Georgia Top Six

The Georgia Bass Chapter Federation Top Six tournament was held on
Lake
Seminole on Monday and Tuesday, March 19 and 20. I went down on
Thursday
afternoon for three days practice. In practice I caught two
throwbacks, one on a
Senko under a dock and one on a crankbait up the river. My partner on
Saturday
did get three good keepers off a place Pam Martin Wells showed me
several years
ago for a magazine article.

Seminole is a big shallow lake on the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers.
The dam is
in Florida and part of the lake is in Alabama. Both rivers are
channeled for barge
traffic but there are huge stump and standing timber areas. Two other
main creeks.
Spring Creek and Fish Pond Drain, enter between the two rivers. The
area they
enter is huge shallow flats miles wide and long covered with stumps
and hydrilla.
The banks are lined with pads and other grass. The average lake depth
is 9 feet.

On Sunday at the drawing my partner for day one was one of the Georgia
Peaches -
our female club. I got her name - Susan Dameron - on Sunday but did
not find out
until Monday she was from Chattanooga and is "Sunshine' on the
Chattanooga
Fishing Forum. She said her club was not really on fish and I told
her I had one
place to fish. I was impressed when she said she finished 14 on the
WBT last year -
I figured I would be beat from the back of my boat. Several years ago
I drew Lesley
Krauss another Georgia Peach, and she beat me.

My club team got together after the drawing and shared what we had
found. I
showed the team where I planned on starting and told them to join me -
there is
hundreds of yards of creek channel, hydrilla and stumps to fish.
Roger, another
team member, showed us where he had hit three good fish that morning
in some
pads on Senkos. He was fishing Fish Pond Drain about 5 miles from
where I
wanted to fish. He said join him, there were pad beds for a half mile
on both sides of
the creek.

Susan and I took off Monday morning in the icy air - we had global
warming all
over our boat on Sunday morning, a solid sheet of ice - the tomato
farmers had
already planted thousands of acres of tomatoes in south Georgia -
don't know if
they survived. Anyway, we were held about 15 minutes because of fog
on the lake.
We took off from the Bainbridge Boat Basin - about 30 miles up the
Flint River.
We were boat 50 of 72 in the first flight with two more flights behind
us - sun was
just trying to come up and there was a good bit of fog.

Running down the river it was a little scary knowing there were more
than 150 boats
behind me, most headed in the same direction. We had to slow several
times for fog
when I lost sight of the boat ahead of me and noticed their wake was
coming
together - figured I was getting close. I was afraid to take my eyes
off the water
ahead and could not look at my GPS - missed one channel marker and had
to make
a hard left before running into stumps.

We got to Wingates cut - a channel dredged between the Flint River and
Spring
Creek at Wingates Lunker Lodge. Jack Wingate is fairly well known in
bass fishing
and a legend in that area. We took the cut since it was cold -
usually you can run
down to the mouth of the Flint and then run up Spring Creek pretty
quickly but it
was cold and I wanted to fish near where the cut came out. It was fun
running the
cut - you can run about half of it and it is like a 20 foot wide ditch
with 4 feet of
water, running through the woods. You have to idle about half of it
where is makes
some turns. We met one boat headed the other way and managed to pass
without
spraying each other.

We came out on Spring Creek and went to the area Pam showed me - a
series of "s"
bends in the creek channel near the bank. We had to idle about 200
yards through
the stumps - the boat channels have nothing to do with the creek
channel, it is just
where they cleared stumps. Fish hold along the edge of the 20 foot
channel and
move up to spawn - there is hydrilla from the place where the water is
16 feet deep
to the bank. I started throwing a red Trap and tried a lot of other
stuff, so did Susan.
We started up shallow in the shade, the sun was still low, but no
bites.

After about an hour I was dragging a Carolina rigged lizard and almost
took it away
from a fish, thinking it was in hydrilla. I was on the edge of the
channel casting
parallel to it. Managed to land a 2 pound bass and Susan did a good
job with the
net. One in the livewell.

After about two more hours without a bite we decided to run down to
Rogers spot.
He had described it and we ran up the creek to where I thought was
right. We
started throwing Senkos - I was using Red Shad with a red hook - and
letting it
settle to the bottom about 3 feet down in the dollar pads. I did pull
mine away from
a fish thinking it was on a pad stem and Susan missed a bite on our
first pass.

We turned and went back across this pad bed. It was a small shallow
cove filled
with pads and I stayed on the outside edge. On this pass I got a
solid 2.5 pound
bass, then on the next pass got a 3 pounder. Susan got one keeper. I
felt better with
three in the livewell but told Susan not to mention getting a limit.
Bad luck!

Roger came by and he had four keepers and his partner had one. He was
fishing
further up the creek and was headed out to the stumps where he had
caught good
fish in the past. He came in 2nd in a BFL two years ago here and had
big fish in the
BFL the year before, all in the stump fields near the mouth of the
creek we were in.

Susan and I kept working the area and I got two more and filled my
limit. We
stayed, hoping to get her some more fish and I was hoping to cull, I
had two pretty
small fish. Roger came by headed up the creek and I tried to wave him
down since
we were catching fish - figured he could finish his limit, but he did
not stop. He had
almost two hours more to fish than we did since he was in the last
flight. After he
came by I got a decent fish that culled my smallest, and I figured I
had about ten
pounds

I thought it would take us about 30 minutes to get in and our check
in was at 4:00
so at 3:20 we started packing for the run. I cast my Senko out and
took care of
something - kinda embarrassing with Susan in the boat, but when you
gotta go you
gotta go - and felt a fish when I picked up my rod. Landed a fish that
culled my
smallest - in my head I was thinking I had a pretty decent catch,
about 11 pounds.

We took off at 3:25 and ran out of the creek all the way to the Flint
channel, running
about 65 mph on the GPS. At one point Susan's hat came off but
luckily it landed
behind her on the deck and did not hit the water.

Hit the river and turned north. As we ran I realized we were pushing
the time limit -
there was not a boat in sight ahead or behind of us, a bad sign. I
ran from 60 mph in
the turns to 67 in the straight sections. We hit a no wake zone a few
miles down the
river from weigh-in - I had planned on running it if there was less
than ten minutes
left but we hit it a 9 minutes till. After a five minute idle we took
off and got to the
check in boat very last in our flight - with less than two minutes to
spare. If we had
gone back for Susan's hat we would have been late!

When I took my fish out of the livewell I told Susan they were better
than I thought.
My five weighed 12.92 and the weigh-master said I was in third place.
Got excited
then realized there were still 288 fishermen on the water. Got back
to the
campground and later a team member in the last flight came by - said I
was in 5th
out of 432 fishermen! Roger had got his limit and had about 8
pounds.

I was pretty excited while tying on stuff and getting ready for the
next day. Slept
pretty good. Headed back to Roger's hole first thing and he was
already there -
flights switched, I was now in last and he was in first. He had two
and his partner
had one - and my partner got a small keeper pretty quickly. Felt good
- there were
fish here again.

At noon Roger came by and said he had got a four pounder off the bed.
I started to
look for bedding fish but don't have much confidence it my ability. I
missed one
bite and caught two throwbacks. That was it. I zeroed. Dropped to 27
place - two
places out of the money. I may get over not being able to catch a
keeper when I
really needed it but probably be a LONG time.

I guess I needed a little "Sunshine" in my boat on Tuesday.

Roger had 6 pounds on Tuesday and ended up with 14.5 and 19 place. I
had 13.42
with bonus ounces. My club finished 10 out of 72 thanks to Roger.
Roger was the
only one of us in the club to get a keeper on Tuesday, we had one zero
both days
and two with one fish, one with two fish.

Good read, Ronnie. Sounds like some awesome-looking water -- so much good
cover that it's hard to get the fish concentrated. Good job.

Joe
---------------
"Ronnie" wrote in message
oups.com...
The Georgia Bass Chapter Federation Top Six tournament was held on
Lake
Seminole snip

Thanks for the story Ronnie. Your descriptions bring back lots of memories
of Ol' Sem, I used to fish there every spring and never figured that place
out. We always did have a good time and caught some fish, but my fondest
memory is the day I sat behind the counter with Jack Wingate for a while and
just listened to him expound on how "it used to be". He truly is a legend
in those parts and a member of the Fishing Hall of Fame.


"Ronnie" wrote in message
oups.com...
The Georgia Bass Chapter Federation Top Six tournament was held on
Lake
Seminole on Monday and Tuesday, March 19 and 20. I went down on
Thursday
afternoon for three days practice. In practice I caught two
throwbacks, one on a
Senko under a dock and one on a crankbait up the river. My partner on
Saturday
did get three good keepers off a place Pam Martin Wells showed me
several years
ago for a magazine article.

Seminole is a big shallow lake on the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers.
The dam is
in Florida and part of the lake is in Alabama. Both rivers are
channeled for barge
traffic but there are huge stump and standing timber areas. Two other
main creeks.
Spring Creek and Fish Pond Drain, enter between the two rivers. The
area they
enter is huge shallow flats miles wide and long covered with stumps
and hydrilla.
The banks are lined with pads and other grass. The average lake depth
is 9 feet.

On Sunday at the drawing my partner for day one was one of the Georgia
Peaches -
our female club. I got her name - Susan Dameron - on Sunday but did
not find out
until Monday she was from Chattanooga and is "Sunshine' on the
Chattanooga
Fishing Forum. She said her club was not really on fish and I told
her I had one
place to fish. I was impressed when she said she finished 14 on the
WBT last year -
I figured I would be beat from the back of my boat. Several years ago
I drew Lesley
Krauss another Georgia Peach, and she beat me.

My club team got together after the drawing and shared what we had
found. I
showed the team where I planned on starting and told them to join me -
there is
hundreds of yards of creek channel, hydrilla and stumps to fish.
Roger, another
team member, showed us where he had hit three good fish that morning
in some
pads on Senkos. He was fishing Fish Pond Drain about 5 miles from
where I
wanted to fish. He said join him, there were pad beds for a half mile
on both sides of
the creek.

Susan and I took off Monday morning in the icy air - we had global
warming all
over our boat on Sunday morning, a solid sheet of ice - the tomato
farmers had
already planted thousands of acres of tomatoes in south Georgia -
don't know if
they survived. Anyway, we were held about 15 minutes because of fog
on the lake.
We took off from the Bainbridge Boat Basin - about 30 miles up the
Flint River.
We were boat 50 of 72 in the first flight with two more flights behind
us - sun was
just trying to come up and there was a good bit of fog.

Running down the river it was a little scary knowing there were more
than 150 boats
behind me, most headed in the same direction. We had to slow several
times for fog
when I lost sight of the boat ahead of me and noticed their wake was
coming
together - figured I was getting close. I was afraid to take my eyes
off the water
ahead and could not look at my GPS - missed one channel marker and had
to make
a hard left before running into stumps.

We got to Wingates cut - a channel dredged between the Flint River and
Spring
Creek at Wingates Lunker Lodge. Jack Wingate is fairly well known in
bass fishing
and a legend in that area. We took the cut since it was cold -
usually you can run
down to the mouth of the Flint and then run up Spring Creek pretty
quickly but it
was cold and I wanted to fish near where the cut came out. It was fun
running the
cut - you can run about half of it and it is like a 20 foot wide ditch
with 4 feet of
water, running through the woods. You have to idle about half of it
where is makes
some turns. We met one boat headed the other way and managed to pass
without
spraying each other.

We came out on Spring Creek and went to the area Pam showed me - a
series of "s"
bends in the creek channel near the bank. We had to idle about 200
yards through
the stumps - the boat channels have nothing to do with the creek
channel, it is just
where they cleared stumps. Fish hold along the edge of the 20 foot
channel and
move up to spawn - there is hydrilla from the place where the water is
16 feet deep
to the bank. I started throwing a red Trap and tried a lot of other
stuff, so did Susan.
We started up shallow in the shade, the sun was still low, but no
bites.

After about an hour I was dragging a Carolina rigged lizard and almost
took it away
from a fish, thinking it was in hydrilla. I was on the edge of the
channel casting
parallel to it. Managed to land a 2 pound bass and Susan did a good
job with the
net. One in the livewell.

After about two more hours without a bite we decided to run down to
Rogers spot.
He had described it and we ran up the creek to where I thought was
right. We
started throwing Senkos - I was using Red Shad with a red hook - and
letting it
settle to the bottom about 3 feet down in the dollar pads. I did pull
mine away from
a fish thinking it was on a pad stem and Susan missed a bite on our
first pass.

We turned and went back across this pad bed. It was a small shallow
cove filled
with pads and I stayed on the outside edge. On this pass I got a
solid 2.5 pound
bass, then on the next pass got a 3 pounder. Susan got one keeper. I
felt better with
three in the livewell but told Susan not to mention getting a limit.
Bad luck!

Roger came by and he had four keepers and his partner had one. He was
fishing
further up the creek and was headed out to the stumps where he had
caught good
fish in the past. He came in 2nd in a BFL two years ago here and had
big fish in the
BFL the year before, all in the stump fields near the mouth of the
creek we were in.

Susan and I kept working the area and I got two more and filled my
limit. We
stayed, hoping to get her some more fish and I was hoping to cull, I
had two pretty
small fish. Roger came by headed up the creek and I tried to wave him
down since
we were catching fish - figured he could finish his limit, but he did
not stop. He had
almost two hours more to fish than we did since he was in the last
flight. After he
came by I got a decent fish that culled my smallest, and I figured I
had about ten
pounds

I thought it would take us about 30 minutes to get in and our check
in was at 4:00
so at 3:20 we started packing for the run. I cast my Senko out and
took care of
something - kinda embarrassing with Susan in the boat, but when you
gotta go you
gotta go - and felt a fish when I picked up my rod. Landed a fish that
culled my
smallest - in my head I was thinking I had a pretty decent catch,
about 11 pounds.

We took off at 3:25 and ran out of the creek all the way to the Flint
channel, running
about 65 mph on the GPS. At one point Susan's hat came off but
luckily it landed
behind her on the deck and did not hit the water.

Hit the river and turned north. As we ran I realized we were pushing
the time limit -
there was not a boat in sight ahead or behind of us, a bad sign. I
ran from 60 mph in
the turns to 67 in the straight sections. We hit a no wake zone a few
miles down the
river from weigh-in - I had planned on running it if there was less
than ten minutes
left but we hit it a 9 minutes till. After a five minute idle we took
off and got to the
check in boat very last in our flight - with less than two minutes to
spare. If we had
gone back for Susan's hat we would have been late!

When I took my fish out of the livewell I told Susan they were better
than I thought.
My five weighed 12.92 and the weigh-master said I was in third place.
Got excited
then realized there were still 288 fishermen on the water. Got back
to the
campground and later a team member in the last flight came by - said I
was in 5th
out of 432 fishermen! Roger had got his limit and had about 8
pounds.

I was pretty excited while tying on stuff and getting ready for the
next day. Slept
pretty good. Headed back to Roger's hole first thing and he was
already there -
flights switched, I was now in last and he was in first. He had two
and his partner
had one - and my partner got a small keeper pretty quickly. Felt good
- there were
fish here again.

At noon Roger came by and said he had got a four pounder off the bed.
I started to
look for bedding fish but don't have much confidence it my ability. I
missed one
bite and caught two throwbacks. That was it. I zeroed. Dropped to 27
place - two
places out of the money. I may get over not being able to catch a
keeper when I
really needed it but probably be a LONG time.

I guess I needed a little "Sunshine" in my boat on Tuesday.

Roger had 6 pounds on Tuesday and ended up with 14.5 and 19 place. I
had 13.42
with bonus ounces. My club finished 10 out of 72 thanks to Roger.
Roger was the
only one of us in the club to get a keeper on Tuesday, we had one zero
both days
and two with one fish, one with two fish.

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 19:57:46 -0500, "Bass_Mr."
wrote:

Thanks for the story Ronnie. Your descriptions bring back lots of memories
of Ol' Sem, I used to fish there every spring and never figured that place
out. We always did have a good time and caught some fish, but my fondest
memory is the day I sat behind the counter with Jack Wingate for a while and
just listened to him expound on how "it used to be". He truly is a legend
in those parts and a member of the Fishing Hall of Fame.
I remember when Hal Fishbeck used to fry carp with matzo meal. He got
it so cheap. I would make love with his daughter in the laundry room
while his wife was doing her nails on a Sunday morning on the coffee
table. Oh........and Steve was checking his spam site for suckers.