brutal tournament....

[carolina-rig-01]

well we all talked over the past week or so about my upcoming tourney so i thought i would give the results even though i am not proud of them.

started out by running to my pea gravel point where i caught my biggest fish while pre-fishing. i was expecting my fish to be off the ledge on the main lake side as this is the closest deep water and this point had neither sun nor wind on it yet. sure enough just like clock work i started graphing fish 30 -35 feet deep in 40 feet of water. i tried dropshotting them and couldn't buy a bite. i finally caught a short on my homemade jig, the next cast i had one hit my jig while it was falling but couldn't hook up.

i didn't want to leave my fish, but knew this point would be better with a little wind and sun. so i made a short run to a bank that i found some fish a few weeks earlier. couldn't get bit here at all either. i threw a rogue, pointer, dropshot, jig, and wiggle wart (crawdad color wiggle warts are hard on bass populations when it comes to table rock).

with the wind picking up i made a longer run, for those of you who know table rock i ran from cape fair ( back of james river) almost all the way to kimberling city. i had an island with timber that i know had fish on it but the wind was howling here and it was almost unfishable.

with the wind picking up and the sun shining bright i thought now is my chance to pick the first point clean. so i pinned the ears back on the mercury and headed back upstream in 3' white caps. when i got to my point there was a kid with his grandpa on the bank of my point throwing rocks and shooting a bb gun into the water. so i mumbled a little string of cuss words and headed for a bluff end that i had a little faith in. there was a lot of cedars on this bluff end and i was graphing fish 15-20 feet deep. so i started throwing a lucky craft pointer 100dd. with the wind at gail forces i had a bite and didn't know it. i went to jerk the bait and he was there. an awkward hookset and he stayed with me long enough to feel a few head shakes and then he was gone. again another string of cuss words.

ended up being 4 fish weighed in and a lot of people didn't even catch any shorts. it was just flat brutal!