Winning A Sportsman Club Tournament At Lake Oconee

This five pounder was big fish and helped me win.

Last Sunday, March 20, 14 members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club fished our March tournament at Lake Oconee. After fishing from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM we brought 37 keeper largemouth longer than 14 inches to the scales. There was one five fish limit and two fishermen didn’t weigh in a keeper.

My five at 12.68 pounds won and I had a 5.04 pound largemouth for big fish.  Raymond English had four weighing 9.40 pounds for second, Wayne Teal placed third with four at 7.68 pounds, George Roberts had four at 7.22 pounds for fourth and Niles Murray placed fifth with four weighing 7.13 pounds.

Will Mclean fished with me and we started on a grassbed I had a feeling would produce a fish. It did, I caught a keeper and a short fish on a swim jig within a few casts. Then it got tough as the sun got on the water.

At about 10:00 Will cast beside a dock and got a bite but missed it. He got that fish to hit two more times, hooking a good keeper on the third bite. 

My next fish hit my shaky head worm near the boat and when I set the hook it came flying out of the water and the hook came out of its mouth in the air.  But it fell into the boat! Some fish are just meant to be caught.

At noon we had only those three in the livewell so we decided to change tactics. We went to a small main lake cove from the small but bigger creek where we had been fishing.  It had deeper water and was closer to the main river.  I hoped this would mean more fish had moved up from their winter homes.

On the point of the cove a deep brush pile produced my third keeper, one that just barely touched the 14-inch line on the keeper board.  Then my fourth keeper hit my shaky head out from a small grass bed inside the point.

Will got his second keeper off the next grass bed then we both caught some throwbacks.  Going into the cove I noticed a waypoint on my GPS and remembered there were some rock piles out in 12 to 15 feet of water. A few casts to them produced a couple of short fish then a two-pounder hit my shaky head. I had a limit at 1:00!  But with the bare keeper I figured I had only about seven pounds.

I cranked up and went across the mouth of the cove to go around it again and saw another bass boat coming. Sure enough, Zane and JR pulled up on the point I had just left and started fishing!  Will and I fished around the cove toward them and caught a couple more short fish.

When we met Zane and JR, with then on one dock and us on the next one, I cast my shaky head to the dock and a bass thumped it. When I set the hook I started yelling for the net, a big fish flashed in the water and tried to run under the dock.

A I fought it I flashed back three years to another tournament and a similar day. On another dock I hooked a big fish, pulled it away from the dock post three times and got it within a couple of feet of the net. Then my line went slack, it just came off. That fish was every bit of eight pounds.

As I pulled this fish to the top so Will could get the net under it, my hook popped out and flew over the boat. I felt sick for a second, then Will raised up the net – with the 5.04 pounder in it! Talk about a fish that was just meant to get caught.

    Will said that fish was really his, so I gave it to him – right after weigh-in.

We fished the rest of the day and landed several more short fish, and I got two more keepers on a shaky head worm.  I culled three times, including the first fish I caught that morning.