Fishing trip from hell
Last Wednesday I planned on leaving by 9 AM to go to Lake Martin for our local
three club tournament. I wanted to spend three days fishing before the two day
weekend tournament. Took me forever to load and get everything done, and
finally left at noon for the three hour drive.About half way there the treads on one back tire on my motor home came off and
wrapped around the axle. My motor home is a 1976 model and the tires may be
originals - they were dry-rotted but I only drive the thing about 700 miles a
year. Anyway, managed to drive 5 miles back to the nearest town and get the
spare put on. I could not budge the lugs on the dual rear tires. That is when
I found the spare was a different size - shorter than the others. But I made it
to the lake, three hours late, too late to do any fishing. We looked at the tires and they were awful, so I got up Thursday morning and
drove into town. Nobody had 16.5 inch tires in stock so I ordered them and
headed to the lake. Got to fish from 9:30 AM till dark - caught some fish on a
variety of patterns from buzzbaits to worms. Strange, the first cove I tried,
with lots of wood cover, I got three hits on a buzz bait, hooked and lost one
keeper spot and missed the other two. That was a pattern for the next three
days - lots of hits on buzzbaits but hard to hook them, even after adding
trailer hooks. I even added a red treble hook to the end and it did not help. At 1:00 I decided to run way up the river and look for largemouth. The water
was stained pretty good up there and I fished a spinnerbait, buzzbait and
flipped a jig into blowdowns and rock piles for three hours, no takers. I
finally switched to a Junebug Mag 2 Zoom Texas rigged and landed a half dozen
bass in the next two hours, all but one about a pound each. The best fish I had
was only about 1.75 pounds so I decided it was not worth the run in the
tournament to go back. Heading in I stopped and rode over some humps, looking for baitfish. One of the
three I like to fish had both bait and bigger fish, so I started there the next
morning. Was there before sunrise Friday and made five casts with a Fat Free
Shad and landed two 13 inch spots. Eased over to the rocky point just off the
hump and hooked and lost another keeper spot. I left since I was going to start
there the next morning. Spent the morning checking various places - caught bass on Trick worms,
Carolina rigs, spinnerbaits, crankbaits and Texas rigged worms. Most of what I
fished were brush piles around docks and in coves looking for largemouth -
usually a limit of largemouth will outweigh a limit of spots there. I had seven
or eight keepers from daylight until I had to leave at 1:00 PM to go get tires,
most 13 inch spots and largemouth. Had a bunch of short spots. Decent fish
were hard to find.. Got off the water at 1:00 and was at the tire store at 2:00 PM. 3.5 hours, six
tires and $585 later I headed back to the campground. Turned a curve too sharp,
turned over my coffee pot on the counter and broke the glass pot. Made do with
a sauce pan for the next two days. So far three days on the trip and all of one was spent getting there and half
the other two were spent getting tires. And I broke my coffee pot. At least I
was catching a good many bass on a variety of patterns and had a good place to
start on Saturday morning. But bad luck comes in threes, right? Tournament days to follow later! Ronnie
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