Pointer 78
Well-known member
Watts Bar was the site of the second Cleveland Bassmasters tournament season. My partner for the day was David Neely. David's one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet not to memtion a very good fisherman. David's family owns Neely Printing Company in Cleveland. We launched out of Fooshie around 6:30, and ran about 5-6 miles upriver through the gloom. There was very little wind to speak of initially. The fishing was slow the first few hours. David was throwing a firetiger Matzuo lipless crankbait, and I had a chrome/blue Rattle Trap. Ya'll know how much I love Traps. David had a good one come off on the Matzuo in the back of a creek plus a couple of shorts. Fish would slap at the Trap but I couldn't hook up. The clouds cleared and the wind began to pick up. Game time! Wind plus shallow water in early April often means good fishing. After watching David land another good keeper, he offered me one of his Matzuos. Far be it from me to decline a lure that's getting the fish's attention. 5 casts later I had one slam it like a locomotive. Got it close to the boat and could see it was 5-6 lbs. It dove beneath the boat but I gave it too much line giving it slack. Pulled back up and NOTHING! Oh well, if there's one with my name on it, there's another. My next few fish were just short including 2 that missed measuring by 1/32 of an inch. David switched to a chrome/black Diamond Shad and landed two more good keepers. I stuck with the Matzuo and finally landed one just short of 4 lbs. The rest of the day was short city. David's four fish landed him in second place with 11 lbs. Winning weight was 12 lbs. A side note. while fishing our last cove, we saw a patch of white just underneath the surface. It was a bass that had gone belly up. It looked big and we wanted to see how big so we tried to net it. The fish actually swam slowly away on our initial attempt. We were able to get it in the boat on the second attempt. This thing was HUGE. On a Cull M Rite electronic scale, she weighed 8'9". We couldn't see any sign of injury. No lure in her throat. Nothing. We let her go and she swims away. We saw her a bit later before we left and she was in the same position we found her. I hated seeing a beauty like that in such bad shape. Looking forward to Nickajack on the 15th.
