At West Point on Sunday 16 members of the Sportsman Club fished our June tournament from 6:00 AM until 2:00 PM. We landed 29 keeper bass weighing about 47 pounds. There was only one five-fish limit and three fishermen didn’t catch a keeper.

Kwong Yu won with three largemouth weighing 7.80 pounds. My four bass weighing 7.56 pounds was second, third was Raymond English with five at 6.83 pounds, Javin English was fourth with four at 5.89 pounds and Chris Davies won big fish with a 3.93 pound largemouth.

I was surprised at the number of largemouth weighed in. West Point is full of spotted bass and they are usually fairly easy to catch, but not Sunday! There were 12 largemouth brought in and four of them weighed over three pounds each.

Jordan McDonald fished with me and I had a very frustrating start. Nothing hit any of our baits at daylight the first place we stopped, a hump where I can usually catch a lot of spots as it gets light. The second place we tried Jordan got a nice largemouth but that was the only fish we caught on that rocky bank and point, another place where we usually catch a bunch of spots.

At 9:00 we were headed to the fifth place we wanted to fish when I noticed current moving at the bridge we went under. Current usually makes the fish bite, like it did at Bartletts Ferry last month, so I pulled in to a nearby point. Although we could see a big school of baitfish with bigger fish under them down 16 to 18 feet deep on the point they would not hit anything we tried.

After 30 minutes of trying to make them hit crankbaits, worms and topwater I got out my dropshot rig. That rig is a four inch worm on a small hook about 12 inches above a one-eighth ounce sinker tied on eight pound test line. You drop the rig to the bottom straight under the boat, keep the lead on the bottom, raise your rod tip to make the worm suspend and jiggle it slightly. Bass will often hit it when they won’t hit anything else.

I felt a slight weight as I jiggled the worm and set the hook, and yelled for the net. I could tell it was a good fish. I usually catch smaller fish on that rig but this turned out to be a 3.56 pound largemouth. We stayed there and thirty minutes later I got another hit and landed a two pound largemouth.

After another hour on that point without any more bites we tried another point. I missed a bite on a jig head worm then caught a keeper spot. Some fish were hitting on top out over deep water and I thought they were hybrids, but Jordan cast a jerk bait to one of them and landed a keeper spot.

After fishing that place and getting no more keepers we went to another point. As we fished it I saw more baitfish with fish under them, again down about 15 feet, and let my dropshot worm down to them and caught my fourth keeper, another largemouth.

That was it for the day. We tried several more places, including going back to the place I caught the first two, and the fish were still there but still would not hit.

Fishing can be tough right now and it is hot, but I would rather be fishing than anything else I could do!