Lake Weiss again proved a good fisherman can catch fish under terrible conditions for others. In the Potato Creek Bassmsters August tournament at Lake Weiss, 16 members fished for 16 hours to land 45 keepers weighing about 81 pounds. There were two five-bass limits and six fishermen zeroed for both days.
Raymond English had a great catch Saturday, bringing in a limit weighing 13.68 pounds and big fish of 4.52 pounds. He added four more at 6.26 pounds for first place of 9 bass weighing 19.94 pounds and the 4.52 pounder was big fish.
Sam Smith had a limit on Sunday and weighed in 8 bass weighing 16.24 pounds for second place. He had a 4.49 pounder to anchor his stringer. Third was Kwong Yu with five keepers weighing 11.87 pounds and Lee Hancock came in fourth with six bass weighing 10.84 pounds. Niles Murray came on strong on Sunday and had five weighing 9.50 pounds for fifth.
I left for Lake Weiss last Tuesday with such anticipation.
Five fishing days and two keeper bass later, I am disappointed, to say the least. I tried everything I could think of for three days of practice. Fished up above causeway Wednesday looking for anything shallow – docks, grass, rocks, not a bite. Rode ledges and found all kinds of cover and fish but could not get them to hit.
Thursday went down below the causeway and did the same thing. Schools of fish in brush on ledges but nothing would hit crankbaits, worms or drop shot.
I went back up Thursday and got a three-pound spot on a buzzbait at 10:00 AM on a shady bank, so I decide to gamble on that pattern and run shady banks in that area all day in the tournament.
Saturday I caught nine short fish, lost two keepers at the boat and landed a 3.10 spot. It hit a whacky rig on a seawall at about 11:00 AM when I got tired of watching the buzzbait not get hit.
Sunday I missed one on a buzz bait early then got one 11 inch spot on a whacky rig. Never hooked a keeper in seven hours of casting!
The one spot got me 9th out of 16 people so it was tough for a lot of us.
Weiss is a beautiful lake with miles of shoreline grassbeds, seawalls and docks to fish. The Coosa River channel winds through flats and is joined by numerous creeks to form ledges that drop from shallow to deep. I found dozens with five to ten feet of water on top dropping to 25 to 30 feet deep in the channel.
Many of those drops had brush on them, both natural stuff that washed down the river and hung up or brush piles put out by fishermen. Time after time I watched fish follow my bait around those brush piles but not hit it.
Weiss is known as “The Crappie Capitol of the World” and is full of big ones. They have to be 10 inches long to keep, so that insures a good population of quality fish. I am sure many of those fish I saw were crappie and you could catch a lot of good eating fish on live minnows fishing them.