Last Sunday at West Point for me was like the Herman’s Hermits song “Henry the Eighth” “Second verse, same as the first” refrain. I ended up almost dead last in the tournament, but at least I did catch a limit.

    In the Spalding County Sportsman Club February tournament at West Point 15 members and guests fished eight hours, from 7:30 AM – 3:30 PM.  We landed 65 keeper bass, mostly spots longer than the minimum 12-inch limit and a few largemouth longer than the 14 inch limit.  There were 13 five fish limits but two fishermen did not weigh in a fish.

    Lee Hancock repeated his win the week before with five weighing 10.88 pounds and had a 4.48 pound largemouth for big fish.  Doug Acree came in second with five weighing 10.65 pounds, Raymond English was third with five weighing 9.45 pounds and Glenn Anderson came back from a zero last week to place fourth with five at 9.45 pounds.

One of the fishermen that zeroed had boat problems, a live well hose leaked and almost sank his boat so he went home. The other zero said he was fishing behind a “vacuum cleaner,” meaning his partner caught all the fish. Reminded me of me last week, but I was in front of the boat!!

    I started out pretty good, landing a good keeper spot before 8:00 AM then caught short fish and another barely keeper spot. I put the small spots in the other livewell. Since there is no size limit on spots they are legal to keep under 12 inches, but club rules require them to be 12 inches long to weigh in.

    Small spots 10 to 12 inches long are easy to filet and are delicious when fried, baked in mustard/parmesan crust or just baked with a little lemon.  I was able to keep five after the tournament, a couple of them just over 12 inches long, since I didn’t weigh them so there was not penalty for not releasing them alive.

    After catching those three early I tried several places Robert caught fish last week but never had a bite. I don’t know if there were no fish there or they just would not bite for me again. Many of the places I wanted to fish had other fishermen already fishing there. At noon I still had the one decent keeper spot and one barely weigh-in size in the boat.

     A little after noon and stopped on a bank where I have caught fish in the past this time of year.  I saw a small stick just above the water, cast a jig to it and got a bite but missed it. I did feel more brush under the water but it was only five feet deep.

    The next two casts to it resulted in two more missed bites. Then I caught six keeper spots, a keeper largemouth and several short spots in the next 20 minutes!  I had put the spot lock down on my boat and the trolling motor keep the boat in one place while I caught nine or ten fish!  All hit a small jig or shaky head worm.

    That was it, in never got another bite. And my weight of 7.21 was good for only 12th place!