smbass77, Chick, bass, 5/19/12, club tournament

[smbass77]

We fished our club tournament yesterday out of HBSP, along with 2 other clubs launching there and the CBA guys out of CF.....it was a busy morning. The afternoon was even busier with the pleasure boat attacks!

Most of my experience on Chick is shallow and we stayed shallow all day, fishing spawning pockets and any cover we could find. The best areas had grass (hard to find much grass this year), or stumps in less than 6 feet of water. Some of the males we caught had bloody tails, maybe the last wave of spawners? All the pockets were loaded with small shad too. We must have caught 40 bass today but size was hard to come by, most were 2.5-3.5 lbs. It was a lot of fun and we had no company all day, no other anglers and no pleasure boats trying to run us over I knew the shallow bite was a dying pattern and every time I thought about going out to the ledges I'd see all those pleasure boats running around and said forget that! I'm staying in this nice calm water with no company and plenty of action I swam a green pumpkin jig ALL day.

Later in the day, after culling ounces at a time, we tried to locate some of the post spawn females that had not made it out to the ledges yet. We fished a deep rock bank right outside the spawning pockets when I caught this big girl, ripped up tail and thin as a rail.....7.15 pds. Ended the day with 18lbs and change for 2nd place. Our winner had just under 20lbs fishing crankbaits on the ledges all day (and dodging boats). Third was 17lbs and I'm not sure how he caught his. 4th and 5th both had 15 and change on c-rigs on the ledges.

All in all it was a fun day! I think I'll have to try some night fishing up there this summer, hopefully the pleasure boat traffic dies down when it gets dark

 

[Jmax]

Great post!!!! You just almost repeated mine. emoTongue We did the same thing. If you read it you will see some very closely matching events. You got that big one which was what we missed out on but other then that it sounds like you and us did about the same thing with the same results. Tried the deep ledge bite one time and just about got blasted away by waves! Not for us....back to calm water. I think you are right, there is one more wave of spawners still at it. We saw some of that also. Did you get big bass of your tournament? If not what did?

Thanks for sharing. emoThumbsup Jmax

 

[smbass77]

I did read your post, surprised we never saw you (or anyone) fishing shallow. We fished from HBSP to just above to nuke plant. Other than running from spot to spot it was like we had the lake to ourselves. I read you started flipping, did you guys catch anything from laydowns? We never got a bite from a laydown, perhaps I should have tried the beaver ha. Went into one pocket I never fished before and caught a bass from every stump we could see, i'm sure they were spawners. I did have big bass and that big bite helped me. I'd rather be lucky than good any day

We had two other bass weighed in that were over 6lbs. I tried going deep earlier in the morning before the zoo came out, but every spot I waypointed during the low water was covered with other anglers. Never went out there again for the rest of the day. Doing well in a tournament is good, but having fun and enjoyable fishing is ever better!

 

[Jmax]

Never hit lay downs, we flipped docks and grass. We actually more pitched, little flip casts. When you fish like that you don't have to throw a mile. Jmax

 

[Mustang1987_1]

Great post and discussion. emoThanks

Have a Tx at Chick next Saturday and really look forward to it. I'm standing in for a friend who fishes with his dad. I'm sure he will have us out on the ledges fighting the boat traffic. I don't look forward to that.

emoToast

 

[huntermercer.stud]

sounds like a great day