Monday, May 19, 2014

RiverBassin Silver Point TN Tourney

Saturday May 19th Caney Fork Outfitters hosted 1 of 8 Regional RiverBassin Tournaments based out of Silver Point TN. The format was your best 3 bass for the individual and best 6 bass for team with at least 2 bass coming from each team member. The event started with as captains meeting on Friday that had some killer brisket to eat. After getting a bite to eat and listening to the rules my team mate Geoff Luckett and I had back 45 minutes east to get some sleep.
I woke up 1.5 hours earlier than a needed to but figured oh well I can check out some of the river flows. Everything looked pretty good with flows being minimal and water clarity good in the area we wanted to fish. Geoff and I launched around 5:45 and started fishing.

 It didn’t take too long until I hooked a 10.25 smallmouth on a chatterbait to get me on the board.

I followed up with a small 8.25 redeye bass on a Cut R Tail Worm to get me a total of 18.5 inches. 

Geoff added another 10.5 inch on a spinnerbait bass to our team bag. 30 minutes later I hooked a 10.5 inch bass on a crankbait my wife bought me for our anniversary. 

Well I had three fish but my total length could be easily beat by two good fish.
Geoff and I paddled downstream without much to brag about in the way of bass. Geoff added another 10 inch fish to our group and I caught a few more 9 to 10 inch fish. 

We had 6 fish between the two of us which was the goal but man our fish were small. I hooked a 13 inch bass and 13.5 inch bass to up out limit a little but still nothing to move us up.

About 1.5 hours left before we had to pack up and head an hour east to the weight end I hooked into a NICE bass on a chatter bait. I had it hooked for a 10 seconds before it threw my chatterbait back at me 6 foot from the boat. I horse cussed my hook set and played the fight back in my mind for a bit before moving on. That fish would have put me on up the board. I am sure it has grown in my mind but it looked like it could have been the biggest bass from a kayak I could have caught. Oh well. Nothing else happened before Geoff and I headed to Caney Fork Outfitters for the weight in. 
Thanks to the live weight in format I knew I was not in the running but still wanted to check out the weight in. I really am glad I did. The food was once again awesome with pulled pork sandwiches and gumbo. I also got to meet two guys who had NuCanoe Frontiers. 

Come to find out their team name was Heavy Weights. Sam Bailey and David Smith won the Gadsden, AL RiverBassin stop as a team so I knew they could catch fish.

 Well they end up in 3rd at this tournament and Sam ended up winning the Tournament. I had met Sam once before and it was pretty neat seeing a fellow NuCanoe owner win.

When it was all said and done I ended up in 19th out of 48 anglers. 17 anglers did not weight in a fish so I should be glad I caught some I guess. If I could have landed the big one I think I could have made the top 10 but a lot of folks could say that. Our team ended up 6th out of 13 so we did alright I guess. Until next time.