On a Sunday in November a few years ago ten members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our November tournament at Lake Lanier.  After eight cold, windy, rainy hours we managed to land 11 keeper bass longer than 14 inches, all spotted bass. There were no limits, the most any one fisherman had was three.  Four fishermen did not have a keeper.  They weighed about 26 pounds.

    I managed to win with two keepers weighing 7.11 pounds and my 3.81-pound spot was big fish.  Alex
Gober had three weighing 5.44 pounds for second, Chuck Croft was third with three at 4.67 pounds and fourth was Don Gober with one keeper weighing 3.30 pounds.

    The windy, cloudy day seemed perfect for throwing a spinnerbait on windblown rocky points and banks, usually a very good pattern this time of year. 

I hit three places like that quickly that morning and on the third one, at 7:25 AM, I landed the 3.30 pound spot on one of Ryan Coleman’s Mini Me spinnerbaits. That fish jumped two feet out of the water when I hooked it, unusual for a big spot, and made my heart stop. 

    That got me excited that I had a good pattern going so I fished it hard until 11:30, trying spinnerbaits, jerk baits and crankbaits. All I caught was two 13-inch spots, no keepers.  At 11:00 I got tired and tried some brush piles out of the wind but got no bites.

    At 1:00 I went back to rocky points and fished a jig and pig, working areas out of wind since I was so tired.  I caught my bigger fish within five minutes and again got excited, thinking that pattern would work. But two hours later I had not gotten another bite trying that pattern.

    Those big spots at Lanier fight hard and are fun to catch but unless you fish the lake a lot they are difficult to pattern.  The day of our tournament a guide there, Lanier Jim, posted pictures of the big spots he and a client caught.  He knows the lake well and fishes it every day.  They caught about a dozen keepers and their best five weighed about 18 pounds. And they fished the same area of the lake I fished. Knowing the lake makes a huge difference!  

    The Sportsman Club is fishing our November tournament there next Sunday.  I’m sure it will be tough but fun if we manage to hook any of those magnum spots!

Note – I won it, too, with a limit weighing 12.65 pounds i caught off wind blown points on spinnerbaits early and had big fish with a four-pound spot that came off the same rock as the 3.71 above!!