Working Through The Kinks

When I prepped my rods for Smith Lake I imaged the different fishing situations I would encounter and tied on lures accordingly. When I arrived, the water was 10 feet higher than the last Southern Open here in the fall of 2012. That through me visually, I did not recognise a lot of areas.

With the water level nearly at full pool, the shorelines I remembered from 2012 are now ten feet under. I fished everything I knew. By 3pm I had not caught a fish, so I cut off all my anticipated lures. Then I tied on lures that I know and have confidence in. 

I started reading the shoreline and fishing more on instinct. I even found three gulls diving on bait that showed me were schoolers had been...waypoint. LOL. 

Being from Florida, deep, clear water lakes can be intimidating. But bass are bass, so don't let a little thing like 100ft of water keep you from fishing that sunken tree you find. 

It's too early to share the baits and techniques I'm using, but I will in the end. I caught one little bass..and I mean little.  

 That fish was key to start my understanding of what the fish wanted. Move around and started catching better fish. 

The homes here are amazing 

This house pictured below had its own water fall under the glass walkway!  

The  natural scenery is spectacular. Speaking of waterfalls, they are everywhere. 

 Hope you enjoyed my first practice day. 

Southern Open on Coosa River

The third Bassmaster Southern Open tournament of 2013 was held on Alabama's Logan Martin in Pell City. It was a another amazing event with water levels constantly changing.  Wow, were Coosa River spotted bass fun to catch!

Photo by BASS: James Overstreet

I missed several opportunities to do better during this event and it cost me with a 120th place finish.  Despite the poor showing, I still had the best season of my career. While not satisfied with my performance this year, I will accept the fact that 2013 was the pinnacle of my professional bass fishing career.  

Here is how Logan Martin fished:
Heavy rains during the weeks leading up to the tournament brought the water up six-feet above full pool. My initial campground was under water when I arrived on Sunday for my first day of practice so I had to scrabble and find another campground. I've learned to keep a list of all the local campgrounds and hotels for just such an emergency.  

With the high water brought muddy conditions and lots of floating debris.  The bass were trying to spawn in the 68F degree water temperatures and spawning beds were common in the shallow, backwater areas.  Largemouth bass were easily located in water two feet deep along the shorelines of coves using topwater, spinnerbaits, and soft plastic creature baits.


Aquatic vegetation grew along the shorelines and submersed plants grew in the quite coves of several creeks. Still, largemouth bass over four pounds proved to be elusive and not feeding well.

Spotted bass were doing what they do, schooling along main points of the Coosa River and in coves.  Topwater, jerkbaits, and crankbaits got plenty of bites during practice from one pound spots.

Coosa River spotted bass (Micropterus punctulatus)

Typical schools of bass fry in the shallow water creeks

By Wednesday I had two areas that held good bass, Rabbit Cove and Clearwater Creek.  They were a fifteen minute run from the launch site so I needed an early boat draw to allow me to reach my fish before the other anglers. As luck would have it, my boat number for day one was 38.

My practice weather had sunny and light winds so on tournament day it was, obviously, it was overcast.  The water management agency had lowered the lake about one foot overnight in anticipation for rain. I was able to overcome the weather change but the lower water started re-positioning the shad.  The spotted bass were roaming more over deep water (40ft) and not bunched as much up on points.  I found a good cadence for my jerkbait that caught several spots, just no big ones.  With no keepers in my livewell by mid-morning, I made a move to fish for shallow-water largemouth bass.

I motored to my best creek and quickly caught three keepers on a speed worm.  Water that was once three feet deep in practice was now only two feet deep.  While the overcast conditions kept the bass shallow, the fish instinctively knew to swim to deeper water to avoid being left stranded on dry ground. In addition, a local angler was enjoying a day of bass fishing and was doing a real good job of catching all the bass I located. So much for un-pressured fish...but wait...I saw a bass chasing bait shallow.  I threw a soft plastic fluke to the where the bait fish were jumping and a good bass eats the lure in one foot of water.  I set the hook but the plastic balled up on the hook and prevented me from getting a good hook set.  I quickly picked up my xrap hard jerkbait with three treble hooks and work the area.  Just when I was about to lift the lure out of the water for another cast, a largemouth bass about four pounds hits my lure.  I immediately noticed it hit the last hook, and just barely at that. I gently tried to play the fish but the skin-hooked bass easily surged and got away. Ouch, I knew that was going to cost me in this event.

By noon I had enough of the shallow water and decided to spend the rest of the day in deep water trying to catch the three pound spotted bass I had found in practice.  The first pass on my main point in Rabbit Cove produced two nice keeper Coosa spots that gave me my limit.  While a limit felt good, I was targeting larger bass and thought of my small limit as only by-catch.

Live blog post on Bassmaster.com 

BASS was testing out a new blog during the Open events, so my co-angler snapped a picture of my first Coosa spot in the tournament for the live blog.

I culled by ounces the rest of the day and ended with a total of five bass weighing 8.4 pounds, good for 119th place (out of 164).  I was miserable.  The four-pound bass I lost would have put me in the top 50.

BASS tournament organizers flip boat numbers on the second day to make it fair to everyone.  Since I launched early on day one, I could expect to launch late on day two.  My number ended up being boat 127, in the 9th flight.  But that wasn't the bad part of the day.  The bad part was the water was down nearly two feet overnight due to heavy rains expected in the evening of day two. That was going to hurt my shallow water bite.

I ran to the deeper spotted bass points to try and get an early bite while the water was flowing.  Spotted bass were eating, and I had a small limit within the hour on my jerkbait.  Thinking I need big largemouth bass to climb up in the standings, I moved back into my shallow water creek.  The fish had left, and I didn't catch a single largemouth big enough to cull the spotted bass I had in my livewell.  Not having time to relocate the largemouth, I started fishing every point for spotted bass on the way out of the creek. I was rewarded with a nice 2.5 pound spotted bass and a few two pounders.  Still, I knew my small limit would not help.  I fished as hard as I could trying to relocate the shad and my three pound spots but I never did.

In hind sight, the items I did not fish in my cove were two marinas.  And wouldn't you know it, the eventual winner of the event, David Kilgore, found his bass feeding on shad that have moved to those marinas.  The overcast apparently put the shad in the mood to spawn, and the only thing in the cove to spawn on was the floating docks.  I learned a valuable lesson.

My second day ended with almost the exact same weight for five fish, 8.5 lbs. The 120th place I earned was the worst of my season and pulled my overall Angler-of-the-Year (AOY) ranking from 12th to 28th. When I get focused in my tournament mindset, nothing but a win is acceptable, and I was very disappointed while driving back to Florida and reflecting on my performance.  I continue to achieve my goal of improving my fishing skills, but that does not remove the sting of knowing that I could have done better.

Now that the event is over and I had time to put it into perspective, I feel proud about a 28th AOY finish in the Southern Open level of the Bassmasters tournament trail!

I learned a lot this year and beat some prominent Elite tour professionals along the way. I walked away from the Alabama event with the best fishing season of my professional career and I already look forward to starting the 2014 season.  

Thanks for following my blog and please support our troops by helping out Kids in Support of Soldiers

Jeff

My Southern Open Recap on Douglas Lake TN

My learning curve grew exponentially during the 2013 BassmasterSouthern Open on Douglas Lake in Dandridge, TN.  

While I finished in 22^nd place and moved into 12^th place for Angler of the Year points, it was by no means an easy event.  I never found out how to catch them good using the umbrella rig so I relied on a jig fishing pre-spawn pattern.

To compete at this event we had to overcome severe conditions of both heavy fishing pressure and brutally-cold weather.  The week before our event nearly 400 anglers attacked Douglas Lake in a PAA tournament event.  That week-long derby was faced with snow and cold weather that lowered the water temperature back into the low 50s. The Tennessee umbrella rig (3-hook version) dominated that PAA event and the Southern Open anglers were frothing the water with umbrella rigs during practice.   That additional fishing pressure caused the bass to avoid the standard umbrella-rig technique.  It was not until after the event that I learned how the leaders were slow rolling the TN-rig to entice big bass.  

Douglas Lake fluctuates 40-ft in a season

Water rose 4.5 ft since I arrived

My 2013 schedule only provided me with two and a half days of practice time, so I limited myself to my best lures using my best techniques. After two days of practicing on Douglas Lake I only caught one largemouth bass at the end of the second day.  

The main lake water was 50-52F degrees and stained with a green tint. Two cold fronts had dropped the water temperature to a range that caused a massive threadfin and gizzard shad die-off.  I matched my lures to the bait size and colors, but all the predatory fish in the lake we gorging on dead shad as easy as picking grapes off a vine.   

Threadfin shad and my TN-umbrella rig to match

my spinnerbait closely matched the Gizzard shad

TN-rig caught white bass only for me

In practice I found white bass were bunched up along rock bluffs up river with deep water nearby.  I figured that largemouth had to be nearby, so I used a jig to work the rock bluff.  I caught one 2-pound bass just before my practice day ended on Tuesday.  The next day I fishing rock bluffs with my jig and caught a quick limit of bass.   At that point I knew I found a place and pattern to start the tournament on, but I knew that small limits would not compete with the leaders.  Unfortunately, I was out of time and stuck “with the cards I was dealt.” I felt I was forced to develop a stronger fishing pattern on the first day of the tournament, something every angler dreads.

Sunny weather in practice turned cold and wet during the event

Air temperature in the 30's created ice on boat decks

Not fun watching 174 boats launch ahead of you but that was my luck of the draw on day one

Did I mention the weather?  There was a warming trend in our practice that quickly dissipated when a clash of air masses brought a rainy, cold forecast for the tournament days.  We woke on the first day of the tournament with air temperatures in the 30s and a light coating of ice on the boats.  As boat #175, I didn’t launch out until 7:20am and reached my first spot up river by 8:00am.  On my first pass along the bluff wall I  quickly caught I small limit of bass before the rain started.  Then the wind blew 15mph out of the North and rain came down steady the entire day.  

The bone-chilling conditions reminded me of a Marine training boot camp.  The physical and mental processes of trying to focus and function when you are shivering, soaking wet, and cold, are the most challenging conditions for the human body to withstand.  My leg would shake every time I ran the trolling motor, my back muscles would lock up on every other casts, I couldn’t feel my toes, and tying knots as an eight minute process.  I shivered for nearly seven hours but I was able to survive the conditions by focusing on one task at a time and blocking out the cold.  Not something I enjoyed, however, I came off the water knowing that I was mentally capable of overcoming my physical environment.  The confidence I gained was invaluable!   

Anyone that knows me knows that I absolutely hate cold weather and being cold.  In a bass boat there is no where to warm up once you are wet.  My mental exercises kept me in the game and allowed me to catch a small limit of largemouth that weighted 12-7 pounds, good for 37^th place on day-one.   

Small limit of bass the first day held me in 37th place

Cold, muddy water moved in

As if there weren’t enough environmental challenges on the first day, I found totally different fishing conditions on the second day. When I arrived on my spot the next morning I was faced with water levels that raised two feet, high current flow, and cold muddy water that the rain washed in.  I fished my rock bluff for two entire passes without a bite.  I had no other fish to go to, so I was forced to figure out the bass and fish this area regardless of the fast flow and 48 degree muddy water. 

I knew the high current would place the bass tighter to the rocks so I concentrated on pin-point casts. It worked, and the first bass I landed on day-two was a little over four-pounds.  Then I proceeded to catch one or two bass every time I fished down my rock bluff.  

Bass Photographer James Overstreet captured the moment!

At the end of the day I caught a limit weighing 13-1 pounds, just ounces heavier than the previous tournament day.  My final weight was 25.8 lbs and nothing near the top leader weights, yet I was excited to see that my weight earned 22^nd place and a pay check under extremely the tough fishing conditions.  My first pay check on the Bassmaster Southern Open level and I stood shoulder to shoulder with Rick Clunn,  only loosing to him by one place!

The points I earned for the year put me in 12^th place for the Angler of the Year (AOY) race.  More than just bragging rights, the top five AOY-anglers earn an invitation to fish on the Bassmaster Elite tour, the most prestigious fishing series in the world!  What an honor that would be!

deep coves looked great but did not produce for me

Rock bluffs were the best option I found during the muddy, rising water conditions

Looking back on the event the best thing I did was move away from the shad die off to areas where bass were still actively feeding and chasing bait.  With limited practice time it is extremely difficult to catch up with the knowledge that the local angler had about the lake.  The ecosystem and habitat of each lake is unique, and understanding the dynamics is what drives me to compete at this level.  Fishing in lakes that lack aquatic plants makes me understand why anglers say bass are easier to pattern on Northern lakes.  I am finding that when a lake only contains wood, rocks, and structure drops, it seems to be easier to figure out the local fishing pattern. That kind of habitat is what I term “simple habitat”.  The more I fish the Bassmaster Southern Open trail the more I appreciate the “complex habitat” that aquatic plants add to lake ecosystems like Florida.

When I returned to sunny Florida I took a day to fish with my son-in-law Ryan on the St. Johns River.  The bass were in a spawn/post-spawn mood and we had a great time landing big bass.

Largemouth bass on St. Johns River in sunny Florida

My Son-in-law Ryan beats me with a bigger bass!

My schedule has me fishing the Florida BASS Nation State qualifier on Lake Toho May 4^th,

then heading up to the Coosa River / Logan Martin system in Pell City, AL May 12-18^th to fish the last Southern Open event for 2013.

I can’t wait to get to Alabama and catch a ton of spotted bass!    

Jeff

Bassmaster Elite Pros Top the Field at Douglas Lake

I am very proud to be a life-time member of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society (BASS), and extremely proud that BASS Elite Pros top the field on Day 1 at the Professional Anglers Association (PAA) tournament on Lake Douglas. The PAA tournament attracts the best pros of all tournament trails, and the fact the BASS Elite pros were on top supports the well known notion that BASS is the best in the business! 

As I finish my packing for my trip to Dandridge, TN  to fish Lake Douglas TN in the Bassmaster Southern Open #2,  I continue to check on lake conditions and the results of the on-going PAA event.  The water level is down about 25ft, but the lake is fishing good.  Many limits of bass were weighed-in yeasterday in the PAA event and a good number of five-pound average stringers. 

BASS Elite Pro Guy Eaker fishing Lake Douglas (Photo by FishPAA.com)

As 150 anglers ascend on Lake Douglas this week, and another 200 anglers arrive over the weekend for the Bassmaster Southern Open event, the bass fishing is expected to get tough.  The good news is that a warming trend is predicted to hit over the weekend and hopefully it will refresh the bass and get them actively feeding despite all the fishing pressure.

I'm ready to test my fishing ability as well as mental skills against a species of fish that is extremely attuned to its aquatic environment.  With sound traveling 4 times faster in water, Lake Douglas bass will know I'm coming before I ever make a cast.  Still, they are fish, with a tick for reflex striking, something I hope to exploit as part of my game plan.  

I want to thank Millers Boating Center, Triton Boats, Mercury Marine, and Power-pole for their continued support and I hope to represent them strong in this next event.  AERF, Casselberry Hooters, and Kids-In-Support-Of-Soldiers continue to be the backbone of my angling career and I always represent them proudly in my events. 

If pre-tournament excitement earned you a paycheck, I would be rolling in the money right now!              

Jeff