A few years ago on a Monday I met Bobby Ferris at Jackson Lake to get information for a December Georgia Outdoor News article. For this “Map of the Month” article Bobby discusses patterns for catching bass at Jackson in December and the baits he would use. We then marked 10 spots on a map of the lake where you can use those patterns and baits to catch bass.
I met Bobby several years ago when he worked for Central Georgia EMC and lived near Jackson. Since then he has transferred to Southern Rivers EMC and moved to Lamar County. We have fished together a good bit over the past few years and Bobby joined the Flint River Bass Club. Last year in that club he won 7 of the 12 tournaments and this year he has won two of the seven he has fished.
Bobby and partner Donnie Schafer fish the Highland Marina Tournament Trail on West Point and they finished 8th overall this year, quite an accomplishment when fishing against teams that fish West Point almost every day.
Two weeks ago Bobby and Donnie fished the Potato Creek Bassmasters Buddy tournament at Lake Sinclair and won it with five bass weighing over 18 pounds. That is a fantastic catch in any tournament. They also had big bass in that tournament.
Monday Bobby caught two largemouth at Jackson, one weighing about 4 pounds and the other about 5 pounds. He also had several spotted bass weighing around 2.5 pounds each. His best five that day would have weighed about 16 to 17 pounds if he had been fishing a tournament. Those bass hit topwater plugs.
Unfortunately, that pattern is probably over for this year after the cold front came through this week. Bass will be on the rocky point pattern we discussed in the article and it should work for most of the month. Last year on New Year’s Eve Bobby caught a 9.5 pound bass at Jackson and had five weighing about 24 pounds that day, and the patterns he caught those fish on are in the article.
Bobby is on Team Triton, qualifying for this honor through his bass fishing. The Sports Center in Perry is his sponsor and he gets his boats through them. Bobby really likes Triton bass boats and says they perform good and are excellent fishing platforms.
Check out this article and give Jackson a try in December. It should be excellent for spotted and largemouth bass.
The next weekend the Potato Creek Bassmasters fished their November tournament at Lake Sinclair. Lee Hancock had the only limit and his five bass weighed 7.66 pounds, giving him first place. He also had big bass with a 2.08 pound fish. Wade Crawford had four weighing 4.67 for second, Don Schafer had four weighing 4.27 pounds for third and Todd Stoerkel had two weighing 1.70 for fourth.
There were 15 members of the club in this tournament and they caught 21 keepers weighing about 26 pounds. Five members did not catch a keeper bass in this eight hour tournament.
The Spalding County Sportsman Club also fished our November tournament that weekend and we were at West Point. Kwong Yu had a five fish limit weighing 8.64 pounds and won. Brent Terry also had a limit and his 8.02 pounds gave him second place. He had a 3.97 pound bass that was big fish. Jason Wheeler was third with two bass weighing 2.42 pounds and Butch Duerr had 2 weighing 2.30 for fourth.
Only seven members of the club fished this tournament and we weighed in 18 bass weighing about 26 pounds. There were no zeros but two of us had only one fish each. There were only 4 largemouth weighed in, all the rest were spots.
I came in dead last in this tournament with one small spotted bass. The fishing was very tough for me and I got only three bites from bass all day, catching the one keeper and two spots about 11 inches long. Several people caught bass on topwater baits that morning. I had one bite on top and it was a nice crappie.
Most of the keepers came on crankbaits, jigs and worms. There was no one strong pattern but shad were everywhere.
Fishing should have been much better this time of year at Sinclair and West Point. Maybe the unusually warm weather was the problem. If so, the cold this week should help!