Bass fishing was very good for most of the 11 members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club in our May tournament. In 18 hours of casting, we landed 75 bass weighing about 170 pounds. There were 12 five fish limits and the only person that didn’t catch a keeper went home early Saturday.
Zane Fleck won with ten bass weighing 29.63 pounds, including a 5.30 pounder, one of the best two day catches I can remember in the club. But Niles Murray was very close in second with ten bass weighing 29.43 pounds and had a 6.32 pound largemouth for big fish.
JR Proctor was third with ten weighing 25.56 pounds and landed his personal best largemouth with a five pound plus fish. Raymond English placed fourth with ten at 25.48 pounds and had a 5.67 pounder. My ten weighing 22.54 pounds was fifth and Kwong Yu placed sixth with nine at 20.60 pounds.
Those weights show the quality of fish you can catch at Eufaula right now. And we don’t really know the lake well since we fish it only once or twice a year. Add to that, in a children’s charity tournament on Saturday, it took five weighing more than 22 pounds to win by guys that fish it often.
The fishing was fun, too, since most fish were caught shallow. I caught two of my biggest fish each morning on frogs around grass beds. A bass hitting a topwater frog is exciting, and the four I caught swallowed it. I had a hard time getting the bait out of their throats.
The first day I got two before 6:30, within 30 minutes of blast off, but then it got tough.
I did not catch another fish until 2:00. Then they started biting again and I landed five more keepers and several short fish in the next two hours, all on shaky head worms.
Sunday morning, I had three at 6:30, two on a frog and one on a spinnerbait. Then between 8:00 and 8:30
I caught two more on a jig and pig. That was it, I did not catch another keeper, but I felt too bad to fish hard and went in early.
The most frustrating thing about not feeling good and not being able to fish like you want to is looking back and wondering. Last year at the same time of year I caught some good fish casting a lightly weighed worm in lily pads, swimming it through them.
Although I had two rods rigged and ready for fishing that way, it is hard work and I never tried it. But after the tournament Niles told me he and Raymond, fishing together, caught their fish doing that. I wish I could have fished that way.
Go to Eufaula now for great camping and fishing, enjoyable wildlife viewing and a relaxing way to spend a few days.