West Point Lake Bass Fishing Reports

[MotherNature]

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[bocraw]

TMTanglers traveled to Highland Marina on beautiful West Point Lake near LaGrange, Georgia for our summer tournament on June 11-12, 2005. One of the ideas behind our unique club is to get anglers from several different areas in the club so that we can continue to fish a wide variety of waters. The idea really showed itself during this tournament. In addition to our usual Birmingham members, we also had Russell Fackler and Benson Murray from Atlanta, David Terhune from Illinois, and Ben Burley of Michigan. It is fun fishing with a diverse group of bass fisherman who have different home lakes. For this tournament I actually flew from Chicago to Birmingham and drove straight from the airport to Highland Marina. Due to flight delays, I didn't arrive until 3:00 am. Not surprisingly, I overslept and for the first time missed being on the water at daybreak for a day tournament. The true warrior is Ben Burley, who flew from Michigan to Atlanta on Friday with similar flight delays and then drove down to Highland Marina. Ben got even less sleep than me but DID get on the water at daybreak. You have got to respect the guy's toughness.

After reviewing our topographic maps, all anglers were excited at the prospect of fishing summertime patterns on off shore structure. However, everyone discovered that post-spawn patterns were much more effective. Several nice fish were caught during practice, including a 6-13 caught by Bill Greene. For the first day of the tournament Hurricane Arlene provided a good supply of rain and kept our bilge pumps busy.

At the first day's weigh-in Bill and Russell, as usual, took a commanding lead with a 12-5 stringer. Lance and Clint caught some nice fish in practice, but their bite disappeared on tournament day. Lance, who is having major back surgery this month, was lucky enough to have some sorry low-life steal his pedestal seat off his boat the night before the tournament. You have to wonder how some people can look at themselves in the mirror when they shave in the morning.

I had the dubious distinction of weighing the smallest fish ever weighed-in in one of our tournaments, causing us to be in last place . Our TWO FISH stringer weighed a whopping 10 ounces. (If you are wondering how I could keep such small fish, West Point lake has a 14'' size limit on largemouth and no size limit on spots). The little-biddy fish you see me holding in the picture was my only contribution to the team's stringer. Needless to say, I did not have a good day. David and Ben caught five fish but unfortunately were unfamiliar with spotted bass and let one go thinking it had to be 14'' like the largemouth.

On day two Benson and I left all spinning rods in the cabin and were able to catch a small 7-8 bag on jigs fishing blow-downs. 7-8 is not overly impressive but it was enough to regain at least a little respect after our first day's embarrassment. Bill and Russell weighed in 8-8 giving them a two day total of 20-13. Big fish went to Russell Fackler with a 3-15 largemouth caught on a finesse worm. The winning team reported that their pattern was fishing rip rap along bridges with finesse worms.

Our next tournament is at Joe Wheeler State Park on October 15-16. Hopefully, the smallies will cooperate and we will all get a chance to catch some brown fish. We need more members from Georgia! We are too heavily weighted in Alabama now that I have moved back to Birmingham. Give me a shout at if you are interested in fishing with us.

Full results can be found at: http://www.tmtanglers.com/Schedule/2005/west_point_2005_results.htm

Pictures can be seen at: http://www.tmtanglers.com/Pictures/2005/West%20Point/West_Point_Pictures.htm

Tight Lines...