Last Saturday we had only three boats participating in the Spalding County Sportsman Club/Flint River Bass Club youth tournament at Bartletts Ferry. Even though the numbers were low and the fishing was tough we had fun.

On the youth side Alex Watkins fishing with Sam Smith won the older age group with four bass weighing 2.89 pounds. My partner Hunter Jenkins came in second with two at 2.55 pounds and his 1.29 pound largemouth was big fish. Blaze Brooks, fishing with Zane Fleck, won the younger division with two bass weighing 1.18 pounds.

In the buddy tournament Sam and Alex had five fish weighing 5.82 pounds for first and a 1.45 pound largemouth for big fish, Hunter and I had five at 5.07 for second and Zane’s team had two at 2.28 pounds for third.

Youth could weigh in any legal fish, so they could bring in spotted bass less than 12 inches long. On the buddy side all fish had to be 12 inches long. Bartletts Ferry is full of little spotted bass and we all caught a bunch of them. There were only three largemouth brought to the scales.

Hunter and I started fishing a point with topwater, crankbaits and worms. He had two bites on worms but when he set the hook he brought in a half worm. I missed two on topwater and I think they were all little spotted bass, too small to get the hook.

As the sun got higher we went out on a point and I could see fish on it on my depthfinder, and I caught two small keeper spots and several too short to keep on jig head worms and drop shot. Then we fished several more places without catching anything.

At about 11:00 we started fishing docks and Hunter got two keeper largemouth and I got a keeper spot. We both caught some throwbacks, too. That was it for us. It was a very frustrating day, made even more so at the ramp when we watched a pot tournament weigh-in and it took five weighing 14.5 pounds to win and 14 pounds to get a check!

The next day in the Spalding County Sportsman Club May tournament at Bartletts Ferry 16 members and guests fished from 6:00 AM till 2:30 PM to land 55 keepers weighing about 64 pounds. There were only 11 largemouth, all the rest were small spotted bass. Six of us had five-fish limits and only one fisherman didn’t have a keeper.

Billy Roberts won it all with five weighing 8.02 pounds and had a 3.72 pound largemouth for big fish. My five at 6.18 pounds was second, Niles Murray had five at 6.14 pounds for third and Sam Smith’s five at 6.05 pounds was fourth.

After seeing the tournament with the good catches weighed in Saturday I thought all night, trying to figure out what they could have done. Often you can go up the river and catch largemouth, but the water looked muddy at the ramp so we had all fished clear water on the main lake Saturday. I told my partner Jordan McDonald we were going for broke, running up the river to try to catch some bigger fish even if it was muddy.

The first place we stopped I got a keeper spot on a spinnerbait, not what I was hoping for, and Jordan caught a short spot. We fished great looking cover for over four hours and all we caught were two more short spots and a short largemouth even though there was good current, usually a good sign, the water was what I consider a perfect color. I could see a spinnerbait down over a foot deep.

At 10:30 we decided we had better go to the clear water and try to catch a keeper spot. On the way down the river, near the mouth and still in very stained water, I remembered a good point and we stopped on it. Current was moving across it and it is often a very good place when the current is flowing.

We immediately started catching fish. It was strange. The boat was sitting in about 14 feet of water and we were casting up on the point, covering it from five feet deep out to 14 feet deep. In the next two hours I caught about 15 small keeper spots and several that were too small to keep. Although I gave Jordan one of the lizards I was using, and he rigged it Texas style just like mine, I caught all the keepers.

By 12:30 the fish quit biting and the boat traffic go so bad it was uncomfortable and dangerous to stay there, so we went to some other places. For some reason pleasure boaters like to break the law and ride close to fishermen, violating the 100 foot rule. Most of them seemed to slow down to make as big a wake as possible. I yelled at one guy when he almost ran over us and he yelled back we were in his way although there was a lot of open water all around us!

Jordan had a bad day. I got three more keepers fishing docks and points but he never got one. It is weird the way it goes some days and you just can not figure out why. I have had it happen to me many times. In fact, in a February tournament at Bartletts Ferry Jordan won with a limit weighing about 12 pounds and had big fish and I caught one keeper all day!

What goes around comes around, sometimes!