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Feb 26
I fished the Frostbite tournament yesterday out of Fate Sanders. Justin Armstead and I left the boat yard with around 50 boats and headed straight to Fall Creek. My hope was that the warm weather throughout the week that brought the water temperature near 60 degrees would tutn on my topwater spook bite and allow me to catch several large bass around the stumps. The temperature did warm up to 58 and stayed there all day, but the cold front that moved in kept them from coming to the surface. Nevertheless, we went into Fall Creek and idled across the very shallow flat then we turned left and started fishing. While I was casting into 1ft-2.5ft around the stumps with my spook(red and white Heddon), Justin was fishing with the Strike King Redeye 1/2 ounce red rattle trap. He was casting in the middle of the channel in 2-3ft. After 10 minutes he hooked into a good fish and yelled “get the net” as he fought her to the boat it unbutton. The next cast he had another one on that he landed around 4 pounds! Next cast he missed another one that followed his lure to the boat followed by a 2.5 largemouth! I’ll put down my spook and grab my red rattletrap as well and start casting into the channel. For the next 20 minutes we caught around 10 and had our limit by 7:40! We were tickled and excited for the start of the day and also it was Justin’s birthday! We continued further back into Fall Creek catching a few here and there with a few keepers. We had to weigh soon at 9 o’clock, so we went to the back of Fall Creek and fished the stumps, trying to get a big girl to bite, but we didn’t have any success except for a couple small spotted bass. At 8:40 we ran to Fate Sanders and they told us to format changed from last year and it was at 9:30am. So we motored across the channel to the mouth of Stewarts Creek at the right point. Water temperature there was 57 and 1 foot clarity. I picked up my SSR shad rap in craw orange color and Justin stayed with his rattle trap . We fished the shallow rocks and after 10 minutes I caught another keeper about two pounds. At 9:30 we went into the scales to weigh in 1 fish that was almost 4 pounds. As we got to the scales we found out there was a lot of big fish caught. In fact the top 3 payouts for the first hour were over 5 pounds and the last 3 payout was over 4.5lbs. So as excited as we were, there were big fish being caught throughout the lake. We knew we had to catch bigger fish so we went back to where we caught them in Fall Creek. We fished the entire Creek and caught a few more keepers, but they were not as active as they were in the morning. We moved over to Spring Creek just to fish one spot and ended up catching a couple short fish, but nothing excited. At 1230pm we headed back to the scales to weigh a 3.5lb and 3lb hoping to get one of the top 6 payouts, but again we found nothing under 4.5lbs was weighed in. This was unlike any frostbite I’ve ever fish before. Last year there were spots that they didn’t pay out because not enough fish were weighed in. The year before a 4.5lb largemouth won the whole thing and 2lb and 3lbs got checks. So it was humbling to know that the fish very active mid and down lake as we were having decent success up lake. The last two hours of the tournament we fished the big hump and point across from Bryant’s Grove boat ramp. We staying left of the hump and cast squarebill 2.0 Strike King crankbaits in shad pattern and flipped jigs(green pumpkin)…. we never had a bite. I moved into Jones Mill and fished the entire cove without a bite. Our last spot we went over to Stewarts Creek and fished the left point I like in the summer. We stayed in 4 to 6 feet of water casting to the boulder rocks. We caught one keeper about 2.5lbs. We finished out the day and headed in to weigh another 3lb and 2.5lb. Just like the last two weigh-ins I didn’t do anything at the scales l. There was nothing under 4.5lbs weighed in. So we had a fun day, but we didn’t win any money. We had about 14 to 15 pounds for our best 5 which I can’t complain about, but wish we had some bigger kicker fish that we could have weighed for some cash. I’m excited that some of the premium members were able to cash checks…. congrats to all of you. I’ll be out tomorrow to hit the stripers/hybrids and Wednesday if it doesn’t rain I’ll try to crappie all day.
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