got out early to run some topwater, caught 8-10 on a buzzbait up the bank and even saw a some shad spawn activity. no bigs but still fun. throttle cable broke and spent the next 2hrs idling back to the ramp and graphing ledges for fish ;)
went down to fish the ABA out of marion park. made the run up the river, threw a buzzbait for a couple of hours, caught a limit of small spots and had one good largemouth bite that didnt come in the boat. i had spent some time looking at the mapping and marked several places i wanted to look at for off shore fish. took off down the lake and dont think i made a cast for almost 2hrs, just riding and looking. finally found a little hump that had a few fish on it. caught a keeper largermouth fairly quick on a spoon and then nothing. got my times mixed up, ran back to ramp only to find out i had another hour. ran out and fished the i-24 bridge columns going across but only caught a drum. ran back to the little hump and finally got another bite but this time on the ned. hadnt retied after getting it hung in the rocks around the bridge and broke off the fish....ugh!!! ended with 7+ and in the middle of the pack, 16+ won
fished the monday evening derb out of chester frost, looked at a few places on the way down from soddy, no real groups of fish, just scattered here and there. startedon the swimming pool hole but got no love, jumped over to a point that had some scattered fish on it but still no love. went to a ledge that also had some scattered fish but had a TON of bait around. first cast i caught a 4+ on a spoon. beat around for a while without any love, repostioned the boat and caught a couple of little ones on a spinnerbait. put the boat back where i started and caught another 4+ and lost one that felt pretty good shortly after. and that was it. ended up with 9.20 for 2 fish for 2nd place and big fish. 9.30 won! side note, found a 6-8 white perch in my livewell afterwards that was spit up by one of those fish, wouldve won the tournament for me................smh
went up to fish with a buddy, this is the earliest ive been up there. amazing weather for this trip friday: water temps high 40's, fish agressive prespawn, eating jerkbaits, swimbaits, a-rig in 10-12'. caught 70+ fish before we lost count saturday: early in the day fish still agressive got worse as day went on, ended up catching some up shallow late in the day, most on jerkbaits, caught 40+ before we lost count sunday: water temp had warmed significantly, combined with the fulll moon i think a bunch of fish made the move and had love on thier minds instead of eating. still managed a few a little deeper with the jerkbait. went shallower and caught a few more on a jerkbait. was a great time!
went up to fish the aba open series, hadnt been to watts barr since last year. decided to run marinas and see if i could come upon a shad spawn. well that never happened, caught one on a swim jig from a marina and one on a buzzbait out from under a dock. did catch a couple of shorts on buzzbaits, flipping docks and brushpiles. ended up with 2 for 4+lbs, took 10 1/4 to win. was won on a shad spawn in grass.
fished the toyota series on chick and really didnt do well. went into it trying to win and the big bites i had been getting turned into catfish. i could go the the bank and catch fish but they were small and not the fish to win. the deep/ledge fish just hadnt showed up. the winner was apparently fishing isolated stuff in mid depth ranges
fished the monday night derby(6-9pm), ran around a little before looking for fish, saw a few scattered on a couple of places. ran tot eh first and couldnt get a bite, ran 2 the second place and caught the 3 we weighed on moving baits, tried other stuff but couldnt get bit. kept moving, went up shallow getting close to dark and caught a couple of shorts. with 15mins to go i hooked one over 5lbs on a chatterbait and lost her at the boat......ugh! that would have given us the win and big fish. oh well. took 8+ to win and 3.94 was big fish(congrats Eric).
fished til 10am, ran around looking for some fish that had moved out already, didnt find them. flipped a handful of docks in a pocket and missed one. ran into a big creek, looked through one pocket and saw a few males on beds but there was another boat in there so i left. fished around some stumps but saw some scattered grass clumps on 360 and LIVE in the area. caught one 3+lber on a lipless around the grass but didnt get another bite before heading in.
went over to fish the bfl on Norris, started the day around a bridge and caught a couple of short smallmouths on topwater. started running the back 1/3 of pockets winding a wake bait around and caught a couple more shorts. continued to run this pattern til noon or so. meanwhile the guy i was paired with had a limit and was working on culling throwingh a ned around behind me. at 1230 i basically became a choufer and started driving him around to where he wanted to fish. he ended up culling a couple more time and barely missed a check. i didnt catch a keeper all day.
my buddy Gray made the drive up from ATL to fish the monday evening derby with me, i felt bad that he fought the traffic to get here and we didnt catch a single keeper! we fished the back thirds of spawning pockets with a wake bait(me) while he fished a jig around. we caught 3-4 short fish during tournament hours. decided to stay out a little longer and fish another stretch. i caught one more short and lost one the might have been a keeper on a chatterbait. didnt hear what it took to win but there was an 8+ weighed in.