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I had only one half day of practice for this tournament so my confidence
level going into this tournament was not very high.
We started the morning fishing topwater baits and flukes across points
off the main lake and ten minutes into the day Steve had the first keeper
in the boat weighing one and a half pounds. Thinking we might have something
figured out we concentrated the next hour trying to duplicate that bite,
to no avail.
We then moved in to the cove at the Hartwell Yacht Club and worked
the boat docks where I caught a non keeper and a small 12" spotted
bass on a lime green topwater worm.
By now the Sun was up and we tried a rocky bank that was still in
the shade and Steve put the third keeper of the morning in the livewell.
Just a few cast later I caught another non keeper and the fourth keeper
of the morning weighing just over a pound.
From there we moved to Beaver Creek where we worked just about every
rocky point from the mouth of the Creek to the bridge. On my first cast
under the bridge four or five spotted bass rolled up on my fluke and
one of them finally ate it, by the tail. A few cast later I got a hook
into one of them to give us five keepers.
It was now right at ten o'clock and we decided to pull under a covered
dock to get a bite to eat and figure out how we wanted to spend the
rest of the day. We decided our best chance for a good finish was to
run down on the lower end of the lake and target some of the schooling
fish everyone had been talking about catching.
At 1 o'clock and not even a bite we made the decision to run back
to the other side of the Beaver Creek bridge and target the boat docks
back in there.
The second boat dock we came to I skipped a whacky style worm to the
middle of the dock followed closely by Steve's spot remover. All of
a sudden Steve's rod bows up and he starts yelling that his line is
caught in the trolling motor. Before I had time to tell him it was a
fish he figured it out for himself and put the sixth keeper in the boat.
Another pound and a half largemouth. Fifteen minutes later I caught
the limit bass off of a brushpile to give us the 8.49 pounds we took
to the scale. It was five minutes to two o'clock.
Good for twenty-third place.
Not the finish I hoped for but a lot better than it could have been
based on my practice, or lack thereof.
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