Last Saturday, 19 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our January tournament at Sinclair.  After eight hours, we brought 71 keeper largemouth weighing about 126 pounds to the scales.  There were 10 five-fish limits and two members didn’t weigh a bass.   

I won with five weighing 13.0 pounds and had a 6.71 pound largemouth for big fish.  Kwong Yu placed second with five at 12.85 pounds anchored by a 3.91 pounder.  Third was Tom Tanner with five weighing 12.58 pounds and had a 4.09 pounder. Dan Dupree came in fourth with five weighing 12.44 pounds and second biggest fish of the day with a 5.61 pounder.   

Add in the 4.43 pounder Raymond English had and the three pounder my partner Mike Scoggins weighed in and you can see it was close and there were a lot of quality fish caught on the cold, rainy day.   

Fish were caught on a wide variety of baits.  My big one hit a crankbait, I also had a three pounder on a spinnerbait, another keeper on the crankbait, three on a shaky head and one on jig and pig. The only consistent thing for me and others seemed to be fishing shallow in the 53-degree muddy water

This is a great time to join a bass club. 

The Flint River Bass Club meets the first Tuesday of the month and fishes our tournament the following Sunday.  Potato Creek Bassmasters meets the Monday following the first Tuesday and fishes that Saturday.  Spalding County Sportsman Club meets the third Tuesday each month and fishes the following Sunday.  All three clubs have some two-day tournaments, too.

Annual dues are $25 in Flint River and $50 in the other two. Monthly tournament entry fees are $25 to $30 with a variety of pots, like daily big fish at $5, that are voluntary.

We have a lot of fun at the meetings discussing fishing and telling some true stories about it. Tournaments are fun competition, mostly for bragging rights since entry fees are low and there is not enough money involved to really get serious about it.

There are many of us in each of the three clubs that often fish alone, so there is always room for new members without a boat.  If interested in joining one of the clubs call me at 770-789-6168 or email [email protected]. 

Last Sunday ten members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our first tournament of the year at Jackson.  The weather was great for this time of year, but the muddy 52-degree water seemed to turn off the bass.

In eight hours of casting, we brought 15 12-inch keeper bass weighing about 22 pounds to the scales. Ten of them were spots.  There was one limit and five members zeroed.

Doug Acree won with five weighing 8.09 pounds and said he caught a bunch of bass, culling in the first hour of the tournament, while the rest of us struggled to catch a keeper.  Don Gober had three at 4.12 pounds for second, Niles Murray placed third with two at 4.04 pounds and his 3.21 pound largemouth was big fish. My three weighing 3.72 pounds was good for fourth and Alex Gober had two at 2.19 for fifth.

Niles fished with me since his new boat has not arrived. We tried a little bit of everything that morning. Niles hooked a nice two-pound bass on a spinnerbait that came off right at the net first thing.

I missed a fish that hit a jig head worm because of my stupidity.  I had switched reels around and forget to check the drag. When I tried to set the hook, the spool just spun around, and I did not hook the fish.  I did land a keeper spot on a crankbait off a boat ramp and another one on a spinnerbait in a blowdown.  Then about 11:00 I slowed down and caught my third keeper on a shaky head worm on a rocky point.

I made the mistake of picking at Niles a little since he didn’t have a fish in the livewell and I had three. Then he caught the three pounder on a jig on a rocky point and caught up with me with one fish.  He added his second keeper with about an hour left to fish. It hit the jig on a point.

We both missed a lot of bites.  I caught two 11-inch spots and a couple of times, when I set the hook on the shaky head, I brought in half a worm, a good sign it was a little fish.

It was a fun day overall.  I am looking forward to the rest of the club tournaments this year.

Press Release – Marietta Bassmasters high school anglers, Carter Koza and Paul Marks, recently bested a field of 95 teams to win the 2019 Bass Pro Shops FLW High School Fishing Lake Hartwell Open. The no-entry fee tournament was held November 2nd and was hosted by the Hart County Chamber of Commerce. The win qualified the duo of for the 2020 High School National Championship being held next summer on the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Qualifying for the event is a significant accomplishment, as only the top ten percent of anglers at state qualifiers make the big show.

Photo courtesy FLW “We only got to practice one day, but we fish Lanier a lot, which is a herring lake a lot like Hartwell, so we stuck with what we knew,” says Koza, who found success with his partner fishing Chattahoochee jigs in deep brush piles with 7’, heavy power, fast action St. Croix Legend Tournament rods. “We caught a lot of fish; they were mostly 13 inchers, but we were patient and managed enough bigger bites to win with 13-10. ”Meanwhile – the same day on the same lake – Carter Koza’s sister and previous high school fishing partner, Lee Rose Koza, placed second in the Yeti FLW College Fishing Tournament at Lake Hartwell Presented by Costa with her partner Maddex Walters. The finish qualified the Carson-Newman University fishing pair for the 2020 FLW College Fishing National Championship, scheduled for Feb. 26-28 on the Harris Chain of Lakes in Leesburg, Florida.

Lee Rose and Walters didn’t get to pre-fish Hartwell at all. “Maddex is from Georgia and he had been there (Hartwell) in high school, so we just had to go with what we knew from the past,” says Koza, who admits they received a bit of help from their draw. “We drew Boat #2, so we got out early and were able to get to the spots we wanted,” she says. Generally, those spots were the deep ends of main lake humps, where the duo fished Z-Man Shaky HeadZ  jigs with Z-man Giant TRD and FattyZ Elaztech plastics on St. Croix Legend Tournament medium power fast and extra-fast action rods. “We had a limit by 8:45, so we started throwing bigger worms and got some upgrades,” she says. “Green pumpkin was the key color.” The Future of Bass Fishing Both outdoor enthusiasts, Carter and Lee Rose come from a fishing family. Their father, Jamie Koza, is a former Chattahoochee River fishing guide, an avid tournament angler and tackle shop owner who passed on the joys of fishing to both kids when they were young. He also taught them a reliable set of techniques.

“Dad has always thrown a lot of crankbaits and it has always been one of our favorite ways to fish,” Carter says, “so, it’s not surprising that St. Croix’s Legend Glass and the new Mojo Bass Glass rods are the rods we prefer to use.” The Koza’s insist that the St. Croix Legend Glass casting series offers the lightest crankbait rods in the industry; a testament to the linear S-Glass blank each is built around. The new 7’2” heavy power medium action Rip-N-Chatter model in St. Croix’s Legend Glass and Mojo Bass Glass lineups is one of Lee Rose’s favorites. “I’ve yet to find a better rod for cranking chatterbaits or rattlebaits,” she says. “I’m steadily converting my team members to glass! They can’t believe how light and sensitive these rods are, while possessing that sweet, moderate action you need to keep bass buttoned up. ”Carter, currently a high school junior, fished competitively with Lee Rose last season, which was her senior year at Mt. Paran Christian School in Kennesaw, Georgia. They locked in a National invite by placing sixth at the Georgia State Finals on West Point Lake last February and went on to compete together in the High School Fishing National Championship. “I’m still new to fishing and to the industry,” says Lee Rose, now a freshman at Carson-Newman University. “I grew up watching my dad and brother fish and decided as a junior in high school to join my school’s fishing team. I fished with a different partner that first year and fished with Carter my senior year. It was a blast. Everything flowed, because we had the same kind of style. Dad was our boat captain. It was a cool family deal,” Lee Rose recalls. “I hope we can fish as a team again in the future.”Carter would like that, too. He has a great deal of respect for Carson-Newman’s coach, Hunter Sales, but says he is keeping his options open.“My sister and I will always be close,” says Carter, who talks to Lee Rose almost every day. “It’d be great to fish with her again in the future, because I know we could go far, but there’s a lot of great teams out there and I’m not sure where I’ll end up. In addition to their great coach, Carson-Newman’s team and program are fully funded by the school, which is a major benefit and makes a big difference for student competitors.”

What’s Next? Carter and his partner, Paul Marks head to Lake Chatuge in Georgia the weekend of Thanksgiving for the next stop on the Georgia Bass Nation tour. “It’s a points tournament and a qualifier for the Kentucky Lake National Bass Championship,” says Carter, who plans to stay in a camper and commute to and from school during the event. “If it stays cold, it will be a good deep brush pile bite,” he predicts. “It’ll Probably take 15 or 16 pounds of spots to win there. ”As for the 2020 High School National Championship next summer on the Mississippi River in La Crosse? “We have never been on the Mississippi,” says Carter, “so it will be a learning experience. But we’ll definitely spend some time up there and figure it out. ”As for Lee Rose’s goals, she wants her Carson-Newman team to finish this season in the top five in the Bass Pro Shops School of the Year. “We ought to easily meet that. We’ve climbed from 66th place and are currently sitting in 11th,” says Koza, who has lofty personal aspirations, too. “My ultimate goal is to be successful working in the fishing industry. In addition to fishing and going to school full time, I work as an intern for the fishing PR firm, Traditions Media, and also help manage St. Croix Rod’s social media presence. I want to work on the media side of the industry after I graduate, so I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to be working with these great companies.” Committed to the Cause There’s been a buzz behind high school and college fishing since its inception in the mid-1990s. But recent backing from the nation’s largest professional tournament trails has transformed the sport, and sponsors have taken note of the youth movement. Today, many college bass programs have travel budgets for their players, allowances for rods, reels and tackle, and some even provide the use of modern bass boats. Nearly all of these products are donated or deeply discounted by manufacturers in the fishing market.St Croix Rod is on the leading edge of providing support to high school and college bass angling. It sponsors both the Bassmaster and FLW college fishing programs.

“St. Croix representatives are on-hand at collegiate events to specifically determine the needs of college anglers and build long-term relationships that provide the foundation for future sponsorships,” says Lee Rose. “We are grateful to St. Croix and to all the other companies who have stepped up to support high school and college angling. It’s exciting to be a part of, and the opportunities are only going to expand.”

 Last weekend 30 members of the Flint River Bass Club, Potato Creek Bassmasters and Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our annual three club tournament at Lake Martin.  In 17 hours of casting, we landed 268 12-inch keeper bass weighing 379 pounds. Almost all of them were spotted bass.

    We had 26 limits on Saturday and 25 on Sunday. That is why we love to go to Lake Martin in October; we catch a lot of bass. Many folks reported catching 20 or more keepers each day.  Most are 13 to 14-inch spots weighing about a pound and a half, as the results below show, but they fight hard and are fun.

    For the two days, I barely won with ten bass weighing 19.14 pounds, Tom Tanner placed second with ten bass weighing 19.09 pounds, Lee Hancock was third with ten bass at 17.26 pounds and Doug Acree was fourth with ten bass weighing 16.64 pounds.  Buddy Laster had big fish with a 4.52 pound largemouth, one of the couple dozen of them caught.

    We paid back both days, fishing each day like a one-day tournament. On Saturday, Tom Tanner was first with five bass weighing 10.96 pounds, my five at 10.15 pounds was second, Buddy Laster placed third with five weighing 9.93 pounds and his 4.52 pound largemouth was big fish.  Lee Hancock was fourth with five bass weighing 9.01 pounds.

    On Sunday I won with five at 8.99 pounds, Doug Acree was second with five at 8.49 pounds and Wayne Teal placed third with five weighing 8.43 pounds.  Billy Roberts placed fourth with five at 8.26 pounds and had big fish with a 4.04 pound largemouth.

    I went over on Tuesday to try to find some bigger fish. In research before I left, I got information that most tournaments were being won in Kowaliga Creek. Martin has two long arms from the dam, one going up the Tallapoosa River and the other up Kowaliga Creek. Wind Creek State Park, where we launch, is far up the river from the dam, where Kowaliga Creek starts.

    Wednesday, I drove the few miles by road to a ramp on Kowaliga Creek and spent the day riding points looking for brushpiles and rocks. I marked 20 places with waypoints that looked promising.  I fished some and hooked two decent fish but lost both.

    Thursday, I made the 30-mile trip by boat, laying in GPS trail. There are many islands and short creeks near the dam where it is very easy to get lost, and if I made the run first thing each morning in the near dark, it would be tough. But with a trail to follow it would not be a problem.

    When I got to Kowaliga Creek I again fished some, concentrating on docks, and never got a bite.

    Friday, I fished around the park and in two hours caught a limit of bass that would weigh about eight pounds.  They were in their usual places in that area, around rocks, docks and brush I have fished for more than forty years.  That made me think hard about the long run to where I had not landed a fish in two days.

    I decided to gamble on the long run and took off at 7:00 AM Saturday morning. At 7:30 I made my first cast and got a hit on topwater. I quickly caught two on a Whopper Flopper hand painted lure from Jim Farmer’s Castaway Tackle Company, but they were about 1.5 pounds each, no better than what I caught on the other side of the lake.  The third one I caught hit one of Jim’s hand painted Sebile swimbaits and it was a bigger fish, so I felt better.

    After the sun got up I went back in a cove and cast the Plopper to some shade and got an explosive bite.  I fought the bass to the boat but when I bent down to pick up the net, the fish dove straight down and got me hung up in some brush.  It was stuck solid when I tried to pull it free.

    I did want to lose the expensive lure, so I got out my chain lure retriever. When it hooked the plug and pulled the brush loose, the limb, plug and fish came up and I manage to get all of it in the boat. I was very lucky.  I fished the Plopper on windy banks the rest of the day and caught about 20 more fish.

    Sunday there was no wind, so I switched to a shaky head worm and landed about 20 more bass, but they were smaller. But they were big enough for first place!  The run was worth it, even though I burned about 40 gallons of gas in my boat in the two days.

The Buyout: What it Means for Pro Bass Fishing

Frank Sargeant from The Fishign Wire Things continue to happen fast in the world of big league bass fishing, where Major League Fishing (MLF) announced yesterday that they are gobbling up Fishing League Worldwide (FLW) in yet another move that must have the lights burning late at night at B.A.S.S. headquarters in Birmingham. MLF stunned the tournament industry last year by convincing a majority of the top names in the Bassmaster Elite circuit, arguably the best-known and most financially-successful competitive anglers in freshwater fishing, to jump ship from their long-term relationship with the 50-year old B.A.S.S. and move into a new made-for-television series that so far has pretty much lived up to expectations, delivering very watchable competition where viewers truly get the sense of the moment-by-moment intensity and emotion involved when lots of money is on the line. To be sure, a few fans (and some in the industry) threw bricks at the pro’s who jumped to the MLF after being made famous (and rich in some cases) by the public relations muscle of B.A.S.S. and the industry connections that brought high-dollar sponsorships. But there were also some on the Elite circuit who felt the tournament organization was making an excessive profit on the backs of those who pay-to-play. Tournament fishing, unlike other pro sports, depends on the participants to fund themselves,  and it can be very, very expensive, starting with a boat and truck package that will approach $100,000, tens of thousands in entry fees and many more thousands in travel expenses, plus lots of time on the road which makes working a “normal” job impossible and also cuts many off from their families for weeks at a time. A few get rich, but many go broke. It ain’t for sissies, to be sure.  MLF, co-founded by Boyd Duckett, a highly successful B.A.S.S. Elite pro and businessman in his own right, offered select pros what most viewed as a more equitable and dependable financial package. When a few of the top names agreed to enter the new circuit and abandon B.A.S.S., the rush was suddenly on for those invited in.   MLF also touts a couple of technical advantages over the venerable B.A.S.S. circuit, started by Ray Scott in 1967 and still following basically the same format. The MLF Bass Pro Tour consists of eight events and a championship streamed live onwww.MajorLeagueFishing.com and MOTV. MLF uses the conservation-friendly catch, weigh and immediate-release format where every scorable bass counts, the tally is kept by a marshal in the boat and the winner is the angler with the highest cumulative weight. First, the fact that anglers can score lots of points by getting on a school of relatively small bass in the MLF circuit means there’s a lot more action available on-camera than in the B.A.S.S. format where anglers purposely avoid small fish to catch the 4 to 5 pounders almost always needed to win on quality fisheries. Anglers routinely catch 50 or more bass per day on camera in MLF events—the action is almost continuous. Second, since the cameras are in the boats continuously, anglers can’t say they caught their bass on their sponsor’s Hula-Wiggler-Wobbler when in fact they caught it on the lure of a competitor not their sponsor. And they also can’t fib about where and how they’re fishing—the camera sees it all, and so do the fans. If they’re finesse fishing, we know immediately. Ditto for flippin’, for crankbaiting and for popping the top—and watching them live as they sort through the possibilities that might turn on the $100,000 bite puts the viewer in the boat. It’s a real education for all who love bass angling.  Last but not least, the immediate release format assures that virtually 100 percent of the bass caught will survive, and since they’re released right back into the same locations from where they were caught, there’s no disruption of the eco-system, as there is sometimes when large numbers of spawners are caught and moved out of a spawning area during the weigh-in process. (B.A.S.S. takes very good care of their fish and loses a tiny percentage of them, but they do have some casualties.)  All of this said, the buyout is unlikely to have an immediate negative impact on B.A.S.S. A new generation of Elite heroes is being made on the water this season, and with the company’s strong ties in the industry forged over generations, their powerful web presence, increased live streaming and the venerable Bassmaster Magazine reaching their half-million members monthly, the company’s future looks strong. In fact, we may at some point down the road see a sort of AFC/NFC competition where teams from each league go head to head to determine who, in fact, has bragging rights for the top competitive bass anglers on the planet. It’s an intriguing concept, sure to draw a whole lot of eyeballs to TV and streaming devices should it ever happen. We’ll be watching, and we’ll keep you posted.

 Although bass fishing is tough, its getting better and some big fish are being caught in big lakes.  At the September Spalding County Sportsman Club tournament at Sinclair, 12 members caught 35 bass weighing about 55 pounds. There were three five-fish limits and no one zeroed.

    Raymond English showed us all how to do it with five weighing 14.88 pounds and his 7.43 pounder was big fish.  George Roberts had limit weighing 8.39 pounds and had a 4.08 pounder.  Zane Fleck’s limit at 5.92 pounds was third and Randall Sharpton had four weighing 5.71 pounds for fourth.

    I had a frustrating day, catching only three keepers, and I landed every fish that I hooked.  I wrongly thought everyone was having a tough day and felt pretty good with a 2.42 pound largemouth until George weighed his four pounder then Raymond shocked us all with the seven pounder.

    Mayflies were hatching in many places and formed clouds in some of the spots I fished, but oddly I never saw any bream eating them, a bad sign.  I guess I was in the wrong places.

    After fishing a buzzbait without a bite for thirty minutes, my first cast to a dock post with a shaky head produced my first keeper. I stuck with that pattern for a while and caught some short fish, then tried some deeper brush. I caught nothing but short fish even there.

    At 9:30 I cast behind a dock and a bass grabbed my shaky head and went under the dock. Somehow, I pulled it around the dock post and landed the two pounder.  It was one of those bass just meant to be caught.  After retying my line, cutting out the frayed part from the dock post, I fished several more docks and finally got my third keeper, a bare 12-inch fish that grabbed my worm and ran back under the boat before I could set the hook. Another one just meant to be caught.

    Although I fished to the bitter end and tried everything I could think of, that was it for me.

August 10 and 11th, nine members and guests of the Flint River Bass Club fish a miserably hot two-day tournament at Clarks Hill. At least the fishing was tough. In 18 hours of casting we landed 41 12-inch keeper bass weighing about 65 pounds.

There were three limits and one fisherman didn’t catch a keeper in two days. But there were some good fish, five weighed more than three pounds each.

Raymond English, fishing as Niles Murray’ guest, won with ten weighing 17.11 pounds. Niles placed second with nine keepers weighing 14.51 pounds, Travis Weatherly was third with seven at 10.24 pounds and Chuck Croft came in fourth with six weighing 6.66 pounds. Jerry Ragen had big fish with a 4.39 pound largemouth.

I thought I had found some fish on deep rock piles and caught two Saturday, including one close to three pounds, and lost another one that felt as big as the three pounder. But that was it, two fish all day. And Sunday I missed one bite and had another good fish pull off the dropshot worm. No fish for me after eight hot hours of trying Sunday.