The Georgia Bass Slam: A Lesson in Biology and Geography

This year, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources came up with a new challenge for its anglers - catch at least five of the state's ten indigenous black bass species (Genus "Micropterus").

The Georgia Bass Slam

Georgia's Ten Black Bass Species. Photo from GA DNR website.

To many people not familiar with bass fishing, they may only know of the widespread largemouth, spotted and smallmouth species when it comes to black bass.  But there are many more than that - at least 14 known species!

Georgia is lucky to host the largest percentage of black bass species with 10 of the 14. In fact, all but one species (the Guadalupe bass, native to Texas) can be caught by traveling Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.  Georgia's geography of mountains, piedmont, and coastal plain allow for a very diverse system of waterways, and good habitat for hundreds of freshwater species.

At least four of these black bass species could be caught in the lakes and rivers I knew I'd be fishing in tournaments this year, so I set a goal for myself to complete a 5-fish slam in 2017.

The Rest of the Story

Paul Harvey taught us that there’s always more to the story than meets the eye. 

Yesterday was a great day fun-fishing on the Savannah River, as many of y’all have seen from my fish posts on Instagram and Facebook. But there’s part I’ve left out - the rest of the story. I actually lost a smallmouth on a hookset with 30 lb braid in open water, and it probably would’ve went over 6 pounds, almost unheard of for a Georgia smallie; easily a Citation fish. 

The catch is, the line didn’t break at the knot, but somewhere in the middle. The fish jumped nearly 2’ out of the water 3 times trying to spit my lure (rhymes with Mopper Flopper). Eventually she succeeded and I got the lure back for a while, just to REALLY lose it later when the same exact thing happened again on a 2-3 lb spotted bass. 

At first, I thought I needed to re-spool new braid, but upon further investigation I found the real culprit. This photo is magnified a lot, but you can see a small chip in one of my guide inserts. I tied my line to a stationary object 3 times and set the hook hard until the line broke. Each time, the break was between the 3rd and 4th guide from the reel. Turns out the 4th guide had the exposed sharp edge. 

A tiny, microscopic detail not only cost me a $17 lure, but more importantly, a trophy smallmouth. 

The rod is the Lews TP1 Speed Stick 7’ MH-Fast. I feel like it’s a good rod. I honestly don’t think it’s a defect, just an effect of heavy use and abuse that comes with regular kayak angling, and a costly oversight on my part. 

A few months ago, I got a buzzbait snagged in a tree with this rod, and the same thing happened with the line breaking in the middle rather than at the usual weak spot, the knot. I should have investigated then. Ignoring it cost me. 

I guess the lesson learned is to not forget about periodic service & inspection on your rods. Everyone services their reels and changes out fishing line, but that’s not all of the equation. This problem was so small, I could barely see it in bright light, and had to confirm with a scratch awl that it really was a chip. It really was a miniscule detail, but an important one.

I can’t imagine this happening in a tournament. Inspect your gear, folks. 

UPDATE 11/7/17 -  I called Lew’s today, and they are sending me a new line guide free of charge, no questions asked. This is the kind of customer service that will influence what products I choose to use in the future. 

Tight lines, y’all...

To Net Or Not To Net?

One of the discussions I often see on the Kayak Bass Fishing Facebook page is regarding the use of landing nets.  Some anglers swear by them 100% of the time, some anglers think they're a waste of space, and others are somewhere in between.  Elite Series anglers are not allowed to use nets in competition, and some of us enjoy that extra challenge of trying to emulate their fish landing methods from time to time.  However, I bet if you asked a few of those guys, they'd like to have the opportunity to use one.

My Net Setup - Simplistic and Functional

While I consider my net standard equipment on every trip, I don't always use it.  It rests in a Ram tube to the rear-left of my seat, easily within arms reach.  I have a leash on it so I don't lose it, but one end of the leash is a magnetic net attachment used by fly fishermen, so I can grab it quickly and move freely with it once it's out of the tube.

There are two parts to the net equation - what net to use, and when to use it.

The Guntersville Incident of 2017

I write a big, comprehensive post on this blog at the end of the year about my tournaments and the lessons learned during each one. However, after my day at the 2017 KBF Trail event at Lake Guntersville, I decided this tournament deserved its own special post.  Because it was, well...special. And not in the good way.

The Reel Krazy event at Terrapin Creek on August 25-26 had been the last tournament I fished before I bought my Jeep.  I traded in my Toyota Tacoma pickup on September 2, so of course I had to box up all the junk in the truck and get it out before I took it to the dealership to make the trade. That was a busy Labor Day Weekend.  Then my wife and I had our anniversary on September 6, followed by what was supposed to be a family vacation to Florida on the 7th. That got squashed by Hurricane Irma, and we ended up going down there the 16th-21st instead, and had a great time.  But we got back, and I had only one day to prep and load for Guntersville.  It was Friday the 22nd, after a busy day of playing catch-up at work, and I was going to load up and camp that night near my launch point on the north end of the lake near the Nickajack Dam.  It had been nearly a month since I had been on the kayak, but I was ready, and confident in my spot. It was over an hour away from the check-in at Guntersville State Park, but I had caught a really nice 5 lb class fish from that area before, and I was pretty sure I'd have it to myself.  Most people rightfully associate Guntersville Lake with the state of Alabama, but it actually extends all the way up into Tennessee, and that's where I'd be fishing.  The lake is over 65 miles long from southwest (Guntersville, AL) to northeast (South Pittsburg, TN) ends.

Guntersville is a LONG lake!

Family, Shoal Bass, and Being a Newbie Again

As a competitive kayak angler, sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the competition on and off the water.  Suddenly, it's all about making a name for yourself in the industry, counting likes and followers, and trying to find that edge that will vault you to the top of the podium at the next derby.  You always enjoy kayak fishing when you get a chance to go, but you've forgot the feeling of being a rookie. Recently, I've been given a valuable opportunity - to revisit that feeling I had when I began kayak fishing.

My Maiden Kayak Fishing Voyage - Allatoona Lake, August 24, 2014

It's Summer Transition Time

The azalea blooms are gone, Memorial Day has passed, the days are getting long, and it's just plain hot. For the past two months, it's been relatively easy to pick bass off stumps, riprap and other shallow cover. But spawning season is now over and the bass are heading back deep.

For many anglers, the lake becomes intimidating this time of year. There are several reasons for this. Part of it is pleasure boat traffic. For lakes like Chickamauga and Guntersville, grass adds thousand of acres of extra cover to take into consideration. And finally, there are the deep fish and the fact that you're no longer exclusively target-casting to anything on the bank that looks fishy. Those shallow tricks seem to quit working as soon as the sun gets up and the mercury rises.

This is the time of year when certain anglers flourish, the ones who have confidence in fishing deep -  the ones who trust their electronics and head out to the ledges and creek channels - the ones not afraid to mop the lake floor with a jig and dig trenches with big crankbaits.

I'm admittedly not up to the highest offshore confidence level yet, but last summer I found some success away from the bank, and I want to share a few things I learned that may help those struggling to find their way away from the shoreline.

1. When there are large grass mats, imagine the area without them. If it's not an area you'd fish when the grass isn't there, it's probably wise to move on. There are certain areas like transitions, points, humps, channel swings, etc that you'll focus on any time of the year. Fish use these areas as ambush points and thoroughfares with or without the presence of grass. Keep going to those same areas and if there is grass there, consider it a bonus. Find the edges, which could be as far as 8-12' down depending on water clarity and go to work.  Frogs and flukes are great for topwater action, and a big worm or swimbait can hammer them deep.

2. Your favorite shallow water baits can work in the summer - you just have to learn how to apply them in deep water situations. Usually it requires a slight adjustment. Plastics you may throw shallow weightless, or with light weights, in the spring may need to be upsized to 1/2-1 oz weights to help the bait get down to the strike zone quickly and add additional feel along the bottom, especially in wind. A Texas rig or shaky head may need to be traded for a drop shot to keep the bait visible along the top of grass and deep brushpiles. Heavy spinnerbaits can be slow-rolled down points and dropped along bluffs and ledges. Put the square bills away in favor of deep diving crank baits, and dig a trench with them down the points and humps, and off the tops of the ledge. If topwater is your thing, a spook or Sammy can be your best friend when you're around an active school and the bass are chasing baitfish.

Here's an example of one of my favorite techniques translating from shallow to deep: Last summer in a tournament, I was looking for a third fish to fill out my limit. It was getting late in the morning and the shallow bite had all but shut down. After working over some good docks and seawalls, I paddled out to this point on the inside of a creek channel bend. The point had a huge grass mat on it until about 10-11' of water where it tapered out to gravel bottom and dropped into the channel. I set up on the edge of the grass using my Lowrance, fan-casted the same 1/4 oz shaky head I was using shallow earlier, and landed a nice 16.75" bass to fill my limit.  As you can see from the scale, I was sitting 150 feet from the bank and casting toward the middle rather than beating the bank.  The channel marker was a perfect reference point as well.

3. Look for bait.  All during the summer, bass will set up in the depths below bait.  Finding the bait on a ledge is a good way to eliminate bad water when there are miles and miles of ledges like on Kentucky Lake and other Tennessee River impoundments. Look for the fish in a "haystack" formation or streaking through the bait clouds on your graph.  These are active schools and can make for a great day of fishing.

Image source: scout.com

Try these tips when you're out on the lake this summer, and you may be pleasantly surprised with your results.  I hope to hone these skills myself. If it fails, go skip some docks for a while and try again until you figure them out. Tight lines, y'all.

It's All About to Change

As I write this post, it's Tuesday night and I'm sitting in a motel room in New Johnsonville, TN, near the shores of Kentucky Lake.  I drove up here earlier today for KBF National Championship weekend.  This is what all the obsessive studying, video watching, reading and fishing over the last year has led up to.  Now I get a couple of days to practice for the Big Show.  I finished  91st out of 230 anglers last year, and I'm ready to try and make a big improvement this year.

I have chosen to enter the HOW Big Bass Brawl and the KBF Open as well as the Championship.  The Big Bass Brawl runs from practice, starting tomorrow and going all the way through Saturday.  The Open and the Championship run concurrently Friday and Saturday.

If I were to win these events, I'd probably be cashing checks totaling somewhere near $50,000.  In most peoples' books, including mine, that's a life-changing weekend.

But whether I cash a check or not, my life will definitely be changed in an even bigger way in the upcoming weeks.

This is not so much a post about fishing, but about perspective and priority.  Winning here would be a huge deal, and something I've thought about every day since I left Kentucky Lake last year.  But bringing a child into the world is even bigger.  And although it might surprise some people, it has dominated my thoughts lately.  I'm not sure how to put into words the gamut of emotions that hit me daily.  Love, excitement, fear, anxiety, happiness...it's hard to focus on anything without thinking about that precious little life that is getting closer and closer to making his appearance.

After last year, I feel like I'm prepared for just about anything that Kentucky Lake decides to throw at me. And for these four days, I'll be laser-focused on these little green fish.  But I have no idea what this kid is going to throw at me, and that's scary as hell.  But I'm excited to find out, and can't stop thinking about it.

Lastly, I have some thanks that are due.  I use social media mostly for fishing and promoting ANGLR, and I need to give a heartfelt, long-overdue public "thank you" to my wife, Solitair.  Thank you for proving every day that even though the baby isn't here yet, you're going to be a great mom.  Thank you for understanding how important fishing is to me, whether I'm cashing checks or just unwinding on the river.  Thanks for your patience and understanding when I'm in the office until 4am studying maps, archiving fishing reports, and graphing weather trends.  Thank you for trusting that I will be a good dad when it seems like it's the last thing on my mind.  I promise, it's not.

Specializing Your Rod, Reel and Line for Kayak Fishing

Everyone knows kayak fishing can put you in many situations that are different from fishing from a larger boat. Therefore, kayak anglers don't always need to adhere to some of the rules of thumb that have been shared in various instructional articles and videos you see from tour pros and other experts.  While the baits and techniques usually apply across the board, the gear used to employ them sometimes does not.

The main reason for this discrepancy is because a kayak becomes an integral part of the drag system when catching a fish, from the bite, through the hookset, all the way to the moment when you (hopefully) land that lunker on the other end of the line. The shallow draft and smaller coefficient of friction cause a different effect in each part of the catch than a heavy and deeper-hulled bass boat.

Does this mean that a person switching from a bass boat to a kayak has to sell off all their gear and start all over?  Absolutely not - there are minor adjustments that can be made to fit the situation.  We can break it down into the three components of a conventional fishing outfit - the rod, the reel, and the line.

There are some common problems kayak anglers face when they are not using the optimal equipment for fishing from a small plastic boat.  Keep reading to explore five of these problems, and see how to get your rods, reels, and line working in harmony to catch more fish from your kayak.

2016 Year in Review and Lessons Learned

By far, the most popular post of in the short history of the ANGLR Blog was the 2015 Year in Review post.

Before I focus on my New Years Resolutions, it's time to take a look back at the 2016 tournament season - the successes, failures and lessons learned.

I have already published a separate post on the first tournament I participated in for 2016, the River Bassin' season opener in the Florida Panhandle, as it turned into a longer adventure.

So we'll start the official year-in-review with the KBF National Championship.

Tackle Warehouse Unboxing

My first unboxing video!