Dropshot
Well-known member
What a day! Less than 12 hours after finding a huge concentration of fish TVA dropped the water and everything changed. Couple this with a much delayed blastoff, hurricane winds, competitors waking in a marina to outrun you to a spot, and the constant bickering and whining that is the CFF and you have what is called the CFF Tournament Trail. We got a much later start than anyone wanted. I am not going to try and figure out all the reasons, but something was done differently than the last two CFF touirnaments out of Serodino, where we had little problem. With that said, we should have taken off 30 minutes sooner than we did.We then blasted off and run up river to get to our first spot only to find a Kayaker with 5 fishing rods sitting right on the point we were targeting. We decided to start fishing some shallow grass and I caught five small bass really quickly on a fluke. Finally I hooked a good fish on a creature bait only to pull in a five pound drum. Once our Kayaking friend moved we got on the point, but the lower water and wind played a huge role, with us only catching three small fish on a texas rig and a drop shot. We finally abandoned the plan and tried to find an area with some better fish. Caught our first keeper on a creature bait and then hooked a large catfish in the 15 pound range. Finally moved again, and Dusty caught our second keeper on a creature bait in 12 Foot of water. Caught several more almost indentical fish when Dusty hooked a large fish in the 5 pound range that jumped and spit the hook. We then went through several small fish before moving one last time to behind the marina, where Dusty caught our final keeper. As one last stab in the heart, Dusty hooked another large fish bigger than the first one that came off that after a short fight came off in almost the same manner. All fish caught on fluke, creature baits, jigs, and crankbait. Caught total of 19 fish, but could not boat a large bass to give us the bump we needed.
