"In the Boat" presented by Jewel Bait Company |
Angler: Cody Kemp
Date: 05/18/10 - Greers Ferry Lake
Wal-Mart BFL
Practice:
Last Saturday was the only day I had to practice for this weekend, and I based all of my
practice on trying to find some schools of post spawn females leaving the spawning bays
and flats. I launched my boat at the narrows and decided that I would start off down the
lake and try and find a mixed bag of smallmouth and largemouths. I went into cove creek
and just started down the bank on the right hand side with a swimbait, topwater, jerkbait,
and a 5/8oz Jewel football head jig. It wasn’t long before I caught a solid 2 ½ pound spot
on the football head jig on some rocks, then some short largemouth, a few keeper small
mouth and then finally a few chunky largemouth. Basically on all the baits I had tied on
“junk fishing 101”. This kind of fishing is a lot of fun, catching so many fish - but it makes
it so hard to dial into a good pattern. I mean your constantly catching fish so you must be
doing it right, right? To me it doesn’t feel like it because they could just be biting that
day. Well I did end up catching a nice little limit that would go around 10lbs and I would
be extremely happy with that the next weekend. I ended up fishing almost the entire
cove creek area and found a few spots that I felt would be right by the time the BFL and
Trader Bills tournament days were here, although I certainly wasn’t very optimistic.
Derby day BFL:
Blasted off in position 71 and headed down to the cove creek area where I had caught
em the previous Saturday with intentions of throwing a swimbait all day. That’s all I
wanted to do! I though if I could turn 5 bites on my swimbait I would have a shot at a great
day. Which is exactly what I needed sitting so terrible in the points race. We made the
turn into the bay and there sat a boat right where I was wanting to start. Oh well, I caught
fish all over I thought to myself, so I adjusted coarse and headed for a small buck brush
stretch. I told my coangler that he would have his pickings of the bushes as I felt I would
be capable of catching the fish on my swimbait on the outside of em. I started making
long casts paralleling the bushes while he began flipping a fluke around in the bushes. It
wasn’t long and he caught nice 2 ½ pound black, then another short, and another, and
another, so I decided I better change my game plan quick. I mean I cant give him that
many bushes to flip if the fish are in em that good. So I started flipping my Jewel football
jig with zoom creepy crawly trailer into the bushes and kinda swimming it out. Not three
flips and whack a 2 ¼lb black was flipped into the boat. We continued down the stretch
and caught around 10 or 15 more short fish. Made a short move to the back of the cove
and couldn’t get bit so we decided to go back to the productive stretch and nothing they
just shut off. I wish I had of slowed down and picked the bushes apart but I was in “go”
mode so I decided to go to some main lake islands and start throwing a top water for
some big brownies. It was a lot of fun seeing those brownies come up and smash my bait,
I finished out my limit out there and missed one that would have went around three
pounds. The reason I know the size of the fish was it hit my topwater like a missile,
knocking it a few feet into the air. I couldn’t get it to hit again and after it hit I threw
everything but the kitchen sink on that spot trying to get the aggressive turd to bite
again, but couldn’t. I decided to run up the lake just above the narrows where I had a
stretch of buck brush next to some deep water that could have a good chunk in it. I
proceeded down the bank with a green pumpkin chatter bait, when I felt one smash it! I
swung and missed then continued slow rolling it hoping the fish would come back and it
did. It was a toad! A four or five pound fish inhaled my chatterbait! I assure you I seen the
bait disappear into the back of this fishes throat; but when I set the hook out come my
chatterbait, right out of her mouth. I was sick! After finishing the stretch we went back
down to the stretch that had all the fish on it that morning and my coangler caught
another chunk 2 ½ pound black on his fluke. “I must have missed that bush” I thought to
myself. We ran down in front of the dam site marina on some rock to finish out our day
but had no more keeper bites, so we called it a day and idled in.
Finish: 34th place with 6.06lbs
Keeper count: 6
5/8oz Jewel green gourd football head: 2 keepers
Reaction Innovations vixen: 4 keepers
Date: 05/18/10 - Greers Ferry Lake
Wal-Mart BFL
Practice:
Last Saturday was the only day I had to practice for this weekend, and I based all of my
practice on trying to find some schools of post spawn females leaving the spawning bays
and flats. I launched my boat at the narrows and decided that I would start off down the
lake and try and find a mixed bag of smallmouth and largemouths. I went into cove creek
and just started down the bank on the right hand side with a swimbait, topwater, jerkbait,
and a 5/8oz Jewel football head jig. It wasn’t long before I caught a solid 2 ½ pound spot
on the football head jig on some rocks, then some short largemouth, a few keeper small
mouth and then finally a few chunky largemouth. Basically on all the baits I had tied on
“junk fishing 101”. This kind of fishing is a lot of fun, catching so many fish - but it makes
it so hard to dial into a good pattern. I mean your constantly catching fish so you must be
doing it right, right? To me it doesn’t feel like it because they could just be biting that
day. Well I did end up catching a nice little limit that would go around 10lbs and I would
be extremely happy with that the next weekend. I ended up fishing almost the entire
cove creek area and found a few spots that I felt would be right by the time the BFL and
Trader Bills tournament days were here, although I certainly wasn’t very optimistic.
Derby day BFL:
Blasted off in position 71 and headed down to the cove creek area where I had caught
em the previous Saturday with intentions of throwing a swimbait all day. That’s all I
wanted to do! I though if I could turn 5 bites on my swimbait I would have a shot at a great
day. Which is exactly what I needed sitting so terrible in the points race. We made the
turn into the bay and there sat a boat right where I was wanting to start. Oh well, I caught
fish all over I thought to myself, so I adjusted coarse and headed for a small buck brush
stretch. I told my coangler that he would have his pickings of the bushes as I felt I would
be capable of catching the fish on my swimbait on the outside of em. I started making
long casts paralleling the bushes while he began flipping a fluke around in the bushes. It
wasn’t long and he caught nice 2 ½ pound black, then another short, and another, and
another, so I decided I better change my game plan quick. I mean I cant give him that
many bushes to flip if the fish are in em that good. So I started flipping my Jewel football
jig with zoom creepy crawly trailer into the bushes and kinda swimming it out. Not three
flips and whack a 2 ¼lb black was flipped into the boat. We continued down the stretch
and caught around 10 or 15 more short fish. Made a short move to the back of the cove
and couldn’t get bit so we decided to go back to the productive stretch and nothing they
just shut off. I wish I had of slowed down and picked the bushes apart but I was in “go”
mode so I decided to go to some main lake islands and start throwing a top water for
some big brownies. It was a lot of fun seeing those brownies come up and smash my bait,
I finished out my limit out there and missed one that would have went around three
pounds. The reason I know the size of the fish was it hit my topwater like a missile,
knocking it a few feet into the air. I couldn’t get it to hit again and after it hit I threw
everything but the kitchen sink on that spot trying to get the aggressive turd to bite
again, but couldn’t. I decided to run up the lake just above the narrows where I had a
stretch of buck brush next to some deep water that could have a good chunk in it. I
proceeded down the bank with a green pumpkin chatter bait, when I felt one smash it! I
swung and missed then continued slow rolling it hoping the fish would come back and it
did. It was a toad! A four or five pound fish inhaled my chatterbait! I assure you I seen the
bait disappear into the back of this fishes throat; but when I set the hook out come my
chatterbait, right out of her mouth. I was sick! After finishing the stretch we went back
down to the stretch that had all the fish on it that morning and my coangler caught
another chunk 2 ½ pound black on his fluke. “I must have missed that bush” I thought to
myself. We ran down in front of the dam site marina on some rock to finish out our day
but had no more keeper bites, so we called it a day and idled in.
Finish: 34th place with 6.06lbs
Keeper count: 6
5/8oz Jewel green gourd football head: 2 keepers
Reaction Innovations vixen: 4 keepers