Jun
14
2009
Team Trails of MS 06/13/2009 Guntersville Lake
Conditions practice day:
Water Temps Upper 70s/Low 80s degrees main lake
Breezy S wind at 10-15 mph
High 80 degrees Low 65F
Overcast and breezy, on and off rain showers
Today we practiced for our fourth tournament of the 5 tournament series, after 3 tournaments we have a very slight lead in AOY and were looking to improve upon that lead. I decided to practice in the area of the lake where we had been on some fish to be able to move around some without making long runs. Our first stop was a main lake ledge where we had caught some fish in the past and quickly caught a 4 pounder and a 3 pounder on a 3/4 oz Omega football jig in the new Bama Bug color(soon to be released for sale). This is a hot new color that seems to be working real well all over the country, it is green pumpkin and junebug and matches the Paca Craw color near perfectly. After seeing 2 decent fish from that spot we made a move to a nearby make lake hump throwing an Omega Swim Jig in the shallow milfoil since it was overcast, with a skinny dipper as a trailer, it didn't take long before we found a school of fish as we probably caught 5-8 fish off this hump but the biggest was only around 3 pounds. We duplicated this shallow milfoil pattern on a few other spots and were able to catch a bunch of fish on the Swim jig but couldn't manage anything over 4 pounds.
At this point we decided to back off and move to some deeper water, I was able to locate a small shell bed at that end of a long point that ran way off shore that had some milfoil mixed in. I was throwing a Lucky Craft RC2.5DD on a GLoomis CBR845 with 10 pound Gamma Line. I managed a solid 5 pounder of this spot but nothing else. The GLoomis CBR845 cranking stick is probably the best all around crankin' rod out there, this rod excels when throwing 1/2-3/4 oz Rat-L-Traps in the Spring, RC2.5s, RC 2.5DDs, DT10s, Fat Free Shads, essentially this rod can handle just about any bait over a 1/4 oz, I know I will have 3 of these in the boat next year, in the St. Louis area two great dealers to check out these rods are Denny Dennis in Fenton and Gateway Outfitters in St. Charles.
After that since it was overcast and the bite was decent we decided to crank mostly the rest of the day to cover water alternating between RC2.5DD and a Fat Free Shad. When it was said and done we had a best 5 that would've gone around 22 pounds. The game plan for tomorrow was to jump spots where we caught them throwing Omega jigs, Zoom Worms pegged with a 3/8oz Tru-Tungsten bullet weight and crank it the conditions presented itself.
Team Trails of MS 06/14/2009 Guntersville Lake
Conditions tournament day:
Water Temps Upper 70s/Low 80s degrees main lake
Wind Calm in the morning, strong winds and storms in the afternoon
High 83 degrees Low 70F
Clear in the morning, strong storms afternoon
We started the day in an area where we had caught the 4 and the 3 pounder Saturday, when we pulled up we managed to start catching fish right away throwing the 3/4 oz Omega Football jig in Bama Bug with a Paca Craw trailer and my partner was throwing the crank in the back. I managed a solid 4 pounder, then my partner hooked up with a 5 that pulled off on the way to the boat. I then set the hook and hooked up with a monster on the football jig, it pull and pulled and then started coming up to jump and just came unbuttoned, never got to see it but it was probably a solid 5. We ended up getting a limit from this area that went around 16 pounds and moved to the shell bed where I had caught some fish the previous weekend. My partner caught a 4 pounder off this spot on the 3/4 oz Omega Football jig to upgrade us to around 18 pounds. We caught a couple more small upgrades from here and lost another one around 5 on a crankbait at the boat and then moved on to wom the grass, I was throwing a 1/4 oz Tru-Tungsten bullet weight pegged with zoom Red Bug worm, my first cast to the grass I set the hook and the fight was on, a 6+ pound fish came skyrocketing out of the water about 4 times before we could get it in the net. I put the fish in the well and continued to fish. We fished the rest of the day looking to upgrade but just couldn't seem to find any 4+ pound fish. Heading to weigh-in we thought we probably had enough weight to get 3rd place but after watching everyone weigh in it appeared to be a little tougher than we thought. We put our fish on the scales and weighed them for 20.88 pounds for first place and big bass of 6.26 pounds, the lost fish cost us from having a really good weight. Second place was around 17 pounds. This win extended our lead to 6 points for AOY with one event to go on Guntersville, hopefully we can keep the season rolling into the second half of the year.
