Fishing Stories

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The 4 Jimigos do Venice

For me, southern Louisiana has become like an old friend that I like to visit periodically, if for no other reason, it’s just to catch up on what’s going on and reminisce about old times. It’s very hard for me to believe that it’s been almost 30 years since I first laid eyes on the Louisiana marsh and the best fishing Louisiana has to offer. Running down the Mississippi and diving into the marsh by boat is like entering another world for me; a world mixed with the timeless beauty of the marsh and the always present invasion of the ones who may eventually destroy it.

I‘m not sure how many times I’ve made the trip from the Atlanta area to Venice, but I can assure you that there has never been a faster trip down to Venice to my recollection. I’m not saying that because my friend Jimmy Sanders is a fast driver, which he is, but it’s because we were never lacking in laughs and conversation, so the miles just flew by at Mach speed. Our last meal before checking into the lodge was a lunch stop at Salvo’s seafood in Belle Chase. Salvo’s Po’boys has always been the gateway to a trip down highway 23 and some of the best red fishing in the world.

After a good lunch and about 9 hours on the road we were finally at our destination for the next few days. It was Wednesday and me, Jimmy Harmon, Jimmy Sanders and Jimmy Meadows were staying at the lodge through Friday night and leaving out very early on Saturday morning so Jimmy Meadows could make a 5pm wedding back in the Atlanta area on the day of our return.

The Lodge.

The lodge itself is located in the Buras area and is just off highway 23. We checked in mid-afternoon and just after the fishermen staying at the lodge had returned from a day of fishing. When we parked the truck, I could see a shovel on the front of a small tractor sitting by the fish cleaning station and the shovel held several redfish, sheepshead and trout carcasses. That was a good sign to start the trip. We were welcomed by the staff right away and we were shown to our rooms for the next 2 days and 3 nights. The lodge was good sized and spread out with a very large kitchen/dining area and the was also plenty of room to relax on the lower floor. The 4 of us split 2 rooms and our rooms were located upstairs. After we unpacked, we went back downstairs and sat in the kitchen/dining area and talked with our chef, Casey while she was preparing the evening meal. Casey cooked our lunch and dinner while miss Kim prepared our breakfast for the morning. There was a group of about 10 other fishermen from a manufacturing company up north that were on a team building/appreciation fishing trip and they kinda occupied the billiard room area. I went into the billiard room and started chatting with the group who had been there for 2 days prior to our arrival. I introduced myself and told the group that we were all named Jimmy or Jim so it would be easy to remember our names. During our conversation I found out that 2 of the guys were from Kansas so that struck up a whole new conversation on growing up in Kansas. I got the 411 from the group as far as the fishing went and it sounded like it was going to be another popping cork trip.

Years back, when I lived in Belle Chase and fished the marsh, after the first year or so of fishing the marsh, I started using more and more artificial baits instead of live, fresh or frozen shrimp. For speckled trout, it was usually a sparkle beetle under a popping cork, or I was beating the banks with a jig head/ plastic cockahoe minnow combination. After many trips back to the Venice area and using different guides for inshore fishing, I see more and more guides just using shrimp under popping corks for their clients. It seems that the shrimp under popping corks is effective and fairly easy to use for the novice and there is usually plenty of action from a variety of local fish. Personally, I’d rather take my chances beating the banks with a plastic minnow than slinging a popping cork around but on this trip, I was able to compromise with a big Gulp plastic shrimp under my popping cork which yielded our largest redfish for the day.

We settled into our new surroundings and after dinner and some evening chatting we all hit the sack for a early morning wake-up.

After a 5:30am wakeup call consisting of a knock at the door from Miss Kim the cook, “breakfast time-fishing time”, we quickly got dressed and headed downstairs. Scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and a biscuit were on the morning menu and the guides for the guests were waiting around the kitchen area. One of the other guests from the guys up north let me in on a little secret and told me that the quicker you got on the road the better chance you had of getting live shrimp at the bait shop. If you were one of the last ones leaving the lodge, chances are that the bait would be gone by the time you got to the bait shop. The guys from up north were the first ones to leave followed my Jimmy Meadows and Jimmy Sanders. I was paired up with LJ and when the dust settled from all the guide boats and the clients headed down the road to Venice from the lodge, myself and our guide, a 6’6″ -280lb local behemoth named Rodger were left standing in the driveway waiting for LJ to finish his business in the toilet. Rodger wasn’t happy about the delay, and I assured big Rodger that we were just getting started and LJ usually provided the entertainment for the day, one way or another. When LJ finally came out and we got underway, we hadn’t gone 5 miles and LJ realized that he left his cellphone in the toilet. That was the final sign that it was going to be one of those special LJ kinda days. I gotta say in LJ’s defense though, he redeemed himself when he fixed Rodger’s electronics after we blew a fuse while running down the Mississippi and hitting a large wake from a barge. Our skiff slammed down hard, and all of our electronics just died. LJ had us back up and running in record time.

LJ put us in the books with his first redfish of the trip on shrimp and I jacked a few more on the Gulp shrimp before we both started throwing the big Gulp shrimp under the popping corks. Using the Gulp shrimp cut down on the hardhead action and if something hit it, it was probably going to be a big redfish.

Here’s a few fishing pictures from the first day of fishing.

We returned to the lodge, which is about 15 miles from the Venice Marina around 1-2pm and the guides promptly went to work on cleaning the fish. We grabbed a cold drink and some hot gumbo from the kitchen, and we met our new friends and new guests to the lodge, Angie and Girard. They were from Pheonix and a treat to chat with. We quickly made friends with Angie and Girard and before you knew it, we were all joking and cracking up.

Angie is a divorce attorney and Girard….well Girard did a lot of things over the years. Girard was born in Morocco and eventually made his way to the United States. Girard is 81 years old and he has led a very interesting life full of adventure and success as a businessman. He spoke 3 languages fluently and a total of 7 languages, not so fluently. I took the opportunity to chat with Girard about his life and growing up in a foreign country so long ago. Girard rubbed shoulders with some very important leadership in our country and the fact that he could speak so many different languages opened a lot of doors for him over the years. Angie shared the story of how her and Girard had met at Girard’s restaurant and we all shared stories from our lives as the time flew by on a Thursday afternoon. Both Angie and Girard were fascinating people, and we were so glad we crossed paths. Angie actually has some relatives that own a house on Lake Lanier and they visit periodically so I’m pretty sure our paths will cross again someday in the future.

Angie gave the 4 Jim’s a title while we were all chatting, and Jimmy Sanders was dubbed “The Elder”, which I thought was appropriate. LJ was given the title “The Mayor” which made his head swell to an enormous size during our conversation. Angie gave Jimmy Meadows the title of “The Gentle One” which was a good description of Meadows, and I was named “The Storyteller”. I have a lot of stories, so Angie hit the nail on the head with that title. On Thursday evening we all had dinner and hung out till time to turn in. A storm was on the way.

At 2am on Friday morning I was awakened to the sound of thunder. I knew that there was a cold front on the way, and it was scheduled to hit the area around dawn according to Accuweather. The 2am arrival was a little early but nonetheless, the earlier it got through the area, the better. The thunder I heard was followed by some lightning flashes and over the next few minutes I could tell that the storm was quickly approaching. A few minutes later the rain started pelting the window next to my bed and my mind was taken back 25 years ago and the rain beating against the window by my bed at our old Man Camp. Thought about my old Navy friends and our trips out to Man Camp and all the fun we had over the years, fishing the marsh. I laid in the bed and thought back to our drive over the big bridge at Empire and looking out at the Empire rock jetty, in the summer of 1993 it was the location of my first redfish catch while sitting out on those big rocks with a pound of fresh shrimp for bait.

The wind and rain passed over the lodge and before we knew it, there was a knock on the door and miss Kim’s voice outside the door around 5:30, “breakfast time, fishing time”. We all knew that the quicker we got downstairs and had breakfast, the quicker we could get bait and get on the water. None of us was dilly-dallying around the room and Jimmy Meadow’s and I were paired up for fishing the second morning. It was going to be a rough morning on the back side of the front. They were calling for heavy winds out of the northwest. For that reason, our guide decided to fish the east side of the river where the winds would be a bit calmer. It made sense and I was all for the calmer winds in the marsh. After getting bait we launched out of an old broken-down ramp right on the Mississippi and we were running down the big river in record time. The wind was blowing when we went into the marsh for our first fishing stop. It didn’t take long, and Jimmy Meadows put the first nice redfish in the boat but then it got bad. I noticed a lot of the water was changing colors and the wind was howling over the reeds. The heavy winds were pushing the river water into the marsh where we were fishing, and the water was quickly becoming very stained from the river and the wind pushing currents. At that point the fish shut down and we were just going from canal to canal trying to find cleaner water and a better bite. At the same time Sanders and LJ weren’t doing much better and by lunchtime we were ready to call it a day. The wind was just too brutal to fish a lot of areas in the marsh and a lot of the guides were heading in for the day. One thing I liked about our guides is that they all talked over the radio, and they helped each other while we were fishing. Here’s a few pictures from Friday morning including a sunrise looking back up the Mississippi river to the east and some approaching storms out over the gulf to the west. We had to dodge the storms, wind and lightning most of the morning on Friday, but the front moved through and by mid afternoon the sun was back out.

When we got back to the camp, I was greeted by an old friend and tuna boat Captain from about 15 years ago, when I used to come down to Venice to go offshore tuna fishing. His name was Hooper but everyone in the area knew him as “Hoop”. He was a Captain on one of the boats I went out on and he was the co-captain of another tuna boat I went out on, so we got to know each other pretty well after a few long-range tuna trips. Hoop iss an inshore guide now, and he was the guide for Angie and Girard. When Angie asked Hoop how old he was, he said that he was so old that he played in the sandbox with Jesus. LOL…He is 80 years old and still going strong. We had a chance to chat for a while and it was great to see Hoop still kicking butt at 80. I hope that I’m in that kind of shape at 80.

After a quick lunch back at the lodge we got cleaned up and sat out back of the lodge under a gazebo and chatted the afternoon away. We played a little cornhole and had a few drinks before dinner, knowing it was our last evening at the lodge as we would be leaving out a 3:30am. Each person from all the fishermen donated a fish for the chef and Casey made us all blackened redfish for dinner and it was delicious. The meals we had during our stay at the lodge were to notch and very well prepared. We ate well the whole time we were there and there were always coolers with drinks available. They had an icemaker which supplied us with all the ice we needed for our filets. Jimmy Sanders and I loaded up and iced down all of our fish filet for the trip back home and we had quite a few filets for the cooler. After getting cleaned up and packed up we chatted for a bit longer and called it a night.

We were up by 3:15 in the morning and pulling out of the lodge by 3:45am. Jimmy Sanders laid the hammer down and the big Dodge Ram was headed back to Georgia so Jimmy Meadows could make a 5pm wedding. I think I wore a hole in Jimmy’s floorboard in the back seat, but Jimmy got us all back safely and in record time. Jimmy Meadows made his wedding by 5pm and I was prepping our catch for the freezer.

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Sportsman’s Paradise Again

It’s truly is a “Sportsman’s Paradise” and once again south Louisiana didn’t disappoint. When I think back to the first time I experienced this little slice of heaven fishing along the Empire jetty, I had no idea what kind of profound effect the area would have on me. Years later I still come back to be immersed in the culture I’ve grown to love. I found my voice changing and I couldn’t help but revive the old Cajun slang that used to be as prevalent as my love for chicory coffee and a good bowl of hot gumbo. You can’t get that feeling anywhere but south Louisiana and it’s something that comes as natural as cheering at a baseball game or smiling at a newborn baby.

Since being stationed at Naval Air Station Belle Chase while in the Navy during the mid 90’s there was a history for me out in the marsh chasing redfish and speckled trout. We were old school back before GPS was a thing, and you had to learn the marsh by memory. When you were starting from scratch in a little 14 foot Montgomery Ward semi-v aluminum boat with a 25hp Johnson the learning process was a slow one. I’ll have to say this about my time in the Navy and being stationed in south Louisiana just after the height of the first Gulf War, it was pretty laid back. There was a golf course on base and golfing was one sport I love to play. Golf for me takes a close second to fishing and if there was a third it would have to be baseball or softball and playing on military softball leagues. The Naval Air Station had all that and much more. If I had a plug for the Navy it would be to join the Navy and request to be stationed at Belle Chase, Louisiana. It’s a tour you’ll never forget, especially if you are a sportsman and posses a profound love for fishing.

Bourgeois Fishing Charters

The best way to find anything these days is the internet and that’s how I ran across a fishing lodge by the name of Bourgeois Fishing Charters. I did my search on the internet by location and Bourgeois Fishing Charters was in the heart of where I wanted to go this time. I saw plenty of pictures on the website and when I called for more information the young lady on the other end of the line had the perfect voice to seal the deal. The lodge sounded first class and very accommodating, from the pictures I saw there was no way I was going to pass up this opportunity. We set up reservations for our fishing trip a few weeks in advance and planned the trip during the week days. Our thinking was less traffic at the camp so we could slide in and out for a quick lagniappe. My French is rusty but something told me that the definition of lagniappe may be the word I’m looking for when describing Bourgeois Fishing Charters.

The Cajun Vista Lodge

As soon as we crossed the Huey P Long bridge and hit the West Bank I felt right at home. I knew the lodge was only a short distance away and we were going to be right on time for the first of many meals provided by the cooking staff at the lodge. Both Lisa and I were amazed there were no locked doors and no keys to your room. You didn’t need to worry about theft because it didn’t exist at the lodge. It was a gated lodge but also deep in the heart of a community where everybody knows everybody and not much goes on without somebody knowing about it. They provide a worry-free friendly atmosphere at the lodge. The lodge itself has a deep history, its actually a converted plantation style schoolhouse from years past and I’m sure it is the definition of a historic site. Most certainly the room we slept in was the room that many children from the area had received their education. We deduced each of the rooms in the long hallway was a classroom, you could almost hear children playing in the hall through the old transom windows above the tall doorways to our rooms. There were so many things to look at and absorb, just one trip of 48 hours isn’t enough time to experience it all. In addition to all the relics on the wall, you are greeted and meant to feel at home by a staff that is as authentic as the lodge itself. I haven’t even got to the fishing ……..

Captain Theophile Bourgeois IV

Lisa and I arrived on Wednesday evening, we had just enough time for dinner and a hot shower before bed. Thursday morning wake up was early, breakfast at 5:00am and fishing at 6:00am. It was starting to get daylight around 6am, we were launching for our first day of fishing so we really didn’t get a chance to take the lodge all in till after our first fishing trip. After the first fishing trip Lisa and I had a chance to relax on the screened in porch under ceiling fans that provided the perfect breeze. While we were relaxing with a cold drink a pickup truck pulled up just outside the porch and a bearded man with two younger boys jumped out and said hello. One of the boys was dressed in a baseball uniform and they looked like they could be headed to a little league ball game. The bearded man came in the screen door, walking directly over to where we were sitting with a smile on his face and introduced himself as Theophile Bourgeois or “TJ” for short. Now the pronunciation of his name is a little tricky and just as tricky as my French but the best way to describe it is ‘toe-feel’ ‘booj-waa’. Believe me, I’ve had to work on the pronunciation for the last 500 miles of our journey since leaving the lodge but I think I’ve got it down now. The funny part is that when TJ first introduced himself I didn’t make the connection that he was the owner until a few minutes into our conversation. He had an instant attractive personality and he had a way of making you feel right at home. I could tell right away the lodge was his pride and joy and his primary objective was to make Lisa and I a memory we wouldn’t forget. We told him that we had some fishing friends and it would be pretty cool for a few of our friends to come back again with us for a visit in the fall. TJ was more than happy to share some options including non-fishing activities for a few of the wives if they wanted something a little different than fishing during our next visit. We chatted about the delicious food and a little bit about the history of the lodge before we parted ways and enjoyed our evening meal. It’s not often you get to meet the owner of a lodge but just like everything else, he was as natural and authentic as the lodge itself. If you look up the definition of the French name “Bourgeois” you’ll find it to represent the working class.

The Food

Each meal was prepared by local folks and it didn’t take Lisa and I long to warm up to the cooking staff. Tammy prepared most of our meals while we were there and she also shared some of the local history for us as well. She also shared some tips from her personal cooking recipes and her bread pudding was the best bread pudding I’ve ever tasted. I believe I’d make that 10 hour drive again just for the bread pudding and good conversations about cooking with Tammy. Every meal was included in our package and we also had a sack lunch and drinks with our fishing trip. I can’t say enough about the meals, every one was delicious.

Shrimp pasta, crab cakes, glazed brussels sprouts and bread
French bread pudding with bananas and a bourbon sauce
Crawfish Etouffee with asparagus and rolls
Soft shelled crabs with jambalaya and green beans
Potato salad and gumbo

The Fishing

For me, fishing in the marsh is a little different than the occasional visitor to the area. One of the main reasons I picked the lodge that we picked is because it is in the same area that I used to roam some 25-30 years ago. I have some very fond memories of the area and I spent days and days in the marsh chasing redfish. If you’re reading this story in my blog I’ll invite you to read another fishing story in my blog called “Man Camp” . Man Camp will give you plenty of background into my history with the marsh and a fishing camp on a little island out in the marsh. This is where myself and some of my Navy friends spent many long weekends while in a Navy F/A-18 Squadron at a nearby air base. I was much younger then and I learned a lot about fishing during my time in Louisiana.

Our guide for the fishing was Steven, a local to the area and very knowledgeable when it came to the same areas I once used to fish. My memory of the area is fading and the marsh is constantly changing but I still recognized some of the old camps still standing after years and years of weather. Steven introduced us to the popping cork technique for redfish along the grass lines. In the past I used an older version of a popping cork for speckled trout but on my more recent trips we used moving stuff like spoons and swimbaits. Water in the marsh was pretty muddy from recent rains wind and tidal movement so we concentrated on shrimp tipped jigs under popping corks. It didn’t take long for Lisa and I to get the hang of throwing popping corks and we soon realized the redfish were right up against the grass. The closer you got the cork to the grass the better your chances to catch a redfish. Lisa started us off with the first sizable redfish but just as we were netting it the hook pulled and the redfish disappeared back into the muddy water. A little later Lisa and Steven saw a redfish tailing in a little pool so Lisa made a perfect cast into the pool. The redfish turned on Lisa’s popping cork and grabbed the shrimp, the fight was on and Lisa made sure this big redfish didn’t escape the net with a strong hook set. The bigger redfish have a very hard and bony mouth so a stout hookset is a must with a jig type hook. Lisa kept the fish under constant pressure and before long she was posing with her first redfish in six years.

It wasn’t long after Lisa caught her fish I was bringing in my first redfish in 2 years. They were both very nice fish and we spent the morning catching redfish and catfish. We moved around the marsh and fished many of the bays, ponds and lakes I used to fish years ago. We spent our morning talking with Steven and learning more about the Louisiana culture as well as Steven’s personal experiences growing up in the area. Steven was a trooper when it came to helping me find some of my old stomping grounds in the marsh. Things had changed dramatically after I left, especially after a few hurricanes.

I don’t know which I enjoyed more, running and gunning our way through the marsh or the conversation about the history of the lodge and the local seafood industry in the area. I was able to relive some of my adventures in the marsh once again as we watched the big shrimp boats come and go through the canals crisscrossing the marsh. My intention was to bring back a few larger filets for a recipe called “redfish on the half shell” and some smaller redfish filets for fried or blackened. We were blessed to achieve catching both larger and smaller redfish during our stay. I was able to put our catch in a cooler and the lodge had an ice house where you can ice down your catch until you get ready to leave. Our neighbors here at the lake house have never tried redfish on the half shell and some other Cajun delights so tomorrow, Memorial Day we are going to prepare dinner for them. Our dinner will consist of a Crawfish Gumbo, Redfish on the half shell, grilled butterflied Shrimp, grilled asparagus and for dessert, a Louisiana French Bread Pudding with a warm Bourbon sauce (Thanks Tammy).

All in all, TJ, Tammy, Steven and the rest of the staff at Bourgeois Fishing Charters made our stay very relaxing and enjoyable. They also came through in fulfilling my passion for chasing redfish in the marsh and helping me relive those special moments I had while living in Southern Louisiana.

Give them a shout if you want an authentic Cajun style fishing experience http://Bourgeois Fishing Charters. I can promise you, you’re going to love it.

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Lake Guntersville trip 7-13 through 7-17-2016

This was a 5 day trip to Lake Guntersville and the last 2 days of fishing included our club tournament with the Greater Atlanta Bass Club. I needed 3 days to figure out a game plan for the tournament, this time of year finding fish and catching them can be hot and tough. On Wednesday I fished with a friend who knew a little bit more about ledge fishing than I did. All I was interested in was learning about ledge fishing on Guntersville. We found a few areas of small shell beds on some flats while fishing a long stretch of ledge or the drop off into the main channel. The shell beds on the flats next to the ledge just kept producing 2-5lb fish on every pass. I marked two primary beds that were producing and one bed in particular had chunk rock next to it which made a perfect spot. On every pass we made we picked up at least one nice fish. My first fish of the trip was a 7 pd’er which I lost at the boat and this fish was on the shell bed with the neighboring chunk rock so it was the first mark I made on the gps. We went from one shell bed mark on the graph to another down the stretch of ledge Wednesday through Friday. Tournament day we sat on the shell bed that produced the most fish the entire time. It’s hard to believe the amount of fish that just kept coming, it’s fair to say we caught around 35-40 fish. The fish ranged from dinks to 6lbs with Lisa catching 10-15 fish and my buddies catching a few also. Overall is was a prosperous ledge.

The tournament was a 3 fish limit which made it pretty easy given we were averaging 10-20 fish a day from that stretch of the ledge. The tournament format was a 3 session tournament with the first session being Saturday morning from dawn till noon. The second session was from 4pm till 8:30pm and the third session was Sunday morning from dawn till noon. There was a tournament within a tournament with each session having a total weight pot and a big fish pot. There was also a bigger pot for overall total weight and big fish for combined both days. I like the format because it gives more teams a chance to get in the money.

Basically for the first session we made sure we were sitting just off the shell bed at dawn. We threw a shakey head with a magnum trick worm across the shell bed and dragged it back through the shells to the boat. There were numerous fish on the ledge and you just needed to be able to tell the difference between the shaky head running across the shells and a fish picking up the bait. Once you get the feel of that, then it’s all in setting the hook. You need a good hook set because the fish figure out very quickly to run at the boat if they can’t shake the hook initially. That little tactic is by design to keep you from digging that hook barb into the hard cartilage of their inner mouths. When they get near the boat they surface, jumping and shaking their heads violently as a last ditch effort to shake the hook. Keeping the rod tip low is a must.

In session one, every once in a while the fish would turn on and we would catch a few with one or two nice keepers in the mix. My strategy was to be patient, just sit on them and wait them out…..all weekend. I knew if we could average 4-5lb we would probably do very well, so waiting for the fish instead of running around and missing the bite was my strategy. We just needed patience and trust in the plan.
It was Lisa’s first day of fishing for the week so there was a little learning curve for her to get up to speed. Unfortunately she lost a couple of good fish before she got dialed in with the feel of the bite and good hook set. Once she accomplished that she was good to go and brought several good fish to the boat. On this session I did the damage and put 3 fish at over 13lbs in the boat right away then it was just a matter of working on an upgrade.
We went to the weigh in with 13 and change, all from the same little shell bed. It was good enough for first place in the session and I had a 5+ pounder to take big fish. A lot of teams struggled to find fish and a working pattern but these club guys figure out patterns and strategies very quickly so we were glad we jumped out to an early lead. Here’s a pic of the fish from session #1.IMAG0904

When session 2 started a local club was having their weigh in at the ramp…. it was a cluster so getting out to our spot was a little slow. We finally reached the shell bed and it was wide open… but man was it hot! We could see a big thunderhead building just north of the lake and I was hoping it would give us some cloud cover to cool things down, and it did…. Unfortunately there was an outflow wind from the storm. The stretch of ledge was covered in white capping water, soon came cloud cover and then blowing rain. We stuck it out and every once in a while picked up a 3-4 lber. We ended up heading back to the ramp with three decent 3-4lb fish just as the wind and clouds broke at sunset.

When we got to the ramp to trailer to the weigh-in a big catamaran looking center console was launching. I didn’t pay much attention as we parked along side a couple of cool looking high dollar Phoenix boats, Lisa held my boat at the dock as I went to get the truck. When I pulled down to the ramp area I noticed the big center console was still at the ramp and the guy couldn’t get the boat off the trailer, he hadn’t backed down far enough. He quickly jumped out of the running boat and ran back up to his truck to back it down further. When he did, the boat jumped off the trailer and started heading out into the bay …. with the boat in reverse. The guy in the truck just drove away as his boat headed out into the bay, motor running, in reverse. It took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on but I quickly realized this boat was making an arc and if my trajectory calculations were correct it was heading right for our Ranger and the 2 unmanned Phoenix’s. I looked at Lisa and she was bracing for impact as the big boat was bearing down for her and our boat. She was standing at the back of our boat with our little dog Chigger in her arms. She quickly thought to take her foot and push the big center console. I knew that wasn’t going to work so I jumped out of the truck screaming as I ran for somebody closer than me to stop that boat. I was at a sprint trying to get there before the collision. Thank goodness there was one lone guy who came flying from nowhere and jumped in the center console just as it collided with Lisa’s foot and our boat. Our boat collided with the Phoenix and that Phoenix hit the next Phoenix but luckily the guy that jumped in the big center console slammed it into drive and minimized the damage. The boat owner came running down just after it was all over and I quickly said a few choice words about him driving away full knowing his boat was in reverse putting everyone in danger. There were only a few minor scratches and we needed to get to the weigh-in. We made it with time to spare but our weight was off so we ended up with 10.5 for the second segment. There were a few teams that were getting things figured out and we finished the session in 3rd or 4th but we were still leading the overall weight by a good 6lbs. We just needed to stick some good ones in session 3 to seal the deal.
It was getting late and Lisa and I swung into Burger King for a burger and onion rings. By morning we were both sick. I don’t think the whopper and the onion rings was a good idea for us…..

At 5am Lisa got sick on the way to the ramp which made me even more sick just watching her so. We were both a mess but we knew we needed to fish and finish well. We got to our spot and by some miracle it was wide open again. We had a lot of company in our spot for the first 2 sessions but the shell bed was so small nobody could get a good angle on it but us. Not long after we got into position Lisa got a nice one on, unfortunately I was a little slow getting the net and it shook the hook boat side. Lisa and I both got a little discouraged but it wasn’t long till Lisa tied into another good fish and we boated a 5+. I just held the boat in one position and Lisa cast to the same spot over and over and before long we had another 13-14 pound sack. Lisa steadily caught fish off the back of the boat on the shell bed and I made a great net man for her. It was getting hot and we still had an hour till weigh-in so we just rode around in the breeze keeping the fish cool with o2 and ice. Our little dog Chigger likes to ride in the boat so we just let him enjoy the ride. At the end of the day we finished in first place for total weight at 36+ pounds, second place was a little over 28. Here’s a picture of the fish Lisa caught in the 3rd session to win the tournament for overall weight.IMAG1034 (1)We won total weight and big fish for session one as well as total weight for the tournament. Here’s a few pictures and a video of Lisa’s final day weigh-in with the winning fish!!

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Our First Trip to Lake Guntersville 4-14 through 4-17-2016
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Our First Trip to Lake Guntersville 4-14 through 4-17-2016

When I joined the Greater Atlanta Bass Club back in January, one of the first things I saw was that during the year the club was making 2 trips to Lake Guntersville in Al. The first was in April and I was really looking forward to making the spring trip. For a bass fisherman, a trip to Lake Guntersville is a must but it can be a challenge. I started doing research on the lake and found a few videos and articles about the lake so I went to work on tackle for the trip. I made a few swim baits, swim jigs and crankbaits for fishing the shallow grassy lake. I also found a couple videos on frog fishing the shallow grass beds and lily pads along the shoreline with artificial frogs. I was particularly interested in the frog fishing as it looked like a lot of fun and basically, not much different than topwater fishing on Lanier. The only difference is that on Lanier there is no grass but the concept is the same, the bass are deep in the Guntersville grass and watching overhead for the occasional meal to happen by. I especially got excited about the frog fishing when I watched a fishing show on tv with Roland Martin fishing with frogs in heavy grass. Roland was just hopping his little frog on top of the grass mats and out of nowhere the bass would come from below and pop the little frog. Some of the strikes were large and some were no more than little pops as the big bass just sucked the frog in. At any rate, it was topwater fishing at its finest. I also watched a tv show with Jimmy Houston fishing Guntersville in the spring but they were doing a different kind of fishing. They were fishing way out on the main lake over the shallow submerged grass beds that are everywhere on the lake. Fishing these underwater grass beds can be fun but Jimmy also mentioned that you have to know where the fish congregate in the miles of grass. Jimmy said that if you didn’t know where the fish were you could spend all day fishing nonproductive waters and hiring one of the local guides to help is a good idea. That really wasn’t an option for me and I only had a little over a day to pre-fish before the tournament so the prospect of finding fish in the expansive main lake grass was not sounding like a winning strategy for the tournament. A few of my friends that had some knowledge of the lake said the frog bite was more of a fall bite but you could still catch a few this time of year on the frogs.

With all that knowledge I gathered the time finally came and Lisa and I were on our way to Guntersville for a long weekend and a 2-day club tournament. We rented a little VRBO cabin on the west side of the lake and there was a public launch just a couple hundred yards from the cabin. As soon as we arrived and got all unloaded at the cabin it was midafternoon so we decided to launch the boat and do a little scouting. In the back of my mind I was committed to spending some time fishing the frog if I could find some shoreline grass beds. Once we launched I started looking at my lake mapping and found what looked to be a small cut across the lake that went back off the main lake so that’s where we headed. As soon as we pulled into the cut we saw some of what I was looking for, a grass-lined pocket with some reeds in the background lining the shore. My usual club tournament partner couldn’t make the trip but loaned us his “frog box” which had an array of frogs of all types but I also had 2 little Spro frogs that I had won from Eric Aldrich in a contest from a couple years ago. I told Eric I would give them a try someday when I got the opportunity. Well I got the opportunity so I tied one on for Lisa and put the other on for myself. Lisa and I were using some medium heavy rods with a stout braid spooled on our bait casters. When we pulled along side the weed line and started casting, it was apparent right away that we didn’t get a lot of distance with the heavier braid but the little Spro held water so once we got a little water in the spro’s we could cast them well enough to get them away from the boat to cover a good distance. It was a little awkward at first but it didn’t take long to get the hang of it. We started down the weed line throwing the frogs and working them back to the boat. I told Lisa that the best thing to do was try your best to imitate the way a frog would kick and swim across the weeds, more than likely in little short jerks on the frog. I grew up in the country and as a kid I took pride in being able to shoot a frog with my Daisy bb gun while the frog was on the move to escape my wrath so I indeed knew what a swimming frog looked like.

Within minutes of throwing the frog a fish came from nowhere and whacked my frog, I felt the frog get sucked under but as quick as he sucked it down he spit it out. It was a pretty intense strike and at that point we were optimistic so our casts into the weeds had a little more getty up in anticipation of the next blow-up. A few minutes later I heard the distinct sound of a big fish blowing up on a bait and I looked back to see Lisa set the hook on the fish deep in the weeds. I could tell she was surprised by the fish and the rod bowed over. I told Lisa to pull hard and pull the fish out of the weeds. She laid into the fish and the rod went limp. We really didn’t know what happened but the braid had a clean cut when she brought the weightless line back to the boat. The braid was a little old but we couldn’t figure out what would have cut the braid unless there was a worn spot somewhere from casting. The biggest problem was we had lost one of our 2 Spro frogs and there were no frogs in the frog box like the Spro. We moved on down the weed line and before long another bass blew up on my frog and I was able to pull him out of the weeds in short order and I had my first Guntersville bass, a feisty 2lber.g-ville2
After that fish we hit a lull in the excitement but we did have a few swirls and blow-ups. We decided to check the mapping and go looking for a few more weed beds to fish. It didn’t take long to find another one just up the lake a short distance and we were back at it, throwing frogs in the weed beds. We had a few swirls and blow-ups at the next spot but it was getting late and we decided to hit one more spot before heading in for dinner. At the next spot there were only 2 little weed beds but the weeds were thick and just about all the action we found came from the thickest parts of the weed beds. Lisa was throwing a little mouse/frog looking bait with a couple of little Colorado blades for legs and that seemed to be getting some interest from the fish but on the last weed bed, right before leaving a nice fish exploded on my frog and the fight was on. It was a short lived fight because I had him pinned to a pile of weeds and soon we were hoisting him and a pile of weeds into the boat. I now had my first bigger bass on the frog and I was feeling good about the frog bite. Here’s a picture of my 2nd G-ville bass…g-ville
The next morning, Friday morning, our plan was to do a lot of looking and find a few new locations and a few more tactics for the upcoming tournament. We also wanted to find and fish some rip rap and test our skills at the submerged weed beds out in the open water of the main lake. As it turned out Friday was a very windy day and a very crowded day on the lake. Not only did we have the regular traffic from bass fishermen pre-fishing for the tournament weekend, there was also a high school championship tournament with no less than 325 boats with high school teams from all over the south. We stayed away from the weed beds we found a day earlier and just fished rip rap and docks. It was just too windy for us out on the main lake so we stuck to a lot of leeward rip rap and docks in pocket and bays. We used a variety of baits from shakey head to swimbaits, swim jigs, squarebills, jigs and lipless cranks. We caught small fish here and there throughout the day but it was a hard day of looking and fishing with not much to show for it in way of a game plan for day 1 of the tournament. Our plan for day one was to hit the primary frog spot the first thing in the morning and try and pull a good fish out of the grass to start the morning and then spend a little time back on the rocks, docks and rip rap.
When we got to the ramp before dawn I believe everyone had the same idea we did, get an early start and be number one to your number one spot. We got to the ramp before at 5:30 local and it was already a zoo with a bass club launching out at the same time we were launching. We finally got clear of the boat launched and set up at our spot. We were the first to get there but the flights of high schoolers and club fisherman hadn’t got started. When they finally did there we no less than 3 boats lined up to fish the same grass line we were in but we had first dibs on the prime grass. Not too far away another bass boat started working the opposite side of the bay and the grass line there, as we got started it wasn’t long till we watched the other bass boat across the bay bring in a nice 2-3lber on a buzzbait but we just kept throwing the frogs. We watched them boat a second smaller fish on down the weed bed and I wondered if I should dig out my buzz bait or just keep throwing the frog. We kept on throwing the frog with anticipation of a blow-up and we were both optimistic that it would happen after our success on Thursday evening. At least 30 minutes went by with nothing happening and no interest in the frogs from the bass. It was getting crowded in the bay as a couple more high school boats showed up and I knew it was going to get harder and harder as boat after boat scoured the weed beds in our bay. Finally a huge blow-up engulfed my frog and I set the hooks on a bigger bass. She tried to shake the frog at the surface and then she dove into the grass but we were able to pull her out and into the boat. I guessed the fish to weigh around 6 and just about as big as my biggest from Thursday. I felt a relief that we were able to get a confidence fish in the boat to start the morning and I was hoping Lisa would be able to pull one in for a second fish. We pretty much got crowded out of the bay we started in so we moved to another spot only to find boats galore. You couldn’t find a pocket that wasn’t covered up with boats. It was a grind just to find a spot to yourself. We fished the remainder of the morning without another bite, working rip rap and some grass beds on the leeward side of some Islands. The wind had picked up and it was brutal. That’s one thing we learned about Guntersville, it’s a windy lake. Shortly after lunch we were working some rip rap and Lisa popped a good one which looked to be around 4lbs on a lipless crank. That brought her spirits up and she was eager to get another one. We kept going and a few minutes later something slammed a swimbait I was throwing. At first, when I felt the hit on the swimbait I thought it was a very large bass but as soon as I felt the fish pull I knew it wasn’t a bass but a catfish. Sure enough, when it came to the surface it only confirmed what I already suspected, Mr. Whiskers.IMAG0738
We spent the last hour back at our frog hole but by then the boat traffic in and around the grass had scattered the once tightly bunched beds and it looked rough. We were sure boats had been in and out of there all day and it didn’t yield another fish all weekend. We wound up going to the weigh-in with 2 fish, my early morning fish being 5.93lbs and Lisa’s weighed very close to 4lbs. Our total tally was 2 fish and just shy of 10lbs. I knew that wasn’t going to hold as we were the 3rd boat to weigh in and there were about 30 other teams who hadn’t weighed in. I was sure our biggest fish was not going to be in the running for the big fish pot but as teams weighed I started feeling better about our big fish. There were a lot of fish weighed in but not very many hit the 5lb mark. Our 5.93 barely held through day 1 and we were in the money with the big fish pot for day 1. Although we didn’t have 5 fish or the weight to compete, at least we weighted a couple of decent fish. Lisa and I were both pretty happy campers going into day 2. Unfortunately, Lisa nor I thought about taking a picture of our fish from day one but it was on to day 2.

Our strategy for day 2 was to hit the weed beds early then hit some rocks and rip rap, followed by some submerged grass out on the main lake. The wind was somewhat calmer on day 2 so more main lake grass beds came into play. We did check the shoreline weed beds early with the frogs but there was nothing there and nothing to show for it. When we hit the rocks, the first rocky point we pulled up to produced a nice fish for me on a crawfish colored lipless. We were very lucky because the fish was just barely hooked and was trying hard to jump and shake the hook. I saw the lipless just barely hooked by one barb when the fish jumped for the first time. I pulled the fish to the boat as quickly as I could and Lisa shoved the net under the big bass just as the hook released from the fishes’ lip. I was relieved and very proud of Lisa’s cat-like reflexes with the netting skills. The fish looked to be about 5lbs and a nice start to the day. We moved from spot to spot and fished the main lake grass as well as shoreline grass, rip rap and some rocky points we found with nothing to show for it. It was a nice day to be on the lake but the bass bite just wasn’t working for us. We wound up going to the weigh-in on day 2 with our one 5lb fish.IMAG0838
When I talked with the tournament director he told me that on day 2 if no one caught a bigger fish than our big day 1 fish we would win the big fish pot for the tournament which sounded pretty good to Lisa and I but for a fish that size to last another day of 33 tournament boats on Lake Guntersville the chances were very small. After we weighed our fish we waited and watched as everyone weighed in. There were some nice fish weighed and some good numbers. I watched as sack after sack was weighed and every once in a while a big fish would hit the scale. There were a few fish over 5lbs weighed but one in particular that I thought was bigger than our 5.93 came up just shy at 5.89. That was the winning fish for the day 2 pot so we wound up winning the big fish pot for the tournament as well as the big fish pot for day 1. Lisa and I couldn’t have been happier for our first trip with the club.

Lisa and I really enjoy traveling and checking out these different lakes and we really enjoyed Lake Guntersville. The fishing is a little different than we’re used to here on Lake Lanier but we both really want to go back again when we’re not tournament fishing and just spend a few days learning the lake as well as getting into more of that frog fishing. We had a great time and the folks in the Greater Atlanta Bass Club are some top notch fishermen and great guys. I believe the winning weight for the weekend was over 30lbs and we saw several teams bringing 5 fish to the scales, even with some spotted bass mixed in. Guntersville is just a short 3 hour drive from Lanier and I highly recommend a trip if you’ve never been.