Tim's Ford Monday 12-12-11

Saturday Morning tourney (12-3-11)...

The weather was perfect today, so i decided to try my luck with the Fate Sanders boys (by myself). We blasted off at 8 am, and I ran to a flat off of a bluff just upriver from Fate Sanders. I caught 3 quick short largemouth on the little Shad Rap and then I hooked a good one that ran straight under the boat. The fish flashed right under me, and it was a solid 3 lb class bass. As usual, the spinning rod / buggy whip offered no assistance in keeping the fish out in open water. She ran under the boat and promptly came unbuttoned- argh!

I then ran to the next bluff upriver where we had caught them last weekend. The fish were nowhere to be found, so it was decision time. Run downlake and try to catch 5 keeper spots or run upriver and go for broke? I opted to run down and made the long run to the Elm Hill bluffs where Billy and I had caught a few the week before. I only managed one small keeper Spot here, so I started heading back up lake. I eased over to Suggs to continue fishing a jig on the bluffs. I landed a fat 14" large head and that was it.

I moved down to a transition bank across from Hole in the Wall island and proceeded to catch 5-6 fish here. Of course I lost the biggest spot while fumbling for the net, but I did add a 13" keeper Ky bass here.

I moved to the Long Hunter State Park area and caught the biggest keeper of the day here- a nice 3 lb largemouth that whacked the jig.

I fished around Bryant's Grove and Jones Mill, but the largemouth I landed were just shy of 15". I ended the day back on the joggle bluff past Fate Sanders and with 10 minutes left I pulled a nice 14 3/4" fish over the rail.

I ended the day with 3 keepers for around 5 1/2 lbs, so I threw them back and put her on the trailer. If I'd have landed the two other keepers, I would have had around 9 1/2 lbs- oh well.

For the day I caught around 12 fish and enjoyed the nice weather.

Tight lines,

RBK

Thanksgiving weekend- Percy Priest...

I was off Friday, so I met Billy Harris (visiting from NC) at the ramp around 6 am. We planned to fish the Saturday am tourney together, so Friday was about practicing and locating some fish and / or a productive pattern.

We started near the Weakley Ln bridge and Billy caught a keeper spot off the bat at the end of the bluff on a jig. We eased down past the ramp and chunked shad raps on the flat. We caught 5-6 short fish here. Next, we ran to the next bluff heading upriver, and we caught a couple more on a jig, but no keepers. We decided to run down lake and fish our way back. We caught a bunch of small spots and smallmouth on the point past Long Hunter and the bluffs at Elm Hill. We ended the day back on the bluffs just up from Weakley Ln, and we found our pattern- "joggles" on the bluff walls. We landed four more keepers here, and at 2 pm, we headed home.

Saturday, we put in at Stewarts Creek, and we scouted the area before heading over to Fate Sanders to register. We decided to start back in Stewart's, but no luck, so we headed up to the Weakley Ln area. We struggled early, but I was able to land 3 keepers on the joggle pattern by around 10 am. Due to the honking south wind, we scrapped our main lake gameplan. We would bounce around upriver most of the rest of the day, and we caught several short fish but no keepers. With time running down, we ran to a bluff just down from Fate Sanders to finish the day. Billy caught our fourth keeper, a 12" spot with 15 minutes to go.

We ended up with 6 1/2 lbs which was good for around 12th out of 40 boats. Fun weekend all in all. The 25 MPH south wind really hurt our chances to contend on Saturday.

RBK

Big G Alabama Riggin- Saturday, Nov 12 2011...

I headed down to Guntersville Saturday to try my hand at the perhaps the biggest lure craze to hit the bass fishing world since Mr. Creme invented the plastic worm. The new bait is called the Alabama Rig (really just a castable umbrella rig). Ever since Paul Elias and most of the top 10 smashed the bass on Guntersville three weeks ago in the FLW event, it has been a mad scramble by lure designers to make them and a feeding frenzy among fisherman to get their hands on some.

I found mine by calling the owner of Sworming Hornet Lure Company in Georgia, who supposedly had a good replica of the original, and I wouldn't have to wait 6 weeks to get them. Since the 5 bait version is illegal in TN, I needed to go to AL or KY to try it out. The wind was going to be considerably stronger in KY, so I opted to head to Big G.

Here's a quick run down of the tackle set up:
7 1/2 ft extra heavy Allstar Flippin Stick
Large capacity Curado 200 6.3:1 reel
65 lb Power Pro braid
Sworming Hornet Swarm castable Umbrella Rig (Ark Shiner head- pictured above)
(5) 3/8 oz Big Hammer Hammerhead jig heads
(5) 4.5" Strike King Shadalicious swimbaits - a real key is to glue the baits to the head.
Two items I did not have with me that I would recommend are velcro tennis shoe soles to keep you in the boat as you try to sling this awkward deal 30 yards into the wind and some Ben Gay rub to apply to your wrist and shoulder when you finish. This rig is not for the faint of heart or those with soft tissue injuries in the upper half of their body.

Since I knew most of the fishing pressure on Guntersville is usually mid-lake to Goose Pond, I opted to head down to the town of Guntersville. I launched the boat at the public ramp in Big Spring Creek and ran out to the deeper bridge heading toward the main channel. My friend Russ who finished 3rd in the FLW event at G'ville gave me a good idea of what to look for (big balls of shad suspended in 15 ft over 30 ft in the creeks). I idled under the bridge, and just as I cleared the pilings the screen lit up with huge clouds of bait 12-18 ft down in the 30 ft channel- perfect. I put down the trolling motor, and began lobbing the chandelier.

I stayed on the shad balls in Spring creek for 2 hours, but I never had a bite. I did watch another boat catch a 5 lb class fish on the other side of the bridge, so I was on the right deal. I decided to move down to Brown's Creek to try the same pattern, and it was obvious that there were shad in the creek due to the hundreds of sea gulls working over the creek channel. I ran to within 100 yards of the bridge and started idling back out toward the main lake. The creek channel ran from 22-30 ft deep, and the shad schools were everywhere on the graph. A fish would break the surface every now an then too. I felt pretty sure that this was the place. I kept on the trolling motor and threw at every shad ball and breaking fish I saw. I stayed in the area for an hour and a half, and I caught three nice hybrids but no bass. The bite on this rig is fantastic. It reminds me of a smallie crushing a spinnerbait at night.

Next I ran up to Siebold Creek to see what I could find there. I idled around in the mouth of the creek in the deeper areas and found a few shad schools, but I never had a bite. It was almost lunch time now and I needed to regroup. I trailered the boat and ran up to Waterfront for lunch. Due to the number of trailers at the ramp, I opted to drive up to Comer Bridge and fish up there for the second half of the day. One funny sight when I was driving north- when I drove over the North Sauty bridge I looked down, and there were five boats lined up within 40 yards of the bridge, and they were all slinging the rig toward the pilings.

As luck would have it, I met a local guide when I stopped to use the restroom in Scottsboro. He said that he had caught 30 bass on Friday on the A-rig in the Comer Bridge area. He told me about a secondary channel that runs under the bridge on the West side of the river and suggested that I fish there. I easily found the ditch and started firing the rig thru the deepest part (9-12 ft). I landed my first bass and a double in the first 30 minutes. I worked my way north on the ditch and was able to catch 5 more bass before I left around 3 pm.

I never caught the big fish that Big G and the A-rig are known for, but it was a fun day, and I learned a lot about the new technique. I'd say any time that the fish are on a shad bite and hey are deeper than 5 ft, the A-rig will be effective.

Tight lines y'all.

RBK

Saturday, 10-29-11- Mike's Sat am tourney- Priest...

I decided to fish the weekly tourney out of Fate Sanders today. The day started a bit crazy. First, I left my tackle box at home, so I had to turn around and hustle to Smyrna to make it on time. Next, when I got to the ramp at Stewarts Cr, my GPS unit would not operate, and considering the fog bank I launched in, I would have a tough time getting across the lake to the take off. I asked another fisherman if I could follow him, but when we got out in the channel, his GPS cut out, so it was now the blind leading the blind. After 45 minutes of idling in circles, I finally found my way to the marina. Chris Meyer, my partner and highschool classmate, had already checked us in, and since the fog was so thick they started us late anyway.

We idled to the back of the cove at Fate Sanders to fish and wait for the fog to lift. I pulled up on a random bank, and on about the 10th cast with the squarebill, wham, fish on! It was a nice 3 1/4 lb largemouth- bonus fish for sure. We stayed in the cove for another hour, and I landed keeper #2 on the Fat John- a nice 15 1/2 " fish. We also caught three or four short fish in the area.

At about 9:45 the fog lifted, and we raced up the river. We spent an hour and a half up the forks looking for a bite to no avail, so we ran back down river to a flat where I had caught them schooling the week before. The shad were stacked in there, and the fish were chasing them. We caught five or six fish in the area including a nice 17" fish that was tricked by the Red Eye Shad. Chris caught a 12" spot on a rattle bait too.

The fish shut off around 2 pm, and we had to be in at 3:30 for weigh-in. We headed back to the starting spot, and I caught a short fish right off the bat, but that would be it for the day.

We weighed in our four keepers, and they totalled 8 1/2 lbs, which was good for second out of about 30 boats. We missed first by 1/4 lb to a tough local team.

We needed one more keeper, but it was a fun day, and we got a little folding money out of the trip ($260).

See you soon. Tight lines!

RBK

KY Lake last two weekends 10-15 and 10-23-11...

I headed over to the TN portion of KY Lake the last two weekends to try my luck on some largemouth:

Trip 1- Two weeks ago, I woke up late and had a leisurely morning in Nashville. The kids were both away, and the wife had to work on a school project. What is a boy to do?- certainly not watch the Vols get destroyed by LSU. I was hesitant to go due to a recent back injury, but the idle time combined with the perfect Fall weather was too much to take. So, around 9:15 am, I hooked the Bee up to the Landcruiser, and I was West bound on 40. I arrived at Big Richland Creek around 11 am, and I decided to try to pick the creek apart and resist the temptation to run around.

I idled out in the back 1/3 of the creek, and I started looking for bait and hopefully fish chasing them on top. There was bait everywhere on top in the back of the creek, but there was hardly any schooling activity. After idling around near the marina for 20 minutes or so, I decided to move out to the mouth of the Little Richland arm where I have had a lot of success in October before. It was fairly obvious that this was the spot, as three bass boats were weaving in and out of the cove chasing the schooling action. There was one adjacent area that was not being fished, and I figured it would be a likely place to catch a bigger bass (chunk rock and pea gravel bank with a decent depth change that sat closest to the creek channel).

I eased up on the flat within casting distance of the gravel bank, and I just waited. Within minutes fish started herding schools of small threadfin shad up against the rocks. As soon as it would start, I would lob the 1/2 oz Red Eye Shad into the chaos. They wouldn't bite it every time, but when a fish would hit the rattle bait, it was a good quality keeper. I caught four off of this bank, and lost two more. So, after an hour, I had four keepers for around 11 lbs. The fish quit chasing the bait against the bank, so I needed to figure out how to catch them.

In the past I had had luck in the same area on a small jigging spoon in open water, so I eased out toward the channel (100 yards or so from the bank) and the graph lit up with balls of bait and fish. I caught a variety of fish including white bass, yellows, and skipjack. I also hooked three keeper largemouth (only landed two). Of course the one I lost was over 4 lbs! I now had around 13 1/2 lbs on my best 5. The schooling action all but died in the cove around 1:30, so I decided to run south to check a couple of other spots.

I started in the Eva area, but the low water had moved the fish from the shallow pockets where they had been. I then ran across to Trace Creek to see if the fish were still in the first third of the creek. I could not find any bait or fish, so I ran back to Richland to see if the schooling action had resumed. I caught a few more white bass and skippies on the spoon, but it was clear that the easy pickings were gone. At around 4 pm, I put her on the trailer and headed home.

Trip 2- A friend of mine who has a house in Richland Creek called me during the week to see if I might want to go back to KY Lake on Sunday. His boat lift was out of commission, so we would need to trailer my boat. I was happy to take him, and I was confident that we would have some success. We put in at his private ramp on the other side of the creek, and we headed straight to the cove at the head of the smaller creek arm where I had caught them the week before. We pulled in and the shad were flipping but the only fish chasing were whites, so after catching three or four of them, we decided to move.

John suggested a flat across the creek with a couple of subtle ditches running out from the bank. He said that the ditches had some stumps on them, and he had done well here in the past. I set the boat well out off of the bank in about 5-6 ft, and we started combing the flat with rattle baits. Sure enough, when we got to the two little drains, I caught two nice keepers in the 2 1/2- 3 lb class on the Red Eye Shad. He suggested that we stay on the flat and keep moving toward the creek mouth. When we got down to a couple of private docks, I landed our third and fourth fish, and one of them was another solid keeper. We now had 3 keepers for around 8 1/2 lbs. We decided to run back to the schooling cove where we started.

The fish were not chasing bait up on to the gravel bank like the week prior, but the activity had definitely picked up. The white bass, skipjack, and an occasional largemouth were tearing up the shad. We landed ten or so whites, and I then I made a few casts toward the rock bank just to check it. I hooked a solid 3 to 4 lb bass here on the rattle bait, but he came unbuttoned half way back to the boat. We trolled out off the bank to try for the suspended fish in deeper water. I quickly nabbed two keepers on the 1/2 oz War Eagle spoon, so we now had our limit of around 13 lbs. As it had done the week before, the bite seemed to die, so I decided to make a run North to check another creek where I had done well in the past in October.

We made the 20 mile run to Hurricane Creek, and the shad were in there thick. There was occasionally schooling action, but it was hard to coax the fish into hitting. It was probably a timing issue, as I knew they were there with all the bait (and boats) in the creek. I did manage to catch a solid keeper on the Red Eye, and it probably would have culled our weight up by half a pound or so. It was now around 1:30, and John needed to run into Waverly to grab a prescription, so we headed in and drove back to Nashville.

It was an almost identical trip to the week prior, and I had a lot of fun. I did not uncover a pattern capable of winning any money, but it's always satisfying to catch a limit.

Until next time,

RBK

F3 Classic KY lake 10-1-11

Headed over to the big pond this morning for our first ever year end Classic. 5 boats made the trip, and it was going to be a nice Fall day, EXCEPT....15-25 MPH North winds and we were on the back side of a major cold front.

Oh well, enough for the excuses. We took off at 6:30 from New Johnsonville, and since the main channel was rolling with 3 footers straight out of the North, we cut our run down significantly. We ducked into the creek that houses Pebble Isle Marina, and since Noah had located some fish at the mouth of the creek, I eased back a ways inside the creek to stay out of his way. I was chunking a 5/8 oz Yozuri Rattle Vibe in chrome TN Shad, and the fish were there and willing to eat. I caught the fist club keeper in the area, and then I proceeded to hook and lose three fish in the 3 lb range in the span of 30 minutes- Ouch! I also caught 5-10 short fish.

We kept banging around in the creek until around 8 am, and then we followed Noah over to the creek channel that leades into Eva. He had a good little stretch in there, but I fished one other area, with no luck. It was really too windy to fish most of the places I wanted to hit there, so we ran back to Trace Creek. I was able to add club keepers number two and three here. David nabbed a nice 2 lb keeper here on a shallow Bandit crank too.

The wind was so bad by now that we very few options. It was around 10 am, and I decided to seek shelter and finish out our day on the south side of the hwy 70 bridge near the ramp. It was protected from the wind, and it turned out to be a good decision. David caught another 2 lb keeper here, and I was able to finish out my limit by 11:00. The fourth keeper would win the big fish pot for the day. It was a chunky 18" largemouth that smoked the Red Eye Shad. I also lost another 3 lb class fish on a worm. I probably lost 12 lbs of keeper fish on the day, and I should have weighed in 15 lbs.

We checked in at noon, and I won the Classic with 7.7 lbs and also took the big fish money.

It was anoter fun year with F3, and I was happy with my consistency (just missing quality bites most of the year).

RBK