May 17-- Burned Children's Fund Open Tournament

 

Brad and I fished this tournament on Clarks Hill Lake and started on the first point inside the mouth of SC Little River. The first fish of the day bit on the second cast of the day on a clear colored spook. It was three pounds and hit the bait three times before getting a hook.

After putting this fish in the livewell we had fish coming up all around us and we knew we were getting ready to fill the boat. After twenty minutes we still had only that one fish in the boat.

While the fish would come up on the bait, they would only swat at it once and leave. We tried several follow up baits but they were just not interested.

Finally, off one of the many adjacent points I caught another fish just under two pounds on the spook. We fished this area pretty thoroughly and put two more small keepers in the boat.

We then moved on up the River where Brad lost a good fish in a brushpile on a spot remover jig and then caught our fifth small keeper on the same lure.

From there we moved back down to a point across the River from where we started the morning and I caught a three and a half pounder on a merthiolate topwater worm and just a few minutes later had one the same size jump clean out of the water trying to get my bait. Fortunately, he got it and went in the definite keeper livewell with his other two friends.

After moving to several more spots and catching several fish, that were no help to our limit, we stopped in Wells Creek to fish a few wind blown points and brushpiles.

On one of these brushpiles a two pound bass came up and swallowed my topwater worm but when I set the hook the only thing that came into the boat was my hook with half a worm, Brad then pitched his spot remover into the brushpile and we watched that same bass come and inhale his bait. This time the fish got the hook and gave us the 12 70 pounds we went to the scales with.

Good for third place.

Usually this time of the year I look for great blue herons wading along the points to help me figure which ones may have bait nearby but today the birds fooled me. We didn't catch a fish on any of the points the birds were standing.

The weather was sunny and beautiful but a little cool first thing in the morning around 50 but warmed up quickly into the high 70's.