Lake Hartwell is also a pretty lake but very different. Its deep, clear, open water is filled with islands and humps and there are rocks on most shorelines. Docks line it and many sit over 20 feet or more of water. There are a few cypress trees planted on humps to mark them.

The Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our May tournament there last Friday and Saturday. In 18 hours of casting, 21 member brought 142 bass weighing about 221 pounds to the scales. There were 18 five fish limits and one fisherman didn’t land a keeper.

Edward Folker had nine keepers weighing 18.84 pounds for first, second place was Stan Wick with ten bass weighing 17.74 pounds, third was Drew Naramore with eight keepers at 17.01 pounds and Kwong Yu placed fourth with 10 bass weighing 16.42 pounds. Tom Tanner had big fish with a 4.17 pounder and placed fifth with 15.44 pounds.

Fishing was unusually tough for this time of year at Hartwell. It is a herring lake, and I think, like at Clarks Hill, the bass head to open water to feed on herring as soon as they spawn. They do not hang around shallow cover to feed like they did before herring got in the lake. If you don’t find the right place, you don’t catch much.

There was a Skeeter Challenge Tournament there on Saturday and Sunday. The winning team had 16 pounds on Saturday and 22 pounds on Sunday. There were 164 teams fishing this tournament and it took 18.97 pounds to place 66th!

In the Potato Creek tournament, I had eight keepers weighing 11.79 pounds for tenth place. If I had been fishing the Skeeter tournament, that weight would have put me in 131st place! That is why I do not fish big tournaments; I don’t think I can compete in them. I love club fishing and that is about my skill level.