Saturday 9-4 JPP...

Headed out to Priest this am to do some scouting for our last club derby next weekend. I eliminated two shallow spots right off the bat, and picked up Tim at the ramp around 6:30.

We headed down lake to a small pocket near the main river channel with big rocks leading in. I hung a small spot right off on the crankbait on the point. Threw the Pop-r for about 10 minutes, but I only had one blow-up (swing and a miss). We eased down the other side of the cove toward deep water and caught two or three little spots / smallies on a worm and jig. I also lost one on a crankbait here.

Next we eased down to the end of a bluff, leading into a shallow pocket. We caught 3 or 4 down this bank, and I lost a big fish that I never saw (came unbuttoned on the crank). From here we went to a major creek further down lake and hit a bluffy bank with jigs and shaky heads. We caught a couple here including a nice 13" smallie.

From here, we eased across the lake to a 45 degree bank behind an island. We caught three or so here and missed 3-4 more bites on the jig. No size, but the spots were biting ok.

From this bank, we started heading back up lake. First stop was a deep brush pile near the bridge. Tim snagged a nice 2 1/2 lb smallie here on the rig. That was the only bite out of the brush. We idled back to a roadbed in the same area, and we missed all three bites we had here.

We threw at the bridge corner on the Hobson Pike bridge, and I lost a nice one on the jig and shook off a couple more bites.

So far, so good. We had at least gotten bites on every spot since 6:30. We banged around on a few more holes in the mid lake area, but we did not have another bite.

Monday calls for a trip to the upper end to check some stuff up there. If I don't do well up river, I feel fairly confident in what we found on the lower end.

Later-

RBK

2 Day BWS Divisional - OHL 8-28 and 8-29.....

Wow, was it tough on everyone. The fish have scattered, with the most consistent bite being schooling fish in the creeks. My ledge fish were gone.

The first day I caught two keepers on a trap in the jumps and also landed around 10 short fish. To tell you how truly crappy the fishing is, my pitiful 3.55 lbs put me in 15th place out of 36 boaters.

Day two was a disaster. The schooling fish were not eating lures well at all, and we only caught 3 or four in the jumps. My non-boater caught one decent 2 lb keeper, and I weighed in zero (nada; zilcho; nuttin honey). We caught around 15 on the day, but they were all dinks.

I ended the year in 9th place.

Here is a link to the results so you can see how terrible it really was:

http://www.abaproam.com/results/296.pdf

On to Priest for our last club deal and then the Regional BWS at Lay Lake in October.

Later,

RBK

Renegade Team Trail- 8-21-10...

I filled in for Dwayne's regular team partner yesterday on OHL. Due to the muddy water on the main channel we decided to head to the back of a major creek to see what we could find. We only had one blow up on a frog (swing and a miss) early, so around 7 am we headed out to try some ledge fishing.

We hit three ledges in the mid lake area and caught around 5 short fish, but the bait was nowhere to be found, and it was obvious that the main lake deal was not working. Backs of the creeks didn't work and out wide wasn't happening, so we went looking in the first half of the creeks. We finally settled down on a shallow point near a creek mouth, and we caught our limit of just over 8 lbs in a couple of hours- 3 came on a rattle trap and 2 on a spinnerbait. We caught around 15-20 fish on the day with 5 keepers. No big fish.

We ended up finishing 5th or 6th and just out of the money.

I didn't find much to help me next weekend in the 2 day BWS Divisional due to the muddy water on the main channel. But, I did find a decent shallow deal that may work next weekend. If I can catch 5 keepers up in the creek early I would feel pretty good about my chances of upgrading out wide.

No more practice this week. I'll just have to go with what I know and make the right adjustments next weekend.

Later

RBK

Rainy evening on OHL...

A friend of mine who lives on the lake called and asked is I wanted to fish the Tues evening tourney with him on the Hick. I was up for it, so I rushed home to get my stuff and made it to Hendersonville in time. Problem was the weather. The front that was pushing through town had stalled, and at 5:15 it was still raining pretty hard. We decided to bag the tourney since it was likely cancelled anyway. We waited the weather out, and eased out a bit before 6 pm to see what we could find.

He wanted to check a shallow rock pile near his house, so we started there. After about five minutes I hung a nice 14"+ keeper on a shallow crankbait. Fish were chasing bait here, but one was all we could catch. We moved further up lake and started dragging big worms on some main river ledges. We caught around 4 on the first ledge, with one of them being a keeper. The next ledge yielded another 4 or so fish, including a solid 2 lb keeper which bit the big worm.

We wanted to check a new ledge up-river, so that would be our next stop. We caught two fish here, and one of them was a solid 4 lb largemouth (a biggun for OHL). We hit one more ledge on the way in, but we only caught one small one here.

Not a bad result for a couple of hours on Hickory.

Next up for me is our two day Divisional for the Bassmaster Weekend Series over the weekend of the 28th-29th. I've got one more day to practice, so this weekend is important in figuring out my areas for the event.

Later

RBK

F3 tourney Sat 8-14....movin up in the points...

We fished OHL today, and it was really tough and extremely hot. I caught a club limit of 6.7 lbs including a nice 16 3/4" Largemouth. Most fish were caught on ledges in 8-10 ft on a C-rig. On the day we caught around 14 fish, but most of them were small.

I ended up in 2nd place, but most importantly, I closed the AOY gap to within 2 1/2 lbs, so it's entirely feasible that I could win the points championship in the last event on PP in September.

See yall on the water.

RBK

OHL Sat 7-31....

These are the three best from the Hick today. All were caught on ledges in 8-14 ft in mid-lake areas.

We only caught around 10 fish, but the quality was there.

Until next time.

RBK

F3 July tourney- OHL 7-24....

Met my partner at the ramp around 5 am, and we headed upriver to a main lake hump to see if we could get a couple of active ones early. No dice here, so we moved across the channel to a main river bank littered with deep wood to try to nail a big one. Only one bite here, but it was a solid 15 1/4" largehaed.

From here I moved into a creek to fish some boat slips with my little wacky worm to try to catch a quick limit of little uns. No such luck. I did nail a 13 1/4" LM here and one short fish. We messed around shallow for around an hour, but it clearly wasn't happening.

We made a long run downlake to ledge fish for a while, but it was fruitless. We burned a lot of gas and time.

Around 10:00 I decided to run back upriver to the deep wood spot from early morning. We banged around on this one bank for the last two hours, and I was able to scratch limit of "club keepers" along with a solid 16 1/4" largemouth on the big worm.

Headed in at noon with a small limit of five weighing 7.55 lbs. Apparently it was tough on everyone. Second place was 2 1/4 lbs. I won first place and got the big fish money. All in all, it was a decent day considering how tough and hot it was.

I closed the gap in the AOY standings to around 7.5 lbs with two to go. It will be really tough to win it, but I have a shot if I can catch limits the last two events or bust a big sack in one of them.

Until next time.

RBK