how to blindly get 100 inches and still not win
Well, the grass is mowed.
Clothes are washed.
Caught up.
Also, my kayak motor is repaired…
..after I found myself going in circles as I launched at Lake Guntersville on Saturday, so I pedaled, as fast as I could to secure a location where I had found good fish on Thursday. Good Fish!!!
I realized (after a panic to get to my spot and catching my breath) one of the clips that holds it straight had broken. Problem 1 solved by just tying it off for the day.
Then lines in…in the spot where I had caught high eighties just cruising through two days before…and nothing. Cast after cast where I had caught 18’s, 19…lost one…in about thirty minutes….nothing. Forty-five minutes later, I finally snagged a 15 inch fish. Then I accepted problem 2; my fish had moved on. Dang it.
I moved to a spot to fish history, I had caught some 15’s in practice, and caught zero. Moved to spot three and finally caught a 17 two hours and twenty minutes in. Then a 19 twenty minutes later. Then nothing else.
I went back to my first spot, a 5 minute ride with the motor. Nothing. Dang it.
15 minutes away was a spot where I had caught one or two in years past, nothing pre fishing…but I had nothing else. I was moving around a dock, four and a half hours in (with only three fish) when I – totally focused on beating the underside of the dock to death and accepting that I had zero chance, maybe not even a limit – when I found my face full of fishing line and a voice going “WOAH!”. I had been lost in the effort to find a couple of small fish (to at least get a limit) and rounded the corner into a dude fishing. Problem three…solved because he realized what was happening and raised his rods out of the way, and untangled me. Dang it…that was a first.
Finally thinking what the hell and today is lost, I moved on after apologizing a thousand times and made a random cast at a minnow that has surfaced. It was in the middle of seemingly nothing, but the wind was blowing into the area.
15+ incher.
Then a few casts later, another 15+ incher.
In a spot I would never fish in the way I was getting bit, I made random casts in a circular motion and culled up with some 18’s and my first 20+ of the day.
Then it stopped. I stayed a good time longer with nothing, so I moved back to spot number two to find a bass boat running through it with the motor trimmed up creating havoc over my one foot deep area. Deep breaths.
I rolled under a culvert, but Ethan Jett was there, so I left. it was high noon, and I was out of options, and almost out of time. So, in a why not kinda move, I went back to my original spot (where I NEVER catch anything late in the day) to just kill some time.
I saw two carp splashing on a tiny bit of grass, they had been doing this all around the area I was in for three days. I fished toward the spot where they were, catching a giant 6 inch fish…then I, in another why not moment, picked up a Spro frog and hit the spot. Moved it about an inch…
….21.25!
I took a picture of it with the frog down its gullet. Sent it to Bart and Raymond….yelled “Fuck Yeah”…I cast back into the same spot, really to just get a kink out of my line.
Moved it about an inch…
I had to go into the grass to get it, netting twice as much grass as fish. So much I could not pick up the net…I reached in to make sure it didn’t jump…
…21!!
For a total of 100 inches. My first 100 inch day ever…CRAZY!
And on any other lake, well a lot of ‘em – a win.
But on Guntersville – at check in I found out that Ewing Minor had set a new Tennessee Bass Nation record with 108.25 inches!! And Joseph Kirk had smashed them to get 103.25! Congrats to them, but their incredible day left me in third.
Not complaining for sure. 100 inches, sharing a house with Clarksville Friends, fishing Guntersville, the Lodge cornbread Festival…over coming several problems and getting lucky…life is truly good.
Just to share some details:
All fish were caught in two foot of water or less…most in less.
The majority, except for three fish, were all caught on 8lb Berkley Trilene, a Gamakatsu 1/0 EWG hook (only hook I use)…with a weightless Black with blue flake, Texas rigged Yamamoto Senko. The rod was a Mean Mouth custom rod from Curtis Perez. The fish wouldn’t hit it if I let it sink too deep.
The first 20 came on a Green Pumpkin JackHammer chatterbait with a Yamamoto Smallmouth Magic Zeko as a trailer.
The last two, in case you missed it – back to back casts – were on a Spro Frog – but see pic. All the info I am giving on that one.
Anyway….thanks Steve and Daniel for the awesome trail!! Always great talking with ya!
Topwater Moon 