Don’t forget to renew your Georgia fishing license. Most of us have licenses that expire in early April each year since, for many years, annual licenses expired on April 1st. So when the law was changed to make them run for one year from the date of purchase, we bought them around April 1st since the old one expired then. Now we need to renew before they run out. Don’t get caught without one.
———————————————————–
The Georgia Bass Chapter Federation Top Six was last Monday and Tuesday at Lake Lanier. Both the Spalding County Sportsman Club and the Flint River Bass Club sent teams but we did not do well. We just do not fish Lanier very often and it is a tough lake to catch bass if you don’t fish it often.

The Marietta Bass Club sent two teams and they finished first and third. The top Marietta team won by almost 30 pounds above the second place team, and five of their six man team placed in the top 12. That is an incredible result but that club fishes Lanier a lot and most of them live near the lake.

The Sportsman Club finished 26th out of 36 teams and the Flint River Club was 33rd. The winning team had 54 keeper bass in two days weighing 140.57 pounds. The Sportsman Club team had 33 bass weighing 66.27 pounds and Flint River had 27 bass weighing 51.06 pounds.
The winner was a no boater, meaning he had to fish in someone else’s boat on another team, but he got to run the trolling motor and choose the fishing spots for half each day. He had 10 keepers, a limit each day, weighing 31.4 pounds. It took 10 weighing 24.53 pounds to make the state team in 12th place.

Chuck Croft fishing with Flint River had the best catch in either of those two clubs, with eight bass weighing 18.39 pounds for 53rd place. Mark Knight on the Sportsman Club team came in 82nd and I came in 98th with seven keepers weighing 12.90 pounds out of 216 fishermen in the tournament.

I went up to Lanier last Thursday and fished up the Chattahoochee River all day Friday in the rain. I caught some fish but not the size needed to do well in the tournament. The best place I fished was a small creek off the river where my partner and I caught 14 keepers weighing 33 pounds in the 1991 Top Six, so I knew it held the possibility of good fish but they would be largemouth, and we needed some warm, sunny days to make them bite.

On Saturday I again fished all day in the rain but stayed on the main lake, trying to figure out how to catch the big spotted bass there. I never had a bite! That was frustrating. I planned on trying something different on Sunday but when I woke up in the campground with my van shaking from the wind I went back to sleep. I never got on the water on that cold, windy day.

It was “fun” Saturday night trying to grill chicken and having stuff blow off the table if it was not nailed down. And it was getting colder fast. So when I went to bed Saturday night I knew Sunday would be a bad day. And that I was not going to get the kind of weather I wanted. Wind stirs up the deeper, colder water and I needed warming water to do well.

I drew a 16 year old partner for Monday and he had no idea what we should do, so we gambled and went to the small creek up the river. After catching just a couple of small bass in two hours I said we should go, then he caught a three pound largemouth, I caught a fish just under the 14 inch limit and he caught a 2.5 pound largemouth on three casts!

Those fish were on a rocky point leading to the back of the creek so I hoped the quality largemouth were moving in. The day was getting warm and the sun was warming the water. After another hour we were ready to leave again but we caught nine bass off one small spot on a channel bend near the back of the cove in a few minutes. Although only two were big enough to keep that was another sign they were moving in so we decided to stay the rest of the day.

I got one more keeper, then caught a three pound largemouth right in the back of the creek not long before we had to leave. The water there had warmed from 57 to 62 degrees during the day but it was too little too late.

My partner for the next day had no places he wanted to fish so we went back to the small creek on Tuesday. We had fun catching fish but they were mostly small. At the small creek bend we landed 11 bass in 30 minutes in the morning but only two kept. With an hour left to fish he had two and I had one. Then back at the creek bend I made three casts and caught three keepers, two of them 2.5 pound largemouth. Again, too little too late.

It was a fun but very tiring trip and the weather was beautiful Monday and Tuesday. I just wish it had warmed up on Sunday, not Monday.

Fish should be biting real good at West Point today for the Flint River March tournament, but only time will tell.