Decent June Tournament - for me

One of my clubs fished Lake Oconee Sunday for our June tournament,
fishing from 6:00
AM till 3:00 PM Fortunately it was misty rain and cloudy until about
2:00, then it got like a
steam bath. I was wetter from sweat after weighing in the fish at 3:00
than I got from the rain that
morning. Water temps were right at 81 degrees on the surface and there
was a little breeze, but
not much.

My wife Linda decided to fish with me - the third tournament she has
fished with me in the 31
years I have been club fishing. Both clubs I am in allow you to bring a
guest to a tournament -
they are a competitor just like you but get no points. They do get any
cash they win.

We had to leave home at 3:45 since it is about 1.5 hours to the lake and
I needed to stop and get
gas, and since I am the tournament director I like to arrive about 30
minutes early to collect fees
and get my boat in the water.

We took off at 6:05 - last boat out since I am tournament director - and
I headed to a favorite
deep point about five miles up the lake. Linda did not like the mist in
her face and finally turned
around backwards. It was about a 5 minute run and as I approached the
point I saw running
lights from two boats on it. I peeled off and went to the next point in
the direction I had planned
on fishing. I was hoping the two boats would move on and I could check
it out - there are some
rocks there most people don’t know about.

I stopped at a dock just inside the point and grabbed a spinnerbait. My
second cast to the dock,
right in the middle of the boat slip, produced my best bass of the day.
A 3.54 pound largemouth
grabbed the spinnerbait and Linda netted it - fussing that she had not
even picked up her rod yet!

We fished around that point and into the next cove and found a good
Mayfly hatch. Bream were
hitting them as they fell in the water. That was what I was looking for
and I picked up a Pop-R -
have caught a lot of good bass around Mayfly hatches on it.

While I was throwing the Pop-R Linda threw a #5 Shadrap. She caught two
bluegill and two
channel cats and I landed one bluegill on the Pop-R. We both caught
short bass. Size limit at
Oconee is 14 inches. I could not believe there were no keepers there.

We kept fishing that area and catching short fish. That was a pattern -
we landed about 30 bass
that day and I measured about 10 if them that were close, between 13.5
and 13.9 inches long. Fun
to catch but they don’t count.

About 7:30 I noticed there were no boats on my favorite point and we ran
around to it. We
caught several throwbacks there and I got a 16 inch keeper off the
seawall on my spinnerbait.
There were a lot of short bass on the rocks. They would not hit until I
threw a drop shot to them
- this is where I learned to fish that rig - and I got hit on almost
every cast for about 10 casts.
Linda caught a few on a Texas rigged worm.

Linda said she needed a break so I ran to the marina across the creek.
While she was inside I
pitched a Mag2 worm to the gas dock and the line jumped after the worm
hit bottom. I set the
hook on a 15 inch bass. She could not believe it when she came back out.
9:30 and I had three
keepers. We fished all around the marina and some good docks near it,
finding another great
Mayfly hatch but no keepers. Linda landed another channel cat, a couple
of bream and several
short fish and I got several shorts, too.

Just before 11 I headed back to check out the rockpile, hoping some
bigger fish had moved in.As
I idled toward the rocks another boat pulled up on the next point, so I
turned and went to the
point across the cove. I did not want them to see me fishing the
rockpile. I cast my Mag2 worm
to the dock there - real shallow, about two feet deep, and as soon as it
hit the water in the middle
of the boat slip it started sideways. I landed my second biggest bass,
close to 3 pounds.

My great bass fishing skill was showing. Four keepers in the livewell -
and three of them from
places I had not planned on fishing. I no longer get upset when a boat
is on the spot I want to fish,
seems I catch more on accidental places than my picked spots!

When the boat left we got back on the rocks and Linda got a 16 inch
keeper and we got a bunch
more short fish. At 12:30 the lake was getting rough from pleasure
boaters so we headed down
the lake, hitting some deep points and docks. About the third point I
hit something grabbed my
Carolina rigged Trick worm and took off, but pulled off. I got the worm
rigged again and got the
boat back in position and as soon as I hit the ridge of the point I got
another bite. This fish just
touched the 14 inch line so he went into the livewell. Finally had a limit.

We hit several more points and docks. Pretty good day so far, then it
went sour. With about 20
minutes left to fish I cast to a dock and thought I felt a thump. When I
set the hook my new Team
All Star rod broke at the first guide up from the handle. Broke so bad
it also broke the 15 pound
PLine I was using. Will never know if it was a fish or the bottom I hooked.

That kinda deflated me. I got a fantastic deal on that 7 foot rod and a
Pflueger PresidentLP reel at
the Georgia Outdoor Writers Association spring meeting. Really liked
the outfit - great for
pitching worms and had also used it for jerkbaits. Caught a 3 pound spot
at Lanier in my May
tournament there, and got three of my best fish at Lake Weiss, including
a 4.25 pounder, in the
other club two weeks ago, on that outfit. I wondered if I had damaged
it since I had used it and
landed several good fish without it breaking. Seems like a defect would
have shown up earlier.

We went in at 3 and I set up the scales. Linda was saying she had only
one fish and I had five, but
at least hers was bigger than my smallest two. Most guys had two or
three fish, of the 16 people
we had 6 limits and two zeros. My five weighed 10.35 and gave me
second. Guy that won had
five weighing 12.25 and had big fish at 3.57 - 3 hundredths of a pound
bigger than my best. That
was worth $80 - kinda ended the day on a bad note.

I will take a day like that any day, though. Linda and I stayed busy
getting bit and catching fish -
she never stopped casting all day. She got a little mad when some guy
in the club asked her how
she caught her bass, dragging something behind the boat? He has no idea
she has a 8-10 and a
7-10 on the wall, the bigger one hit a trolled plug, but the 7 pounder
she caught at night on a
plastic worm. The first two tournaments she fished with me I finished
3rd and she finished 5th
and she had second biggest fish in one. She can hold her own - but the
11th place finish was
disappointing. The guy that won, his partner had one fish, too, and it
weighed 1.71 pounds -
Linda’s weighed 1.72 pounds!

Not a bad day. I finished second at Weiss three weeks ago with a two
day catch of 10 bass
weighing 22 pounds and am in first place for the year in both clubs.
Hope I can hold on to that.