Tennessee Tourney

I've been posting reports on OutdoorFrontiers.com for Kentucky Lake for the
past several weeks, and AlwaysFishKing has posted on his experiences down
here and LilMule has chimed in as well. I had an ulterior motive for fishing
down in the Camden area so much recently.

You see, LilMule (an OF member and friend) asked me to fish an open team
tournament being held out of Birdsong Creek with him. After seeing all the
lily pads and our results based on the recent trips, we thought we'd at
least not embarrass ourselves. But, I hadn't fished down there since
AlwaysFishKing was here, as I didn't want to burn out the spot through
overfishing.

Awake at 2:30 a.m., and out the door before 4, I was nervous as a long
tailed cat in a room full of rockers! It didn't get any better after we were
signed in and the boat in the water. I was talking with some of the guys in
the tourney and from the sounds they were making, LilMule and I were facing
some stiff competition, and most of them locals!

We were the 17th boat out of 33 to blast-off, and it was with relief that
the previous 16 boats all headed in the direction of the main lake. I got up
on plane and did a 180, heading for our spot, less than a mile from the
marina.

Still at WOT across a shallow flat, I dodged a few crappie stake beds, a few
stumps and in the pre-dawn gloom, dropped off plane, trimming the motor up
to avoid grounding the prop, we were fishing that shallow! And actually, it
was even shallower than my last trip as the Tennessee Valley Authority dam
system had dropped the lake level close to two feet! We we were fishing in
18 to 24 inches. When I say shallow, I mean shallow!

With a Horny Toad already tied on, I began casting the edges of the pads.
Along about the third or fourth cast, LilMule and I almost peed ourselves
when the tranquility was shattered. BOOM! BANG! BOOMBOOMBOOM, KaPOW,
BANGBANGBANG! I had totally forgotten about duck season being open and as we
could see further into the huge expanses of lily pads, we realized that we
were almost surrounded by duck hunters! So now, LilMule and I really started
to wonder about our "winning pattern." I mean, we were expecting "some
activity" and we really didn't expect to have the area to ourselves, and we
knew the water would be lower, but we certainly didn't expect the water to
be almost half gone and we certainly didn't expect to share the pads with
heavily armed rednecks!

But it didn't seem to bother the bass as the first strike was from a legal
largemouth! Only 15.5 inches, but into the livewell it went, less than five
minutes into the fishing day. It was followed by another bass, a little over
16 inches, two in the box! With gun fire continuing to ring out, I continued
to put fish in the boat. LilMule was getting bit on some other frog styles,
but on one, his reel's drag failed and a good bass got wrapped around some
pad stems and pulled off. He had several other good strikes, but the
largemouth were shortstriking or getting off!

While birdshot was raining down around us a three, a four and a five pounder
(not necessarily in that order) were added to the boat. We had a limit at
7:10 By 7:15 we were culling, but only by ounces, not the larger weights we
had been getting on previous trips. When I unhooked the 4 pounder, I didn't
think the fish would survive as it was hooked right in the tongue. Sometimes
the fish will survive such a hook wound, and other times, when the hook is
removed, the blood absolutely gushes. Guess which one I had? Around 11:30
LilMule was able to cull out a 2lb, 11 oz. fish with a 2lb, 12 oz. fish that
took a 7" Magnum Super Fluke!

The bite continued right up until it was time to weigh in, and we were
catching legal fish, but catching fish weighing 2lb, 6 oz. or 2lb, 8 oz.
didn't help.

All this time, I was positive that the guys fishing the main lake ledges and
weedbeds were really hammering the fish, so while I figured we'd be in the
middle of the pack of 33 boats, I was still nervous.

I started feeling a little better talking to some of the other contestants
milling around the weigh-in. Some skunked, some had a few fish, not too many
it seemed had limits. No one I talked to had culled!

When I got the fish from the livewell, I lost some confidence again as I
found that not only the 4 pounder was dead, but also the five! I don't know
what happened there, but with a 1/2 pound per fish dead penalty, I didn't
think we stood a chance. I was assured that the two dead fish were going to
go home with one of the anglers, so at least they weren't wasted.

From my seat, I could hear the scoreperson tallying the weights. The winning
team had 17.01 pounds. I started feeling a bit better. After the dead fish
penalty, "Team Transplant" had 16.45 pounds! We had finished in FIFTH PLACE!
Not too shabby for a couple recent transplants to Tennessee who'd never
fished a tournament together, and until recently had not fished the Birdsong
Creek area!

Then on the way home, it dawned on me. If those two fish wouldn't have died,
we would have won it!!!