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By Duke Jenkel Practice Just as with Toho last month, this was my first trip to Smith Lake. With the help of a few friends who had been to Smith Lake in the past, I was able to find out that Smith is a deep clear reservoir, with an excellent population of spotted bass. That information coupled with the fact that the spawn in north Alabama was about to break loose at any minute, pretty much gave me an idea of how to prepare for this tournament. If you guessed Spinning rods, shaky-heads and finesse worms, you nailed it! Actually it wasn’t all bad, but as a self-described power fisherman, this whole shaky-head phenomenon begins to grow old. Anyway, enough complaining about the finesse fishing. I was able to practice one day for this event and as I figured, the finesse worm was going to be the way to go for me in this deal. Believe it or not, I caught all of my fish in practice on a new “secret” color – “green pumpkin”. I even got creative and spiked the tail chartreuse, how’s that for a top-secret bait. What I found interesting in practice, was the fact that switching from 8lb Maxima fluorocarbon to 6lb Maxima fluorocarbon more than doubled the number of bites I got. Personally, I have not been in too many situations where that has happened. Even at Bull Shoals, 8lb fluorocarbon worked just fine, and Smith Lake was not quite as clear as Bull Shoals is, or at least during the tournament it wasn’t. I also had a few bites throwing some top-water baits. So as I prepared my rods for the tournament, Here’s the list: 1 GLoomis 7’6” GLX model MBR904X flipping stick rigged with 15lb Maxima Fluorocarbon, a 3/8th ounce Penetrater Tungsten Weight, and a Gamakatsu 4/0 EWG Superline hook. I fished a black neon Sweet beaver on this rod. 1 GLoomis 6’10” Shaky Head Rod Model # SHR822S rod spooled with 6lb Maxima Fluorocarbon line and rigged with a 1/4 ounce Lunker Lure Shaky Head Jig and a Reaction Innovations 4.95 Flirt worm in Green Pumpkin. 1 GLoomis 7’0” GLX rod model CBR 844C rod spooled with Maxima 10lb monofilament line and rigged with a Lucky Craft Sammy 100 in Chartreuse shad color 1 GLoomis 7’0” IMX rod model JSR 842C Spooled with 6lb Maxima fluorocarbon, rigged with an 1/8th ounce Lunker Lure Shaky Head and a Reaction Innovations 4.95 Flirt worm in Green Pumpkin 1 GLoomis 7’0” GLX rod Model # MBR843 spooled with 8lb Maxima Fluorocarbon, a 1/16th ounce weight and a 5” Senko on a Gamakatsu 3/0 EWG hook. Tournament Day 1 Finally Tournament day is here. I was drawn out as boat 157 and paired with National Guard Pro Ramie Colson jr. from Cadiz, Kentucky. Ramie had just won the FLW Series event the week prior to this tournament on Wheeler Lake. He said he had a tough practice and we were just going to go fishing tomorrow and see if we could figure out a little more. We spent our tournament day in the mid-lake region fishing for spotted bass. There had been some discussion about spawning largemouth, fortunately for me; he was not sight-fishing. In all honesty the day was pretty uneventful, Ramie boated four keepers and I boated one, all on finesse worms. One interesting note, even though he had a tough practice, and by his own admission, was not on any fish, it was amazing how slow he continued to fish during the tournament. We fished a bunch of “new” water and we went extremely slow. It definitely brought home the fact that I fish too fast under certain circumstances. Needless to say I knew Ramie from fishing against him in the LBL division of the BFL’s and as I expected we had a great day on the water. With only one fish in the live well, I wasn’t too excited about weigh-in; however, much to my surprise I was in 64th place. Not too bad for only having one. Tournament Day 2 My day 2 partner was Mike Todd from Norman, Oklahoma. Mike had a great day one and was in third place going into day two. Much to my surprise he was fishing in the upper-end of the lake, flipping bushes and fishing a spinnerbait around grass and logs.. Wow! I couldn’t feel more at home, I was glad I brought a flipping stick with me. Before I go any further, even though this is a highland reservoir, and normally devoid of submergent vegetation, the lake had been extremely low due to the drought conditions Alabama had been experiencing last summer. During the drought period, land grass, weeds, and small saplings began to grow below the normal pool elevation line, creating an area that when the water rose to normal pool elevation, had “flooded” grass. We made a fairly long run to start day two, and when we reached the area he was fishing, it looked great. It took several hours before we were able to connect with any fish; I was able to catch a short fish and one keeper on the black neon Sweet Beaver. As we fished the upper-area of the lake, we were within sight of day two leader Glen Browne from Ocala, Florida, it was amazing to me, that only a few boats were in this area. As I said before it looked great. After a few hours of fishing with only two bites, we began to work our way down the lake towards take-off. We fished numerous large feeder creeks, that all had the submerged “land grass” in them. In about the third neck that we fished, as Mike was fishing a very small section of grass, a 3lb largemouth cruised up to a small sapling about twenty feet from the boat. I pitched my senko over to the sapling and much to my surprise, she bit. In a moment of excitement, I set the hook a little too hard for my 8lb fluorocarbon and broke my line. I re-tied my line, and made another pitch to the small sapling, as I pulled my Senko up to the twig, the fish swam to the surface and ate my Senko. I set the hook and when Mike was going for the net, she pulled off. This was getting extremely frustrating! After losing the fish, my pro partner was able to successfully land her, she was 3lbs, maybe even 3 and a quarter. I will be very surprised if that lost fish doesn’t come back to haunt me in the points race. We continued to fish back towards the take-off area, in another creek I boated a nice keeper largemouth on the Flirt worm, this proved to be the last keeper that I would catch for the day. Knowing that one fish had me in 64th place on Day 1, I had confidence that two fish would surely move me up in the standings. Tournament Notes: In hindsight, losing that 3lb fish was brutal, that fish alone would have moved me up to 15th place, more importantly, it would have provided 28 more points, but that’s fishing. The two fish I caught on day two gave me a two-day total of 6lbs 2oz, good enough for 43rd place and another check. I definitely learned one thing in this tournament, when the fishing is extremely tough, one keeper can take you a long way. I was blessed with three during this tournament. All in all I got paid and scored some excellent points! I currently sit in 13th place in the points standings; hopefully I can keep this up and plan a trip in August to Lake Murray in South Carolina. So I can fish a little tournament called the Forrest Wood Cup. Good Luck and Good Fishin’, Duke Jenkel |
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