Top Six day one

Monday - April 4, 2011 - day 22

Georgia Bass Federation Top Six
Lake Hartwell April 4th and 5th
Water 56 - 67, WINDY, cool to cold, sunny both days.

A little wind and clear at blast off. I was in the last flight, boat
18, so there were a lot of boats ahead of me. Ran down to the small
creek where I had hoped to catch some fish and there were already two
boats in the back of it.

We started fishing a steep bank where I had caught fish in the past
but nothing hit. Jumped across the creek and fished a jig head lizard
on some brush, then threw up on a boat ramp and got a hit. Landed a 13
inch keeper - one in the boat.

One of the boats in the creek left and the other one worked on out
toward us.

We kept working the banks and my partner got a good keeper on some
shallow brush on a worm, then I got a hit on a Texas rigged Baby Brush
Hog. Set the hook and my drag slipped - had the reel cleaned and
forgot to check the drag. Lost the fish, did not get a good hook set.
A little later my partner got his second keeper. I had one come off
that might have been a keeper, it jumped and threw the jig.

At noon we still had the three in the boat. Worked all the way to the
back of the creek and I got a small keeper, just 12 inches long, on a
chatter bait. Water was stained in the back. On the other side my
partner said he saw a fish turn at his spinner bait and threw back and
caught a keeper, said the one he saw was bigger. He cast back and got
another keeper in the same area. I had not cast to it but he said cast
in there and I did, and hooked and landed a solid 3.5 pounder.

In a cut in the bushes I got my fourth keeper, another solid 3.5
pounder. Then my partner got a four pounder, then a 3.5. We kept
working the area and I got another good keeper and he caught some
more. By one pm we both had limits.

We fished the area hard but no more bites. We were a long way from
weigh-in and the wind had gotten real bad so we wanted to leave an
hour to get back - took only 20 minutes to get down but did not want
to have to push it in the wind. Just before we left, as we worked out
of the creek, my partner got another keeper, making seven for him,
and culled one.

We made the run easily and stopped on a windy point my partner wanted
to fish near the weigh-in. He got a keeper spot that culled again and
I missed a fish on a jig head.

At weigh in I had 10.86 and he had 10.78 - we were told everything
from we were in the top 15, in the top 30, in the top third of the 277
fishermen. Went back to the cabin and got ready for Tuesday and ate
supper.

During the night there were bad storms, wind woke me up shaking the
van and thunder woke me a couple of times. No damage, luckily.

Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com