Last Saturday 20 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished out July tournament at Lake Sinclair. After fishing from 5:30 AM till noon, we brought in 38 12-inch keeper bass weighing about 60 pounds. There were three five-fish limits and eight members did not weigh in a keeper.
Lee Hancock won with five weighing 8.95 pounds, Raymond English was second with five weighing 8.46 pounds, Kwong Yu placed third with five at 8.04 pounds and Jack Ridgeway came in fourth with two weighing 6.80 pounds and had big fish with a 5.90 pound largemouth.
William Scott and I started on a lighted dock, usually a good plan, but did not get a bite. Our second stop was a dock where I caught my first keeper under a light the week before, but the light was not on and we got no bites there, either.
After making a short run to the cove where
I caught my best fish on topwater baits the week before, I landed my first keeper on a buzzbait. Then my second one hit a shaky head worm about 6:30 AM. William then got a keeper on a worm a few minutes later.
The next cove produced my third keeper at 7:15. We decided to go back to the cove that had produced three keepers for us, and as we started on one side we saw club member Tom Tanner fishing the opposite side. We did not get a bite, but Tom told me he caught three keepers in that cove. We had left it too soon!
We then went to some of William’s favorite places and I got a small keeper, my fourth, off a dock he said we should not bother fishing. I went to it because it was in the shade and just felt like a place to fish to me.
That was it, we fished all kinds of cover and structure till weigh-in but never caught another fish. My four weighed a whopping 3.99 pounds, not even a pound each. The weekend before I had five and four were about that size but the three pounder I landed in that tournament made the difference. We just could not get the bigger fish to bite.
Fishing will be tough on our area lakes for the next two or three months, before it gets better as water starts to cool. Most bass are feeding at night right now and it is just tough to catch them during the day. And it is hot and rough from all the pleasure boats. My preference is to fish at night this time of year, but all our tournaments are during the day.