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I’m a believer in the wind now
I reunited with an old high school mate that is a fishing fanatic like me and he agreed to fish the USA Bassin tourney with me, since my usual partner was entertaining a friend this weekend. My partner and I thought the river would be crowded today with the wind blowing, so we made up our minds yesterday that we were going down lake and start on wind blown points that have been producing. After a bumpy ride, we reached the first point and I pulled out the umbrella rig and he was throwing a 1/2 oz spinnerbait. Fish were hammering the a-rig first thing, but they were hitting the dummies. After about 10 minutes my partner tells me to get the net. He had a 3 lbs smallmouth that wanted to go for a boat ride. We fished on around the first point into the adjacent pocket and he says…get the net again. This fish had his rod bent double and we just new it was a monster smallmouth…nope…5 lbs hybrid. We fished on around the bank without another bite. We idled back to the point and started around again. I picked up my sexy shad trap as we went across the point and into the cove. All of a sudden something about jerked the rod out of my hands and the fight was on. I fought the fish for a good 2-3 minutes and it finally came up…6 lb hybrid. We decided we would head to another spot that produced a couple of keepers last week. We fished around with no luck and we started down the bank there was an isolated stump and I flipped a camo colored jig on that stump and one slammed it. I told my partner to get the net. As I got the fish to the boat he decided to make a run under the boat. I let him have some line. As he came out from under the boat, my partner went to net him and missed…hitting the fish and knocking him off. Keeper #2 would have been a 3.5 lbs largemouth. We fished on around the pocket and point and decided We should go back and try the first spot again.
We pulled up on the point and I let my partner have the trolling motor while I tied on a jerkbait. Next thing I know he is yelling get the net…I have a toad. Sure enough a 4.5 lbs largemouth rolls up and goes for a boat ride with us. We follow the same patter as earlier and I catch a few short fish on a trap. As we start down the adjacent bank…I hear the all too familiar…get the net. This time a toad smallmouth rolls up and goes for a ride with us. it’s 11 a.m. and we have 3 very good fish in the boat, so spirits were high. At this point, we figured we had beat that point and pocket to death so we ran behind 4 corners. As we get to where the oldrock wall runs out…guess what I heard…get the net. A +3 lbs largemouth joins his buddies in the livewell. We continued slow rolling spinnerbaits down and over the rock wall and picked up another short fish. It’s nearing 1 p.m. by this time, so I told my partner I knew where we could get the 5th keeper. We saddled up and headed to ski cove in Stewarts Creek. The last few weeks, the left bank at the front and right bank in the back have been lights out. I had confidence that we would pick up the 5th keeper in a short period of time. We ran the same pattern that has produced countless keepers the last two weeks and didn’t even get a sniff. By this time, we had to pack it up and head to the weigh-in. We ended up finishing 4th place with 15.31 pounds. Had we picked up the keeper from the morning we would have been right at 19 pounds and finished 2nd, I believe. All in all bites were hard to come by for us, but when we got a bite…it was the right one. With the exception of the 1 mistake, we fished clean all day.
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12 Replies
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Great stuff !
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awesome report!!! good job guys!!!!
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very nice,great job!
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Thanks guys
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Glad you did well Krogers! I did alright myself.
Our tournament didn’t start until 7am out of Long Hunter, so I’m sitting in my boat in the no wake zone at safe light watching all of these boats head down lake 🙁 . Needless to say I’m about as anxious as I’ve ever been. I knew the bite had been tough and with blue bird skies in the forecast I knew Priest wasn’t going to give up its fish for very long. At the blast I headed straight down lake to find a boat on a main lake point I wanted to fish. I pulled into a nearby area and started fishing secondary points. I was looking for points and deeper backs where I could catch them on spinnerbait and shad raps. After 2 stops we didn’t have a bite. Finally, on the third point, we found them. On the first cast with a jig my partner catches what would end up being big fish of the tournament, a 5lbs largemouth. A couple casts later I catch our 2nd largest fish, a nice 2.75lbs largemouth. Immediately after that my partner catches a 17″ smallmouth. Shortly after that I follow it with a 15″ largemouth. In the span of about 10 minutes we went from 0 to 3 keepers weighing about 9-10lbs. Not a bad start. (We need to make TWRA reduce the smallmouth size limit by the way. How ridiculous is it to put back a 17″ fish in a tournament? I understand, maybe, 18″ on Dale Hollow or even Center Hill but everywhere else it should be 15″).
The bite died as quickly as we found it. After a short time we went to other points on the lake and other deep sloping banks in creeks and pockets throughout the down lake area. I’m not really familiar with down lake so I was just pulling up the map and going to a spot. Every spot we stopped we caught 1 fish and then it would die. We couldn’t catch another keeper anywhere. Finally at 12:30, I looked at my partner and said “On a day like this, with 2 more good bites we could win some money. Let’s go back to our comfort zone.” We packed up from NASHVILLE SHORES and drove all the way to STEWARTS CREEK with just 2 hours left to fish. Boy, did it pay off! Within 15 minutes we boated keepers 4 & 5. We finally had our limit. We fished the rest of the time in Stewarts Creek with a couple more short fish.
All in all a very fun day. That’s two weekends in a row I’ve got a check on Percy Priest. That’s very rare for me. The crazy part? Both times I did it mostly down lake! We ended up with big fish and lost by just a pound.
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Nice job. I am growing fond of the area north of Hobson Pike. I have had two of the most memorable days on that lake from Hobson Pike to the dam. I can’t wait until they move out deeper because I have found some spots down there that should be lights out.
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Nice Fish everyone and Congrats..’
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quote Krogers79:Nice job. I am growing fond of the area north of Hobson Pike. I have had two of the most memorable days on that lake from Hobson Pike to the dam. I can’t wait until they move out deeper because I have found some spots down there that should be lights out.
I’m glad you have. I just don’t fish down there much. I don’t really know what I’m doing down that way. You talked about fishing points (which is what we did). I’m wondering if I’m fishing them too closely? When I cast, my lure nearly hits the bank of the point. I bet I’m too close.
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I can tell you that all of the fish we caught on the points were right on the bank or maybe 15-20 ft off. A couple of times, you would crank the bait three turns and they would hammer it.
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Good work guys!
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quote Krogers79:I can tell you that all of the fish we caught on the points were right on the bank or maybe 15-20 ft off. A couple of times, you would crank the bait three turns and they would hammer it.
Well that’s what I was doing. Guess I was doing it right. I mean we caught fish but that bite died very quickly. Yall found big fish everywhere it sounded like. We found one big one and some good decent fish in one spot but nothing like what you had.
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The one point where we did really well has been producing for a couple of weeks now. It replenishes very quickly it seems. Our bodies paid the price for making that run and then fishing in that wind all day. When we started I had the nose of the boat into the wind so I could keep us off of the point but I had water coming over the front of the boat, so I quickly moved us out and let the wind push us across the point. There were other spots we intended to fish, but the risk vs. reward of making the additional run to the dam wasn’t worth it. When I finally hit dry land that afternoon, my legs were honestly weak. My back and knees are still sore. 🙂
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