I just got back from the third stop of the BASS college tour this year, which was held on Cherokee Lake in Tennessee. Cherokee doesn't have particularly large fish to begin with, and the entire lake was pretty much post spawn, so it made for a very stacked leaderboard at the end of each day, with ounces separating the places, and multiple three way ties. The event also had 263 boats in it, so there was plenty of pressure on the fish.
We practiced for two and a half days, as usual, and it was TOUGH! We tried fishing for smallmouth with a ned rig on rocky points like we did last year, and they really weren't having it, which was surprising to me. We caught some fish, but there wasn't much size to them, and there is a 15" minimum on Cherokee. We spent most of our time looking for smallmouth. We caught fish pretty much everywhere we went, but most were 14"ers. I threw a jerkbait quite a bit, and we caught several fish on a 3.8" swing impact. We spent some time largemouth fishing up the lake in the dirtier water, and caught some fish flipping bushes, and on a chatterbait, but still could not crack that 2.5lb mark. A third bite we discovered was a floating dock bite. We could catch largemouth and spots fairly consistently down the lake in the clear water on a senko once the sun got up, but still not much size. All we wanted was one or two 3lb bites to tell us which technique we needed to focus in on.
During practice, our buddies from Virginia Tech had been sending us photos of 3lb+ smallmouth with astonishing regularity, and saying they were on a really solid, EASY bite! My old high school partner Ethan fishes for Tech now, and he didn't get to practice until the last day, when we were only allowed on the water until 1:30. That morning at 8am, he already had caught a nice 3lb+ smallmouth, and every time I talked to him on the phone, he said they were catching them pretty well. Around 11am, we still had not caught a keeper smallmouth, and finally Ethan called me, and came and found us on the water to show us what to do, and what he showed us definitely saved our tournament.
The way they were catching them was on a 2.8" keitech on a 1/4oz jighead, casting it at the bank, letting it sink, then starting a SLOWWW retrieve back to the boat. The fish either hit on the drop, or within the first three turns of the handle. All you had to do was find a 45 degree bank with chunk rock or boulders. I had TWO 2.8" keitechs sitting in the bottom of my boat, and a couple 1/4oz heads small enough to fit them. I tied one on, went and found what he said to find, and had a keeper within 10 minutes. My partner Casey put a 3" swing impact on a drop shot, and had a 3lb smallmouth fishing behind me about 10 minutes after my fish! We ran to one more spot, caught another 3lb smallmouth, and then just started running around marking waypoints, we didn't have enough practice time left to do much fishing. I tried a 4" swing impact, I even cut it down an inch, and they wouldn't eat it. I still can't believe how small of a bait they were keyed in on.
That night, we went and bought more 2.8" keitechs, and I found the last 2 packs of the jighead I was using in Bass Pro. My partner was looking for 3" swing impacts, but the smallest we found were 3.5", which I figured would work too, because stuff like that is usually in our heads and not a big deal to the fish. Back at the hotel, we scrounged around for any 3" swing impacts we could find. I had half a pack of them in my boat, and one of our buddies from Kent State had three 3" easy shiners on an a-rig in his truck, so he took them off the jigheads and gave them to Casey.
We had a very late boat draw on day 1, boat 236 out of 263. We knew we wanted to be in the creek where Tech was, but decided not to start there, because they showed us the bite and the fish, so we went to a couple of islands and one point that had produced fish in practice. In our first hour and a half, we had one bite and didn't boat any fish. We then headed to the creek and prepared to get in line to fish behind people, and that's exactly what happened. Despite the crowd, the only people really catching anything were us and Virginia Tech. We got a limit, and my buddy Ethan also had 5. I caught two of them on the 2.8", and Casey caught three of them on the drop shot, all of them were on the 3" easy shiners from my buddy's a-rig! Due to bluegill, snags, and keitechs falling apart because that's what happens, Casey was out of 3" baits once we got our five fish, and had to use a 2.8" and a 3.5" for the rest of the day. I made one good cull, and he didn't catch any more keepers. We started to realize that the necessity of a tiny bait probably wasn't just in our heads.
We didn't have to check in til 4:45, but the last hour of our day got very interesting when I received a phone call from my buddy who had broken down with five fish in his livewell, wayyyyy up the lake. I made a 30 mile round trip with the pedal to the floor and got their fish in with 30 seconds to spare for their 4:15 check-in. We already qualified for the championship this year, but they had not, and I knew those fish would be crucial for them so I didn't think twice about giving up the last hour of our day for them.
Day one had us tied for 55th place with 11-14. Big fish out of 263 boats was 3lbs 14oz, if that says anything about what we were dealing with. There was no "looking for a kicker" at Cherokee, you had to fish hard for as many bites around 3lbs as you could get.
Casey went to a couple stores that night and found some more 3" swing impacts, so we were feeling a lot better going into day two. We ran straight to the good creek after takeoff, and I put one in the boat within minutes. We started to realize that even though we were fishing long stretches of rock, the bites came on the same places every time. Knowing that, we bounced around in the creek, fishing very small areas, and catching fish almost every time. We had five fish at 7:40am, four smallmouth and one spot. I jumped off a 3lb smallmouth, which I knew was going to cost us, no matter how positive we stayed or how well we fished! We kept after it, and made one cull, getting rid of the spotted bass with a smallmouth. We had two around 17/18", and three around 16", very similar to day one.
We talked to our buddies from Tech around 10am, they only had one fish, and said the bite had completely died once the sun got up. We hit a couple more key areas, and after not getting any bites, got out the flipping gear and made a run way up the lake to look for some largemouth. We ended up getting on a really hot bite flipping bushes in the back of a big creek, and caught about 15 in the last 2 hours of our day, but the only cull we made was a 17" skinny largemouth for one of our smallmouth which was just under 16". In a game of ounces, it was definitely still important.
After the scales closed we sat in 35th place with a two day total of 23lbs 11oz, we missed the final day top 32 cut by 2oz. Like I said, I knew that smallmouth jumping off was not going to be good for us. We were still very pleased with how things turned out. We had a terrible practice and pretty much had to start from scratch once my buddy showed us that weird 2.8 keitech stuff. The good news is that another WVU team qualified for the championship! They were in 42nd place, but there were 10 double qualifications ahead of them. The guys we gave a ride in on day one had to fish with no big motor on day two, and they put up 11lbs 8oz, which will be sending them to the championship in combination with their points from the events held at Toledo Bend and Pickwick this season.
Casey and I are sitting in 4th in points for Team Of The Year, and at the end of this week will be hopping on a plane headed for Clearlake, California, where we have somehow secured a boat and truck to borrow during our time there. We are gonna have to bring our A-game if we want to take this thing home, but who doesn't like a little challenge? Thanks for reading guys, I'm having the time of my life doing this college fishing stuff, and I love writing these and reliving the experience!
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