November Tournament Memories

Last fall 13 members of the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished our November tournament at West Point. We landed 47 keeper bass weighing about 71 pounds. There were at least four limits.

I won with five keepers weighing 9.75 pounds, Mike Cox was second with five at 7.66 pounds. Raymond English placed third with five weighing 7.55 pounds and Frank Anderson had five at 7.19 for fourth. Kwong Yu’s 2.94 pounder was big fish.

In comparison, Highland Marina held its Georgia State Championship that weekend. That tournament in invitation only that includes the top fishermen from clubs and other tournaments in Georgia. Entry fee is $300 per team and some of the best fishermen in the state, many of them West Point guides and experts, fish it. They are attracted to fish it due to the guaranteed first place prize of $12,000!

Guide Ken Bearden fished it and after Saturday, the same day we fished, was in fourth place out of 114 teams. He had 17 pounds! The two-day tournament was won with over 30 pounds. That just shows what really good local fishermen can catch on West Point!

I started slowly, not getting a bite the first hour we fished. I had heard some quality largemouth were feeding way back in the creeks and that is usually a good pattern this time of year. Shad move back in the creeks as the water cools and bass follow them.

At blast-off I ran to the back of my favorite creek. There are several brush and rock piles in it that I thought would have some feeding fish on them. Unfortunately, there is a boat ramp in it and when I arrived there were two jon boats, a kayak and a Bass Hunter boat fishing the key places.

That must have been a good pattern, since within five minutes of me getting there three boats from the big tournament came in the back of that creek, too. All day I saw fishermen in that tournament run into backs of creeks. But I never got a bite back in where I started.

After an hour I went out to a main lake rocky point and caught a keeper spot on a jig and pig, then a largemouth off a blowdown on it. So I started fishing those kinds of places. At 10:00, two hours later, I had my five-fish limit but all but the largemouth were just 13 inch spots.

I started fishing a little deeper on those kinds of places and caught my biggest fish, a 2.5-pound spot, at 11:00 and a keeper largemouth a few minutes later. With only 30 minutes left to fish I went to another deep rock pile and landed two good keeper largemouth and lost one. So I managed to cull all but one of the first five I landed and had four largemouth and one decent spot for the win.

From now to Christmas is one of my favorite times to fish. After Christmas the water gets cold enough fishing gets tough until late February, then it gets real good again. Enjoy the cool weather and good fishing while you can!