Goldenrod Masters Club Tournament on Lake Guntersville
by Louis Summerville
(Fairfield Al.)
The Winners of Tournament
On April 17th & 18th my club out of Birmingham Ala. the Golden Rod Bass Masters held it's two day event on Lake Gunter ville, everyone was geared up to have a good time we all stopped to eat at the waffle house about 3 am that morning, that is something that the club does every tournament before we start the day.
We launched our boats from waterfront landing both day's of the tournament, filled with excitement of the day to come we headed out at day break to get a early jump on the boat traffic due to several tournaments being held on the lake that day.
Which we found later to be more like two thousand boats being reported by the game warden. I was the seventh boat out the first morning but I took my time going up the lake heading to an area that a friend had told me about.
It was a little chilly that morning due to a small cold front that had came threw the night before so I was glad I didn't have to run hard and heavy that morning.
After arriving to my location I pulled out a top water bait trying to put a quick fish in the boat, but after throwing a spiting image for a hour without a taker, and my non-boater casting a rattle trap.
I decided to switch gears and slow things down a bit I picked up a bag of Powerteam lures 6" lizards I had not tried the green pumpkin w/light blue swirl and I decided to change up the way I had fished the lizard the week before, since the cold front had come threw that morning.
I used a bait caster on a 7' falcon rod putting a 1/32 weight on it with a swivel, I had only about a 4" leader so the bait could fall slowly behind the weight, the first cast with the lure landed on the side of a fallen tree I slid the lizard over the limb which it only fell about 2 inches.
The line took off running, and I put the first fish in the boat which turned out to be my largest fish of the day a 3 lb. 11oz. large mouth.
The tree limb was sitting about 15 feet from the bank in about 6 foot of water, at that time we started to target that water level.
That is when my non-boater put his first fish in the boat a small fish about 14 inches on a rattle trap. He hit his second fish another short one.
I continued to cast the lizards around the wood but only landed short fish. one after the other.
We decided to change locations moving out on some grass flats still catching short fish.
The wind picked up and we decided to move back to a more covered location from the wind. That is when I had trolling motor problems and had to return to the dock to see if I could get it fixed.
We went to two locations but both had not opened that day or closed early, so we returned to the tackle store for some information as to where we could get another mount for my trolling motor.
One of the customers at the tackle shop came up to me and asked to take a look at it, and informed me he thought he could fix it at his home if I would follow him just down the road.
It took a while to drill new wholes in the mount but he managed to fix the mount but there was not enough time to go back to fishing due to all the travel time.
I thanked Kevin Linn for helping me and he gave me his card and told me about The Fisherman's Village cabins designed to suit all a fishermans needs and they have very reasonable prices.
I gave him my card and told him I would add him to my website and he also told me a few more places to go and fish.
Because I had contacted the club president about my boat problems and I had a witness in the boat to verify my fish I was allowed to weight in the fish in my live well, but it still put me way down the leader board.
On the second day of the tournament blast off seemed a little warmer but the wind was blowing out of the north and I knew from others commenting on the lake in the past.
I didn't want to test my fate and run far from the landing, due to the fact that it felt like it was blowing 15 mph or better.
I pulled into a protected cove and decided to camp out because I was fishing by myself the second day and didn't want to fight the wind.
Now this cove was the same area I had caught my keeper in the first day of the tournament so I pulled out the lizard and started casting around picking up 4 short fish then landed a nice keeper.
I fished it about another hour with no luck. I was just getting ready to leave when a friend of mine came up asking how I was doing which replied not well and I was thinking about leaving the area.
He told me he had come into the area because the wind was worse than it was at the morning take off.
The area I had just fished had a boat sitting on it so I eased around the bend where there was no wind blowing in a very shallow flat only about 2 feet of water made a cast just as the lizard hit the water the line jumped and I put my second keeper in the boat.
Three cast later another keeper then about 6 short fish the bite quit so I eased around the corner for about 10 minute's but just close enough so if I seen another boat approaching the area I could get back to it quickly.
I return to the area which was about 20 yards in length I made my first cast the line jumped and the fight was on but as I reached for the net, the fish lunged under the boat hitting my trolling motor and broke my line.
I had to sit a minute to gather myself due to the fact that fish would have given me my limit.
I continued to fish the area only to leave it for 5 to 10 minutes at a time only to return to catch 1 to 3 keepers at a time.
I am glad I had a scale in the boat they were all about the same size only upgrading my smallest fish 7 times about 1 oz at a time. All in all I caught about 20 keepers out of this one area.
I glanced at the time it was 2 o'clock and we weight in time was at 3 pm so I fished about 30 more minutes and guess I had lost my focus because I broke off 2 fish at the very end both of which I could have upgraded with.
I returned to the dock loaded my boat and unloaded the fish in my bag for the final weigh in, but to my surprise I was the only person to have a 5 fish limit.
The scales top me off at 15 lbs of fish for the tournament making it possible to come in second place in the tournament, so the old saying (never give up) applied to this tournament for me. Plus a new lure no one had every used or seen on this lake.
A big thank you goes out to Powerteam lures and New a friend's advise about a area he had fished the year before around the same time.
