Here it goes, my first report from Alabama...
Date: Saturday, November 18th
Time: 5:30 am till 2:30 pm
Lake: Lake Mitchell an impoundment of the Coosa River
Water temp.: 59*F all day.
Water Color: Heavy Stain.
Air temp.: 32*F in the morning to 65*F in the afternoon.
Weather: Heavy fog in the morning giving way to bright blue skies and moderate NW breeze.
Had to get started early Saturday, getting up a 2:30 am just to be able to make the drive to the lake and be in the water in time for the daylight take off. Turned out there was no real need to rush due to heavy fog rolling in after midnight. The official take off was more of a creep off. My fishing partner made a 15 minute idle across the lake and began fishing at roughly 5:45 am. Thank the good lord for GPS or we would probably still be doing circles in the middle of the lake. We got things started off right with a nice 4 lb. spotted bass within the first 10 minutes of fishing. It hit on a War Eagle spinnerbait in blue herring color. What we thought was a good sign wasn't, that was our only spinnerbait fish of the day. Due to the fog we couldn't run to our next spot so I turned the boat into the current and we began fishing up the lake. Our next fish came at around 6:30 am on a Jackall D Cherry crankbait in the chartreuse shad color. We were casting to a tapering rock point with a few patches of grass on in 8-10ft of water. It tipped the scales at a little under 2 lbs. We continued moving up the lake casting at visible targets for the next two hours picking up three more fish, none over 1.5 lbs. Our day seemed to be taking a down turn but finally at nearly 9:00am the fog lifted and we could move. Up the lake it was to a series of small cuts or coves that were dirt shallow in the back but had a sharp drop to nearly 20ft. at their entrances. All were lined with rock and had scattered grass and fall down brush on them. My partner was fishing a weightless Zoom Super Fluke in white when another bruiser spotted bass piled on. After a few strong runs to deeper water and one magnificent aerial display the bass went into the net and then the livewell. It weighed in at 3 lbs.. We continued hitting the mouths of these pockets for another hour hoping for another big fish but it was not to be. We did manage to fill our 5 fish tournament limit here but only had a total of near 11 lbs., nowhere near big enough to win with. We continued hitting similar areas until 1:00pm and finally decided to make a change and look for bigger fish. I cranked up the Mercury and off down the lake we went to and area called Blue Creek. Its a small, shallow creek with one really deep hole way in the back. We once again broke out the crankbaits and started casting our arms off dredging the deeper water from every angle imaginable trying for a good fish. We allotted ourselves 30 minutes to fish leaving us 20 mins. for a final spot and 10 to get back for weigh in. With less than 5 minutes to go my rod loaded up with that strong surging feeling of a big one. The line started peeling off my reel and I couldn't stop it. After a few tense seconds I got the fish turned and headed at the boat, but he wasn't done with me yet. As my partner readied the landing net the fish charged directly underneath the boat and tried to stay there. He fought hard, but not hard enough, he weighed in right at 3 lbs. Time was up for this area and off we went to our final stop. It was an area called Airplane Creek with a shallow flat in it that had deeper water all the way around. After 20 hard minutes of casting and boating 4 more spotted bass, none of which helped our weight much, we left for weigh in.
We were the 6th team to weigh in and had a grand total of 13 lbs. for our best 5 fish. We finished just 9 oz. behind 2nd place, but a distant 5.5 lbs. behind first. The fist place team had no fish smaller than 3 lbs. and one that went well over 4 lbs.
All in all it was a good day of fishing for us, we boated 16 keepers with only two short fish. We got to get out and enjoy a nice late fall day on the water and spend some time with friends and enjoy a little competition. We even got to see a bald eagle circle over our heads early in the morning. Hardly ever see any south of the Tennessee River system. And the Auburn Tigers beat the Alabama Crimson Tide for the fifth straight year giving a fitting end to a great day.
I'm going get my fishing partner to E-Mail me some pics. and will post them as soon as I can. My new digital camera apparently doesn't like cold air that much, every picture I took looked like I was photographing ghosts, all cloudy and murky and impossible to see.
Hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed doing it!
Casey
P.S. : By the way I'm and Auburn fan. Waaaaaaarrrrr Eagle!
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