Ten days in a row are almost too much of a good thing. I left September 30 to camp and fish at Lake Oconee for three days then left there and drove straight to Lake Martin for seven more of the same. Ten days fishing and 12 nights camping are a lot for an old man!
It has been about 20 years since I camped at Lawrence Shoals campground on Oconee. It is a Georgia Power Parks campground and has excellent facilities with nice big shaded campsites and a clean, modern bath house.
I fished Friday and Saturday practicing for the Spalding County Sportsman Club Classic on Sunday. I caught only three keeper bass, spending most of my time on the water looking at deeper cover and scanning docks and grassbeds. After all, nothing I caught on Friday or Saturday would count in the tournament!
One fish did clue me in to a small pattern that worked pretty good in the tournament. I cast a weightless Trick worm to the edge of a grassbed and got a backlash. While I was picking it out the worm sank to the bottom and sat there still.
I learned long ago to lift my rod tip slowly after letting the worm sit like this, and sure enough, my line started moving out from the bank when it got tight. I set the hook on a good two-pound keeper. For some reason it seemed the fish did not want to chase a moving bait for me.
In the tournament I started out casting a topwater bait to a seawall but got no bites. But my first cast with the Trick worm to the same spot, a bass 13.98 inches long picked it up and took off. Although it was not a keeper, it told me to fish the Trick worm.
That pattern worked fairly good and produced a limit. Of course, the tournament was won on a moving topwater bait!
I got to Wind Creek State Park Monday afternoon in the pouring rain. The park was crazy – some huge group was having a “family” get together and their registration tent and vehicles completely blocked the parking lot you have to go through to get to the campground.
I finally got to my reserved campsite and sat there for 30 minutes in the rain. I watched folks try to put their tents back up, many had collapsed from the rain, and watched others bail out their tents then move them to higher ground. Experienced campers probably would not set up a tent in the lowest spot in a campsite in the rain.
Although the campground was extremely crowded and the park police seemed to abandon all rules, like no more than two tents or two vehicles to a campsite for the week, it was not too bad.
A few years ago I was camping in my van and Al Rosser came over early one morning, set up his small tent by my van and we went fishing. About the time the rangers got to work one of them called me, made us come in and take the tent down. I am not sure why they didn’t enforce any rules this past week like they always have in the past.
I had a decision to make. I like to make a long run first thing in the morning on Martin, about 25 miles one way, but do not know that area as well as I do the area around Wind Creek. I have been fishing the Wind Creek area for 46 years and exploring the other area for only three.
I drove over and practiced three days on the other end of the lake. I did not catch much but on Wednesday I landed a three-pound spot, a three-pound largemouth and four other two pounders. That encouraged me, ten pounds a day will usually do very good in the tournament.
I made the long run Saturday morning and a boat was sitting on my best spot when I got there. But I managed to catch a limit in 30 minutes and landed three good spots on topwater before heading back to the Wind Creek area.
Oddly enough, when I got back I landed a spot on my first cast that culled one fish from the other end of the lake, and culled one more time before weigh-in. That made me decide to not make the run Sunday morning and I guess it turned out to be a mistake.