McClure Snakes
Fished an Anglers Choice Semi-Pro tourney on 10/27. We started just out side the tires to the left of the marina where my partner had some spook fish hit him the weekend before with me throwing Swimbaits and my partner throwing a spook. I caught a keeper fish on the third cast with a Triple Trout. The fish was 13 1/2 inches long and rail thin. We fished into Piney Creek with no more love on the reaction stuff, so I threw a wacky jighead Trick Worm up next to some standing timber and get keeper #2. This fish was in slightly better shape but still a snake. We fished back out to where we started with jigs and worms for nothing.
We made a short run up the river and I hook up with the oddest Swimbait fish I have ever caught. The fish hit the triple trout on the fall, was just over 14 inches long and weighed less than 8 OZ. the fish look liked it was just spit up by a larger bass, which is weird because it had a 3 in baby bass sticking out its gullet. I almost did not want to put this fish in the well but hey a keeper is a keeper.
We made another short run up the river to where some of the old bridge pilings are visible and my partner catches a fish off one of the pilings on a dart-headed grub. This fish looked like a trout painted like a bass, long and lean.
We make another run up the river where my buddy caught some fish in pre-fish and with me swiching between the swimbaits and the wacky-rig and my partner throwing crankbaits and jigs. My buddy fills our limit wit another snake of a jig fish at which time I start to throw a Hula Grub. At this point the bite gets good for about 2 hours, with me culling out all our snakes with slightly bigger snakes. The balance beam got a workout that day.
We decided to head back to where we started the day because that is where my buddy got decent fish to show in pre-fish and it was close to the ramp. We get one good fish to blow up on a topwater and not stick but that was it. We ended weighting 6.29 and finishing 17 out of 36
20.85 won it but they had a 15.20 kicker there were only 2 limits weighed in that were over 9 pounds. I do not know what would cause a lakes bass population to get so skinny, we marked bait and the fish were obviously rooting crawdads up on the bank (precious ounces of crawdad were spit up in the livewell)
