CFF 8 Report

[Bprice]

Well my day could of been better today. I think my mind was more on taking up money, getting sign in sheets, waver sheets, and trying to get everyone out of there at a decent time. Blast off ended up being 5:16 instead of 5:15, but i think thats alright.

Anyways, we started out at the Mouth of Roseberry, I caught a short on a horney toad, and Cooper had a pig break him off in the grass on a chug bug, that was a sign of problems to come. We moved onto some areas near Goose Pond that has been holding fish, and of course, they were no longer there, or at least not biting today. I decided to hit some of my favorite boat houses on Mink, and quickly put a 2 lber and a 4.65 lber in the boat pitching a 1 oz black/blue Jig with Zoom Trailer, roughly in 10 ft of water.

We headed out from there to South Sauty where I boated a short or two on an 11inch swimming worm.. I broke out the fairy wand (spinning reel) to throw some trick worms and WHAM! and there goes the drag. I thought I had an absolute hawg on, and I ended up having one, but it was just a rockfish... a pretty one at that. Too bad...

Headed out to a nice grassline in the original SS channel when things got worse. I have to manually drain my livewells, and then i can pump fresh water in, and then bye bye, the 2 lber jumped out, cleared the boat, landing in the water and swam off. Then came, "$%*# #(*#(#@^, #$%#!!! #$##!!!" Mentally my day was over then.

Went back into some areas we've caught fish, I missed a keeper on a DJW Spinnerbait, and had a 7" Black Crappie anhiliate that spinnerbait.

All in all, if I'd of stuck a few fish better, and maybe gotten away from the boat houses sooner, maybe I'd of pieced together a limit, oh yeah, and kept my livewell shut. But that 4.65 lber was my biggest Largemouth of the year so that was a good moment.

I enjoyed and glad my summer fishing of Guntersville is over. Now I can go back home to Wheeler!

It was great seeing everyone, and looking forward to the next one I can make.

 

[RangerRob]

I figured it may be better to not start a bazillion different threads under seperate topics, so maybe we can all pile in here.

First, many thanks to Bprice for hosting and coordinating his first CFF event. Everything went extremely smoothly and a very nice contribution went to the American Cancer Society.

As for the report ... Davo and I are far from experts on the G, so we basically just decided to fish to our strengths and if it looked good, we hit it. It was good enough for second loser, so I guess we did a few things right. We never got further from the ramp than about a mile. The first stop was a cut that had scattered grass. At 6:25am (5:25), Davo swung our first keeper into the boat on a DJW buzzbait. We fished thru the cut and never had much more activity, so we moved on. For the rest of the day, we targeted docks and scattered grass that combined shade and a depth between 5 and 8 feet. All fish were caught on DJW buzzbaits and T-rigged plastics - two on the BBs, three on plastic. Davo threw a variety of plastics, and I stuck with a Culprit red shad worm all day. Most of the plastic strikes seemed to occur in isolated grass, just after the bait had been shaked free of the salad. We both also swung and missed on two solid fish ... either one would have easily been state recordsemoRolleyes .

Awesome job, Tater. Too bad you're at work right now instead of celebrating your victory with Hooter's girls and fine cigars...

I had a blast with Davo today. If you ever want a good laugh, pass that dude a can of Copenhagen...

The Guntersville Curse is over. I'm never going back...

 

[Skeeter]

Had a great time today. Congrats to Tater on his good sack. BPrice done a great job on the tourny. We caught a few and lost a few, and for me that still goes on too hot to fish, too hot for golf, and just right at home.(got side tracked there). We only boated one keeper off a blowdown on a 10" red worm. We missed 3 or 4 total and Wareagle had one slick on topwater. it was tough out there but we still had a blast. I ended up with a great partner and looking forward to fishing with him again. Congrats to all who weighed-in and now lets get ready for the benefit tourny

 

[churly]

After 16 solid hours of sleep, I have decided to get up and going. Great job on the event bprice! Everything went very smoothly. I also want to thank everyone for getting in the water and blasted off at a decent time, it helped Chris and I beat a few boats from the other tourneys out of goosepond and waterfront (not that it helped our weight). Our plan was to hit 'em on topwater early in the back water and then spend the rest of the day targeting main channel grass. I started with a zell pop and chris threw the BB. 3rd cast he put our first keeper in the boat, then missed about 5 different strikes on the BB, the fish were just slapping at it,even with a trailer hook, couldn't connect. One of the fish Chris missed was a good one it was completely out of the water before it got to the bait. I missed one on the pop and 2 on the dinger. The sun started getting up so we decided to move to the main river deep grass. Chris started there with a pop-r and landed the second keeper. I followed shortly thereafter with a keeper flipped out of the grass and that was it! Chris missed one more fish on the 1oz jig but that was it. We flipped the Grass with 1-1.5oz tungsten weights t-rigged on a variety of creature baits. We also threw rats/frogs periodically. but I was very shocked that the grass mat that produced 12 keepers in 2 days for me a week ago was empty. I was very surprised to learn that the back water bite was as strong as it was. Congrats on those who weighed in good sacks! That was a toad Tater! I enjoyed meeting everyone I spoke with and looking forward to fishing with you all soon!

 

[paulj]

Thanks Bprice, great job. I had a blast. My uncle and I fished backwater the whole time. We started out throwing buzzbaits along the grass. My uncle had the first keeper in the boat with a buzzbait within the first 5 minutes. I had a nice one on a buzzbait get down in the grass and get off. My uncle caught our second keeper on a redbug worm at around 10 o'clock. The wind did not blow like it did the two days before. When the wind got around to blowing I started throwing my favorite bait the super fluke around the grass. I would throw it up on the grass pull it off the edge and pop it a couple of times and let it float down slowly. When the fish would hit it they would absolutely kill it. I caught my first keeper and our third at 12:47 on a pearl white super fluke. I missed another good fish at 1:12 on the super fluke. I caught our fourth keeper and our biggest at 1:35 central time on a pearl white super fluke. I think we had a nice day considering it was only my third time bass fishing the lake. The day before the wind started blowing earlier and we had around twenty pounds using a buzzbait in the morning and switching to a fluke and creature bait in the late morning when the wind would get up. We ended up with 18 fish and 4 keepers. Looks like my crappie fishing might suffer now that i am starting to like bass fishing so much.

Paulj

 

[ChooChooSnakeMan]

Great job Bprice on the event! Everything went smoothly. Jmax and I were torn between making about a 20 minute run down river or about a 15 minute run up river. Based upon some info he got right before the event we decided to go up river. We fished Mud and Crow creeks early. Jmax was throwing his usual top water stuff while I threw a BB, SB, and 6 1/2" culprit worm. Jmax connected pretty quick and had two keepers in the boat. While only 15 to 16" fish we were encouraged, but then the sun got on the water and the bite went away. Jim caught a few more non keepers and I was not having any luck at all in the back of the boat! We were fishing the edge of the channel and grass mats and had plenty of company in Mud creek. We decided to try Crow creek and after the short run futher up river pulled into Crow and I thought something must be wrong. There was not a single boat in Crow creek when we got there. We fished for a couple of hours and only saw a couple of boats. We also noticed that no one had parked at the ramp beside the highway. I noticed that the grass in Crow looked kind of brown and wondered if maybe it had been sprayed? That would explain the lack of fishermen and activity in Crow. We saw very little baitfish action or any kind of surface activity at all. Anyway, in desperation I broke out the finesse rod and spinning reel and started to catch some fish. I caught a couple of shorts before landing our third and last keeper of the day from a shady spot in very shallow water up in Crow creek. The "CFF bass professor" --- otherwise known as Polo-dog had suggested that we go fish the steam plant. It seemed like a good idea so we went EVEN further up the river. There was plenty of current at the plant and as soon as we saw the barge tie-ups I started to get excited. I love to fish current with barge tie-ups and rip rap with my finesse baits. I manged to catch 4 more short spots before we decided to leave and head back and get close to the weigh in area. The wind had got up by then and we had a long run to make. I really appreciated being in Jmax's Ranger. We could make good speed even in the rough conditions and not get too beat up! Our total for the day was 12 bass caught with 3 keepers that weighed a little less than 6 lbs. It was a hot tough day for us, but it was a good day to be alive and fishing! One piece of advice I'll give to anyone fishing with Jmax --- avoid any spray coming off his trolling motor -- at least when he first gets up on plane. Don't ask me why --- just take my word for it -- or PM him and maybe he will tell you!!!! I always have a great time fishing with Jim. It was good to see everyone and congrats to Tater and friend for the win. Davo you did good to break the event curse for RR -- good job guys. We can all be proud we raised $400 for a very worthy cause.

Everyone have a blessed week!

 

[Davo]

Ok, I haven't posted because RR pretty much summed it up. I went down there last Thursday to locate some fish for us, but alas, didn't even put a fish in the boat. I did find a decent spot but that was it. Anyway, RR and I decided that since we had no idea where to fish we'd hit the place I talked about and then just fish. Well, about 5 minutes after blast off I had our first keeper on one of his Buzzbaits. At this point I'm sure he was thing, "Dang, good choice having Davo as a partner, 6:25 and already 2.5-3lbs in the boat", well I'm sure that those thoughts quickly went away. (BTW, RR's wife made us some killer banana bread and I'm sure that gave us the needed energy boost to catch more fish). Ok, we were still within sight of the ramp and decided to fish the docks that everyone blew past. Had some bites and a dink or 2 on a floating worm, then nothing. We headed out after a large school of fish busting the top, but naturally, they vanished when we got there. So we went back to the docks and RR starts putting fish in the boat. I will take credit for calling the first one LOL, heck I was even front ending him and he's catching fish. Around this time he breaks out some Copenhagen, well, it's been years since I've had any tobacco so, being the real man I am I ask for a dip. 3 minutes later and I'm about as loopy as they come, I honestly thought I was gonna fall out of the boat. REAL MAN. Most of the fish from the docks came in around 6 ft with shade and or grass. RR was using Culprit worms for the most part and I was chunking all kinds of crap. We decided to hit the docks on the other side, looking for slightly deeper water. Pulled up and noticed that the water was not deeper, actually it was shallower. Being kinda lazy we just started fishing. I hooked a good fish on a worm, however I barely hooked it and it came off. See my new book, "How to Not Win Bass Tournaments". Shortly after I make several casts to a grass bed, nada, then RR makes one cast to it and catches our best of the day. I must have warmed it up. 2 or 3 casts later he set the hook on a car or something because it didn't budge, but no hookup. We just continued fishing the bank, picking up a fish here and there. We culled a fish, which actually took us a very long time (of course he had given me another dip just before this and I was slightly off again). About 15 minutes to 3 I set the hook on a real pig and all I got back was some frayed Spiderwire (mental note, check your stupid knots periodically). I really wanted to catch a fish on a rat, they just didn't want me to. Anyway, thanks for the great Tx, great time, and again, I had a great partner. Oh yeah, that heat sucked, in case none of you guys noticed.

 

[TritonCarl]

Thanks Bprice for putting on the tournament. It was good to meet a few of the people on here, almost meet cutthroat a few seconds after blastoff as he got washed off a wake towards me, my partner may could have given him a high 5!!!

Burger and I were both debating about starting out at the mouth of Roseberry and since hardly anyone stopped, we decided we would start there. Started kind of slow, TONS of activity but none wanted to bite. Finally burger got one a fluke, our biggest of the day, unfortunately he died on us, but it sure wasn't from lack of trying on our part. Next, it was my turn, caught one on the ol' horny toad, luckily I didn't miss this fish as I saw the 'v' approaching my bait from a few feet away. Burger got another one on the fluke. 3 keepers by 7 am and I was feeling good....surely we could get 2 more by weigh-in time to finish out the limit, but we didn't catch another keeper the rest of the day. We spent the rest of the day swimming worms and flipping the grass btw. grasshopper and seibold with no luck. All in all a good day and enjoyed sharing the boat with Burger. Carl

 

[Burger]

I enjoyed the tournament and meeting new people. I'm ready for CFF 9. Just let me know and I'm there. I've always wanted to get up to Nick and Chick!(cool names). Whats the fishing like at Nickajack anyways?

 

[HangnMoss]

Congrats Tater/Todd.

My report is elsewhere, just wanted to apologize for bowing out shortly after the weigh-in. I drove down Saturday morning on three hours of sleep and wasn't looking forward to the hour and a half drive back. I was a bit anxious to get on the road because FishinTenn drove down the night before, meaning I had no one to knock me in the head if I started dozing at the wheel.

Really enjoyed the tournament and putting names to faces.

 

[HangnMoss]

Burger - 7/17/2006 2:37 PM

I enjoyed the tournament and meeting new people. I'm ready for CFF 9. Just let me know and I'm there. I've always wanted to get up to Nick and Chick!(cool names). Whats the fishing like at Nickajack anyways?

Well let's see... I went to Nick the day after the tournament and it was just like being on Guntersville Saturday! Lots of grass, too hot, and the fish weren't where I expected them to be. We caught a few, but nothing worth talking about. The lack of current this year has made this a tough summer for me.

 

[Bassin' Machine]

Started the day in Rosberry and had our first and only keeper before 7am on a spinnerbait. Ended up running up river to jones and mud creek with no luck there and eight thousand people fishing there. Ran down river towards goose pond and fished some weedlines with jigs and grubs.....had a few bites but missed 'em. All in all, had an outstanding time. A rough day of fishing is still a good day. Wish I could have had a day like I had earlier in the week with 2 2.5lbers and one 3.5lber on spinnerbaits and Rat-L-Traps, but conditions were different and I didn't adjust for that, which was just ignorance on my part. Should have fished where the fish are....Anyhow, it was a great time and I can't wait to do it again.

 

[MadBomber]

Brandon,

I don't know if you read my post on the live well drain valve. But your story inspired me to install it. It's in the fishing tips & tricks section.

Alan

Sorry, folks, I meant to PM Brandon.