The Flint River Bass Club held its September tournament at West Point on a Sunday a few years ago. After fishing from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM the nine members of the club brought in 24 keeper bass weighing about 34 pounds. There were two limits and one person didn’t have a keeper. There were 14 spotted bass and ten largemouth brought to the scales.

Bobby Ferris won with a five fish limit weighing 9.16 pounds. He also had big fish with a 2.91 pound largemouth. Lee Hancock came in second with the other limit weighing 7.46 pounds. My four weighing 5.90 pounds was third and Kwong Yu had three weighing 4.06 pounds for fourth.

My day started out pretty good. I left the Glass Bridge ramp and wanted to stop on a nearby shoal but there was a boat sitting there, so I ran on up to the Highway 109 Bridge. On my second cast to the riprap I hooked and landed a two pound largemouth. Putting one in the live well that quickly made me feel good.

After about an hour fishing around the bridge and catching a few short spotted bass I cranked up and ran to a point about half way to the railroad bridge. As I came off plane my 225 Yamaha made a strange rattling noise and shut off. When I tried to crank it there was a bad noise.

There I was, several miles from the ramp with about seven hours left to fish. I decided to fish my way back, working banks and points on the way. Since I was fishing by myself I didn’t mess up anybody else’s day.

I caught a few small spots then, near the highway bridge I got a keeper spot in the back of a pocket on a jig head worm. I would not have fished there if my motor had not died. At the bridge I caught a third keeper, another small spot, off a bridge piling on a small jig and pig.

By now it was noon and I had a long way to go, so I put the trolling motor on high and headed across the shallow flats in front of Pyne park. As I cruised along a school of fish came up and I grabbed my topwater popper and landed a two pound spotted bass. Another place I would not have been if my motor was running.

After catching a few more short spotted bass I got back to the ramp before the deadline.