Last weekend 30 members of the Flint River Bass Club, Potato Creek Bassmasters and Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our annual three club tournament at Lake Martin. In 17 hours of casting, we landed 268 12-inch keeper bass weighing 379 pounds. Almost all of them were spotted bass.
We had 26 limits on Saturday and 25 on Sunday. That is why we love to go to Lake Martin in October; we catch a lot of bass. Many folks reported catching 20 or more keepers each day. Most are 13 to 14-inch spots weighing about a pound and a half, as the results below show, but they fight hard and are fun.
For the two days, I barely won with ten bass weighing 19.14 pounds, Tom Tanner placed second with ten bass weighing 19.09 pounds, Lee Hancock was third with ten bass at 17.26 pounds and Doug Acree was fourth with ten bass weighing 16.64 pounds. Buddy Laster had big fish with a 4.52 pound largemouth, one of the couple dozen of them caught.
We paid back both days, fishing each day like a one-day tournament. On Saturday, Tom Tanner was first with five bass weighing 10.96 pounds, my five at 10.15 pounds was second, Buddy Laster placed third with five weighing 9.93 pounds and his 4.52 pound largemouth was big fish. Lee Hancock was fourth with five bass weighing 9.01 pounds.
On Sunday I won with five at 8.99 pounds, Doug Acree was second with five at 8.49 pounds and Wayne Teal placed third with five weighing 8.43 pounds. Billy Roberts placed fourth with five at 8.26 pounds and had big fish with a 4.04 pound largemouth.
I went over on Tuesday to try to find some bigger fish. In research before I left, I got information that most tournaments were being won in Kowaliga Creek. Martin has two long arms from the dam, one going up the Tallapoosa River and the other up Kowaliga Creek. Wind Creek State Park, where we launch, is far up the river from the dam, where Kowaliga Creek starts.
Wednesday, I drove the few miles by road to a ramp on Kowaliga Creek and spent the day riding points looking for brushpiles and rocks. I marked 20 places with waypoints that looked promising. I fished some and hooked two decent fish but lost both.
Thursday, I made the 30-mile trip by boat, laying in GPS trail. There are many islands and short creeks near the dam where it is very easy to get lost, and if I made the run first thing each morning in the near dark, it would be tough. But with a trail to follow it would not be a problem.
When I got to Kowaliga Creek I again fished some, concentrating on docks, and never got a bite.
Friday, I fished around the park and in two hours caught a limit of bass that would weigh about eight pounds. They were in their usual places in that area, around rocks, docks and brush I have fished for more than forty years. That made me think hard about the long run to where I had not landed a fish in two days.
I decided to gamble on the long run and took off at 7:00 AM Saturday morning. At 7:30 I made my first cast and got a hit on topwater. I quickly caught two on a Whopper Flopper hand painted lure from Jim Farmer’s Castaway Tackle Company, but they were about 1.5 pounds each, no better than what I caught on the other side of the lake. The third one I caught hit one of Jim’s hand painted Sebile swimbaits and it was a bigger fish, so I felt better.
After the sun got up I went back in a cove and cast the Plopper to some shade and got an explosive bite. I fought the bass to the boat but when I bent down to pick up the net, the fish dove straight down and got me hung up in some brush. It was stuck solid when I tried to pull it free.
I did want to lose the expensive lure, so I got out my chain lure retriever. When it hooked the plug and pulled the brush loose, the limb, plug and fish came up and I manage to get all of it in the boat. I was very lucky. I fished the Plopper on windy banks the rest of the day and caught about 20 more fish.
Sunday there was no wind, so I switched to a shaky head worm and landed about 20 more bass, but they were smaller. But they were big enough for first place! The run was worth it, even though I burned about 40 gallons of gas in my boat in the two days.