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.

Sounds like it was a grrrr8 outting Ronnie. It was fun reading it. Judy and
I are headed up to the upper Penn. of Mich tomorrow night. Gonna go chase
some smallies on a secret river. Will report back to ya.

--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear

Great day together and a great finish.Way to go!
Were they pulling water on Oconee that day Ronnie?
"Ronnie Garrison" wrote in message
...
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.

Bass_Mr. wrote:
Great day together and a great finish.Way to go!
Were they pulling water on Oconee that day Ronnie?

No, there was no current at all. That hurt the deeper bite, I think.