Zoom Fat Albert trailer. That culled my smallest fish so I told my partner he could have control of the boat the rest of the day since I had a pretty good catch.
He wanted to run up a creek and fish a frog in the lily pads, so we did that the rest of the day. I missed two good bass on the frog and he caught three, and missed about ten hits. It is often hard to hook a bass on a frog in lily pads.

Just as time ran out my trolling motor batteries went dead. It was not a problem since we had to go in, anyway, and we had been churning through lily pads for four hours, rough on any motor. I had fished at Lake Martin for ten hours on Saturday and seven more on Sunday a couple of weeks earlier with no battery problems, so I was not worried.

At weigh-in I had just over 12 pounds and felt good about my catch when I headed to the campground, hooked up the battery chargers, cooked and ate dinner and went to bed.

I was asleep by 8:00 since I had to get up at 4:00. A little after 9:00 my microwave beeped when the power went out and woke me a little. The wind had gotten bad and I was so groggy from sleep my only thought was that I hoped the power would come back on so I could have coffee in the morning.

Just after 3:00 the microwave woke me again when the power came back on. I had enough sleep that I woke well enough to think about my battery chargers. They don’t work very well with no power. I got up and checked and they were back on, too.

When I got up an hour later my batteries were still charging so I left them on until the last minute when I had to leave to pick up my partner for the day. When I met him he said he had checked and I was in fifth place out of 98 people.

We ran to the brush pile as soon as we started and the wind was so high it was hard to fish. Nothing hit but I was not worried, the sun was not bright yet. We tried to fish the riprap and lily pads but the high wind kept the fish from biting. At 10:00 I went back to the brush pile and found out my batteries were already so drained I could not control the boat in the wind.

For the next five hours we had to find a bluff bank where the wind was not so bad and drifted and fished. I never caught a fish and dropped to 24th place!

I have two new batteries in my boat for the Flint River tournament at Lanier today!

As usual, the three bass clubs in Griffin had a great trip to Martin for our annual tournament last weekend. The weather was great, except for a bad thunderstorm that hit Sunday morning a little over an hour before daylight and delayed our blast off for 30 minutes.

Some members of the clubs went to Martin a week early and spent five or six days trying to come up with a good pattern for the two day tournament. Many of us camp at Wind Creek State Park, others stayed in cabins there, and some got motel rooms in Alexander City. I love camping at Wind Creek, it is a beautiful place and the weather is usually great.

I did my usual, leaving Wednesday afternoon and getting to Wind Creek in time to put my boat in at the ramp, go around to my campsite and leave it then walk back to the ramp for my van. It was so nice I didn’t even mind the walk. Also, I was not worn out from fishing all day.

Thursday morning I got up before daylight and went looking for places to catch fish. I landed four nice keepers on a crankbait before it even got light enough to see. As the sky got gray I picked up a topwater plug and caught nine keepers and several throwbacks before 9:00.

After riding around some looking at different spots I went in and took a nap in my van. Then I went back out and caught several more bass after lunch. Two of them hit a top water plug at 2:00 in the bright sun, and they were the two biggest fish I caught all day. I was sure I had found something good.
After eating dinner at the campsite I got in bed early. Since I thought I had figured out what I needed for the tournament I slept in Friday morning. But when I went out at 7:30 and tried topwater in some new places I didn’t have much luck. I did catch a nice three pound largemouth on a worm in a brush pile, another good keeper from under a dock and two or three drop shoting deep points. So I had a plan “A,” “B,” and “C.”

Good plans often are great until the fishing starts. Saturday morning I had a limit of fish within 30 minutes, but they were all small. By 10:00 I lost count of the keepers I had caught when I went over 18, but only one was close to two pounds. So I took off up the river.

That worked. I caught a three pound bass and others that culled every keeper I had in my live well from that morning except one.

Sunday was completely different. At 10:00 I had caught a lot of short fish but only two little keepers. So I went out on a point to drop shot, and fish came up schooling. I caught two drop shoting and two on top so I did get my limit. Then I went to the brush pile where I had caught the three pounder Thursday and quickly caught two decent spots from it.

In the tournament 23 fishermen brought in 166 keepers weighing about 223 pounds in 17 hours of fishing. There were no fishermen with no bass and we had 33 five-fish limits. On Saturday only two fishermen didn’t weigh in limits, but there were only 12 with limits on Sunday.

In this tournament we fish it like two one day tournaments. On Saturday Bobby Ferris won with 9.84 pounds, I was second with 9.82 pounds, James Beasley had 9.52 pounds for third and Raymond English was fourth with 9.14 pounds. Robert Proctor had big fish with a 3.67 pound largemouth. My 3.05 pounder was second biggest.

Sunday was much tougher. Lee Hancock won with five at 8.26 and had a 2.95 pounder for big fish, Kwong Yu was second with five at 8.22, Billy Roberts placed third with five at 7.51 and Raymond English was fourth again with five at 7.41.

The thunderstorm that delayed us broke my heart. A guide I know fished a pot tournament Saturday and he and his brother had seven fish that weighed 21 pounds. He told me they caught four spotted bass over three pounds each the first 30 minutes they fished, but it got tough after that.

The place he told me they caught them was a point the had shown me about five years ago, and I won that year with fish I caught there before the sun got over the trees. The sun hitting the water there is like a light switch being turned off – they just stop biting.

I was going to make the 20 plus mile run to that point Sunday morning, but the thunderstorm delay meant I could not get to it before the sun got up. As I said, the best laid plans last until the tournament starts!

I can’t wait to get back to Lake Martin!