cooperjd
Well-known member
We had our NATA tournament at Neely Henry yesterday, the Coosa River chain, putting the boats in at the city ramp in Gadsden, AL. this is my first time to fish this body of water, Friday afternoon and Saturday for the tourney. We missed 3rd place by somewhere around an ounce, and i had an 8oz. penalty for dead fish.
Friday afternoon: found a few fish on an old sunken roadbed in 8ft of water, using 4" finesse worms on Carolina rigs. if fishing the coosa chain, the spots love key lime, watermelon red, green pumpkin colors, especially the key lime. found a lot more in the mouth of the rivers. very few fish in the shallows and in the grass. water temp was too hot back in the coves.
Saturday: tried to get a topwater bite early in the grass, nothing. trickworms on the seawall, nothing. i finally connected on a keeper on my carolina rig next to a seawall near the mouth of the creek/main channel., a 2-10 largemouth. caught a few more small fish on the c-rig. a boat finally moved off the spot we wanted to go, the same mouth, but positioning the boat in the main channel throwing into the creek mouth, there was a long point coming out from 4ft, down to 22ft of water. my partner caught 2 over 3lbs within 5 minutes of each other on a booya jig with a craw trailer. i was getting nothing on my c-rig. left that spot and caught a few more on wood in the main river on deep water, but no current was flowing, so the bite was tough. finally got back in another river mouth, and the last 30 minutes we put another 2 keepers in the boat, i missed one on almost my last cast that woulda weighted, might have gotten 2nd place!!
bottom line: no current, fishing sucks, spot bite is slow. most all of our fish caught on c-rigs or jigs on river mouths in deeper water. the bigger fish were in rough shape, they just got off the beds and moved to deep water. they had several sore spots, some fish had them all over, and most had really roughed up tails. we did at least get big fish for the tourney though, so we got to split some cash.
Friday afternoon: found a few fish on an old sunken roadbed in 8ft of water, using 4" finesse worms on Carolina rigs. if fishing the coosa chain, the spots love key lime, watermelon red, green pumpkin colors, especially the key lime. found a lot more in the mouth of the rivers. very few fish in the shallows and in the grass. water temp was too hot back in the coves.
Saturday: tried to get a topwater bite early in the grass, nothing. trickworms on the seawall, nothing. i finally connected on a keeper on my carolina rig next to a seawall near the mouth of the creek/main channel., a 2-10 largemouth. caught a few more small fish on the c-rig. a boat finally moved off the spot we wanted to go, the same mouth, but positioning the boat in the main channel throwing into the creek mouth, there was a long point coming out from 4ft, down to 22ft of water. my partner caught 2 over 3lbs within 5 minutes of each other on a booya jig with a craw trailer. i was getting nothing on my c-rig. left that spot and caught a few more on wood in the main river on deep water, but no current was flowing, so the bite was tough. finally got back in another river mouth, and the last 30 minutes we put another 2 keepers in the boat, i missed one on almost my last cast that woulda weighted, might have gotten 2nd place!!
bottom line: no current, fishing sucks, spot bite is slow. most all of our fish caught on c-rigs or jigs on river mouths in deeper water. the bigger fish were in rough shape, they just got off the beds and moved to deep water. they had several sore spots, some fish had them all over, and most had really roughed up tails. we did at least get big fish for the tourney though, so we got to split some cash.
