polo-dog
Well-known member
Ben called me yesterday morning to see if I wanted to fish Sat. morning. I usually don't fish Saturdays as the lake is busy and rough. We thought about going to the Hiwassee to ditch the crowd but decided instead to socialize and fish the CFF with all of the great guys down at the Riverpark. We started out fishing near the ramp like everyone else as the fog had dropped just before blast off. Ben had a good fish on on one of his first casts but it came off. Next few casts he broke a good one off. He was getting frustrated in the first few minutes of the tournament and I reminded him that we were out there to have fun and see the guys of CFF and that we would have the fish we needed later. After that we missed a few but he didn't miss getting any of our good fish into the boat. Until after the fog lifted the only "good" fish that we had had was a 16" smallie that I had stuck but it wasn't "good enough" to keep. We had gotten 3 keeper spots but at around 3lbs total we thought that our day needed to change. Once the sun came up we moved to eddys and current brakes and most of the fish seemed to be on the shadow lines on those current breaks. We got a pick me up when Ben stuck a big largemouth that seemed to be spewing eggs into his boat. We had just more than doubled our weight. Soon thereafter Ben stuck another nice fish, a smallie in the 3.5lb range and now we just needed another good one and we would be looking pretty. Ben had been talking back and forth with Brent about the fish that they and we had caught and when we were at 3lbs they were at around 11lbs so, we were getting more and more excited. We moved and I finally stuck a good fish with about an hour and a half to go before weigh in and it was a Personal Best 4.21 smallie. We were thinking then that we had a good chance to be in the money as we knew that we were close to 12lbs. We tried a few more current breaks catching a few spots here and there but nothing to cull with. Ended up with 11.6 and change, a great sack in my experience.
We mostly fished with jigs with plastic trailers and the good fish were in 10-14 FOW. A slow presentation with the bait bumping bottom with the current seemed to be the key. Because the current was so light we were able to use heavier line than usually possible and lighter baits. Most of my fish came on 1/8 oz jig heads.
It was great to spend the day on the water with an old friend and my wife was very happy that we got our money back, and a little more. Thanks for a well run tournament guys and it was a great time seeing everybody out there today before and after the tournament. Someone took a pic of our fish and will post it on the site.
We mostly fished with jigs with plastic trailers and the good fish were in 10-14 FOW. A slow presentation with the bait bumping bottom with the current seemed to be the key. Because the current was so light we were able to use heavier line than usually possible and lighter baits. Most of my fish came on 1/8 oz jig heads.
It was great to spend the day on the water with an old friend and my wife was very happy that we got our money back, and a little more. Thanks for a well run tournament guys and it was a great time seeing everybody out there today before and after the tournament. Someone took a pic of our fish and will post it on the site.
