Fishing Korea & Tennessee

I had every intention of heading out yesterday, since there was a front rolling through in the morning.  But.  I woke up in the middle of the night and the bedroom was pitch black; there was a power outage so I thought it was one of those temporary outages and that the power would come back on in a few minutes and I went back to sleep.  I woke up again later around 3, and the power was still off.  I really wanted to go fishing but the combination of no coffee and having to take a cold shower in the dark didn’t appeal to me at all .  Anyway, to make a long story short, the power was still off at 5:30 so I did what any husband would do; I woke up my wife, who called our apartment office, and they in turn dispatched a very sleepy and rather grumpy electrician.  He fiddled with our transformers and got the power back up so I got my coffee and a hot shower before I headed off to work.

This morning, I got up at 3 (yes, at 3) and was at the river before 4:30.  It was still dark out, the river was like glass, there was no wind or current  – but there was a carp mutton set up right where I usually fish…so I had to fish another spot.

I threw everything except the kitchen sink and if I would have had one handy, I would have tried that too because the bass just weren’t interested today.  The one above hit my spinnerbait early on but after that, it was slim pickings except for a few other dinks which I caught on plastic lures (Senkos and Zoom worms).  Not the best of mornings but at least I got out there today!

So I managed to get up again this morning and what a difference a few days make.  In the spot I fish, the water is the clearest I’ve ever seen it since I started heading out there a few years ago – visibility must have been at least 3 feet or more which is amazing for that river.  Just last Friday, the water looked like chocolate milk.

I started out with 4” Senkos (black with blue flakes) but all I was catching were dinks.  I think I caught 5 or 6, the above was the biggest of the lot.  In the spot I fish, I’m pretty confident that on most mornings, there’s at least one decent bass cruising the shallows, looking for a meal but the trick is to figure out what they want.  This morning, they certainly didn’t want Senkos, Big Ikas or Zoom ‘Ol Monster worms.

Aha…what they wanted was a black Zoom regular curly tail worm, fished nice and slow – and this bass took the worm on the 2nd cast, in the same exact area I’d been chucking Senkos and Big Ikas for the last 45 minutes.  That made my morning and after that I started throwing spinnerbaits and again, nothing.  So far, this has been a tough year for spinnerbait bites out there.  I think I’ve only caught a couple of fish on a spinnerbait so far and it isn’t for lack of trying either.  Maybe I need to switch over to a different color since I’ve been using the white/red at that spot for the last 3 years.

LOL, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to what turned out to be quite the interesting and eventful day.  But first, I lied.  I said that I was only going to take a crankbait rod today, but when I went down to the car last night to bring the other rods into the house, I had a vision of me being out there today, chucking crankbaits around for hours and hours and having nothing to show for it except sore elbows so needless to say, I ended up bringing the entire arsenal .  I remembered to set the alarm clock last night and like Monday, I was up at 3, on the road by 3:45 and on the water by 5 and once again, it turned out to be a beautiful day, weather-wise.  No wind at all until sometime around 1, and then it was just a light wind at that and for most of the day, the skies were overcast.  While I was setting the boat up and getting the stuff out of the bag, I had the net in my hand but I thought “Ah, leave it here, it’ll just take up more space in the boat and you probably won’t need it anyway.”  Another wise decision by yours truly and yes, I’m being sarcastic.

I started out fishing the same area where I do my EMB, and on the very first cast, I caught a bass.

This one, actually.  Three casts later, I caught a dink, and I moved down about 25 yards to a point I like to fish.  I threw my 4” Senko towards shore and as I was reeling it in, I felt a light tap.  I waited a few seconds and when I felt another light tap, I thought it was another dink and set the hook only to find out it was no dink at all but a Big Momma.  I fought the fish and slowly brought her away from the rocks and closer to the boat and that’s when it hit me…The NET WAS IN THE CAR, and Ty wasn’t there to lip the fish for me.  I got the fish all the way to the boat and then I made the colossal mistake of thinking the fish was tired out so I grabbed the line with one hand, intending on pulling the fish close enough for me to lip it with the other hand.  Unfortunately, the bass had other ideas and as soon as it was about 10 inches from the boat, it made a run under the boat and the line snapped .  And yeah, I felt like a real dumbass for making such a rookie mistake.  I was bummed out enough to send Rob a 5:30 text letting him know what I had just done, but I didn’t really feel that bad, considering I had already had 3 bites in the first 30 minutes and one was a Big Momma to boot…I had a feeling it was going to be another good day.

The above two pics show the type area I was fishing today and all the bass were holding super close to shore, right up against the rocks.

And it was another great day…today I kept count; 29 bass total.  Now, most of them looked like these fellas:

But I did catch a few that were decent enough:

I know, I know, “what about the crankbaits?” you ask.  Fair enough…I threw crankbaits for an hour and a half with not a single bite and let me tell you, that got old fast and it was all I could do to stick with it that long.  Had I only taken a crankbait rod, it would have been a really short day. Like Tim said in his comment yesterday, stick with what works.  And today, the only lures I caught fish on were 4” Senkos (black with blue flakes) and a 10.5” Zoom ‘Ol Monster worm.  I also tried jigs, crankbaits, Big and Fat Ikas, drop shot, and a black 7” Zoom worm.

Oh and check this out…on my way back to the ramp, I was cruising along, having a relaxing smoke when I saw something swimming in the water, heading right at the boat.

That sucker actually came at the boat right in the middle and looked like he was going to try to come aboard on the left side!  I cranked the trolling motor so that I would scoot past the snake because, well, I just don’t think there would have been enough room in the SS Netcutter for me and a snake.  And me not wearing my life vest.  LOL

And, I took another pic of a bird I have to say, so far this week has been most excellent.  I’ve taken the boat out 2 days; the weather was perfect both days, and the bass were cooperating quite nicely.  I got another solid 8 hours of fishing in today, and the only reason I quit when I did was because I had covered a lot of water today and I was worried that my battery was getting low.  Had I known the fishing and weather was going to be that good, I would have brought the second battery and instead of typing this, I’d still be out there, fishing.  You know, I could get used to this quite easy and I know what I’ll be doing every day it’s not raining once I retire.  Yes sir.

So I got up at 3, made coffee, had a couple of smokes and was on the road by 3:45.  I arrived at the river around 4:15, took my time putting the boat together, and I was on the water before 5.  The river was like glass, with not even a hint of a breeze, and it stayed like that just about the entire 8 hours I was out there.  For most of the day, it was overcast with pleasant temps.  And the bass were biting…I stopped counting at 20 but I know I caught at least 30 bass.  “Damn, that sounds like the perfect day!” you say.  Well, yeah, except for one small, minor detail…all the bass looked like this:

Where oh where have my Big Mommas gone?  Not sure if it’s post spawn, post front, the river being stained from the recent rains or if I didn’t have my mojo today.  But.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining at all; I caught a butt-load of fish today and I had a blast out there, fishing and smoking to my heart’s content.

Just for kicks and to prove a point to myself, I started out fishing some weed beds where Ty and I killed them a few weeks ago; my theory was that the bass are long gone from there and yes indeedy, they are because I fished about 300 yards of weeds and not a single bite was to be had.  After that I moved down river a ways, past the now defunct rock wall (I still get tears in my eyes when I see what they’ve done to our wall, Rob ) and fished one stretch of rocks and trees but, instead of hit and run, I stopped at every spot that even remotely looked bassy, anchored, and fished there until I got a bite or caught a fish.  I caught fish mainly on two rigs; a drop shot rig and also fishing a 4” Senko (black with blue flakes) weightless, as close to the rocks/trees as possible.  I had one bite on the Big Ika, and absolutely no takers on spinnerbaits, wacky-rigged Senkos, jigs or rattle traps.

Oh, and I took a pic of a bird LOL  Around 1:30, the sun came out and suddenly it got hot and I got tired and since the bite had tapered off, I started having visions of my big old water bed so I called it a day and was home by 2:30 and took a power nap.  I just woke up a little while ago, made a big cup of coffee and now I’m ready for tomorrow!