Last weekend produced two very different results at Jackson Lake for me. Although the weather was very similar, cloudy and cool with little wind both days, a lucky guess made a big difference for me on Sunday.
On Saturday 20 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our final 2022 tournament at Jackson. After fishing from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM we landed 42 12-inch keeper bass weighing about 58 pounds. Three people had five fish limits and six did not weigh in a bass.
Mike Cox made it two wins in row with five weighing 8.76 pounds and his 3.02 pounder was big fish. Buddy Laster had five at 6.88 pounds for second, Lee Hancock placed third with five weighing 6.49 pound and Kenny Delay came in fourth with five at 6.27 pounds.
On Sunday 13 members of the Flint River Bass Club and the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our last tournament of the year at Jackson in a two-club tournament. We fished from 7:30 to 3:30 PM and landed 34 keeper bass weighing about 40 pounds. There were two limits and two zeros.
My five weighing 8.97 pounds won and I had a 2.84 pound largemouth for big fish. Raymond English had a limit weighing 5.66 pounds for second, Jay Gerson was third with five at 4.08 pounds and Zane Fleck came in fourth with three at 3.64 pounds.
Last Friday I went to Jackson after lunch to look around a little. I wanted to see how much the heavy rain on Wednesday had affected the lake.
I was surprised to find clear water in coves at the dam but the river was stained, and got very muddy going up past the mouth of Tussahaw Creek. Tussahaw Creek was clear as it usually is and the Alcovy River upstream of the mouth of the South River was clear at least up to Rock Creek.
I found fish with my electronics in a couple of places in Tussahaw Creek and the Alcovy. One group was on a sandbar point with a creek channel running by it and another on a creek mouth point. Another school was on bluff river wall where the rocks dropped almost straight off into 30 feet of water.
Saturday my partner, Robert Howell, and I started on a shallow seawall and he quickly caught a keeper on a shaky head worm. A few minutes later a keeper spot hit my wacky rigged Senko on rocks about a foot deep.
I moved out to the creek mouth point and could see suspended fish that I though might be bass about ten feet deep over 30 feet of water, with more on the bottom under them. I cast a Carolina rig and as it sank it took off. A keeper spot hit the worm on the way down.
At 9:00 we ran to the dam and I caught another keeper on the wacky rigged worm on shallow rocks. That made three on that pattern so we though we had something going. As I fished to another shallow seawall, a keeper hit my DT 6 crankbait right at the boat. I had four in the boat before 10:00 so I felt pretty good.
After fishing a couple more shallow seawalls near the dam we ran up to the bluff wall and fish were everywhere on my electronics. I missed one bite on a shaky head but it was the only bite I got.
We fished hard the rest of the day but never caught another fish. My four weighing 4.36 gave me 8th place in the tournament.
Sunday I ran straight to the bluff bank since there were so many fish there. I quickly caught a keeper on the crankbait but could not get another bite.
I decided to try for shallow fish and caught the big largemouth at 9:00 on a jig back in a small creek. For the next two hours I tried that pattern but never got another bite. At 11:00 as I fish a main lake point coming out of a small creek I caught my third keeper, on a shaky head.
I tried several things for the next four hours with out catching anything else. At 3:00 I decided to hit one more rocky point near the weigh-in site. I caught my fourth keeper at 3:10 and my fifth one at 3:15 on a shaky head.
With five minutes left to fish I got my shaky head hung and broke it off. Rather that re-tie I picked up a Carolina rig and caught a two-pound keeper that culled my smallest fish!
That last fish would have helped me a lot more on Saturday than it did on Sunday, but that’s fishing.