Largemouth from Bartletts Ferry
The snake was about three feet long and was right in the middle of the road. I didn’t try to run over it because I see no reason to kill a snake that is not threatening anyone. The guys in the vehicle behind us saw it too and didn’t run over it, but confirmed it was a rattlesnake.
One reason I don’t want to run over a poisonous snake is something, probably what we now call an “Urban Legend,” that I grew up hearing. The story goes that a guy had a flat and got out to check it. He ran his hand around the tire and got scratched by what flattened the tire.
Supposedly it was a rattlesnake’s fangs that stuck in the tire, and when they scratched him he got enough venom to kill him. I guess that could happen. Either way, I don’t take chances!
Rattlesnakes are pretty uncommon around here. I grew up near Augusta and the sandy terrain over there, rather than the clay around here, is more to their liking. We killed rattlesnakes on the farm several times while I was growing up. I still have the rattles from one, and many of us boys carried rattles in our pockets, bragging about how many rattles and buttons they had.
Snakes normally won’t hurt you. They will try to get away from you. After all, you are too big for them to eat. Leave them alone and they will leave you alone.
The other strange thing happened while we were fishing. Al and I were fishing a deep brush pile and Al had caught a couple of nice bass, and I broke off two and missed a couple. Then Al set the hook on a bass that wrapped him up in the brush. After trying to get it loose he had to break his line.
About ten minutes later a bass floated to the top and we picked it up. The 2.5 pound largemouth had Al’s hook in its throat! Apparently it swallowed the hook deeply before or while getting hung up and it killed it. I have broken off a lot of fish like that but have never had one float up like that one did.
At the tournament 13 members and guests landed 41 keeper bas weighing about 52 pounds. There were three five-fish limits and one member didn’t have a keeper. It was a surprise only ten of the bass were spots – usually we catch a lot more spots than largemouth there.
Al Rosser won with four weighing 6.37 pounds. We were real worried the one that broke off would make the difference but he still won without it. Niles Murray was second with a limit weighing 6.26 pounds and Chuck Croft placed third with five at 5.96 pounds. Roger Morrow’s four weighing 5.69 pounds was fourth and his 2.91 pound largemouth was big fish.
Fish were caught on a little of everything, from fish head spins to jigs and worms. There was a lot of muddy water coming down the river but the main lake and lower creeks were clear, and that is where most of the fish were caught.
Al and I started up the river a little ways and I missed two on spinner baits around grass. Niles had run about a mile above us and where he stopped was real muddy at 6:00 AM. Where Al and I fished the water was still ok at that time, but by 2:00 PM when we ran in the mud had come down the river past the ramp, several more miles downstream. Bass seem to hate fresh muddy water and stop biting when it first gets muddy.
Al and I fished a lot of different places and I got my first keeper at about 8:00 on a jig and pig off a seawall. Then Al got two on a jig head worm. Around 10:00 we went over a deep brush pile and Al got a nice 2.3 pound bass from it. I could see a lot of fish around the brush on my depth finder, but they would not hit.
After several hours of running around the lake trying to catch bass without any luck we went back to the brush pile for the last hour. Often bass will hold off brush then, for some unknown reason, move in to feed. And they had. Al got two more good keepers from it and I got one the last hour, and that is when we missed several bites and broke off three fish.
Deep brush is worth checking out several times during a day, especially if you see fish around it on a good depth finder!