Koz

Or is that Clint Longley? Giancarlo Stanton. I’ll be on fire for a week and then slump for a month.

It looks like I’m out of action for a while with my Autopilot. The replacement iPilot is on back order with no estimate when it will be available. I may have to break out my old Seastream pedal kayak.

Welcome to BR. We call it the Atlantic, too! 😀

I’d love to get together for dinner. We’ll touch base again on tournament week.

I thought so as well, but the app gave me an error message stating that in order to use it that the remote had to be paired. Maybe it’s a one time deal as I had never used the app before. Regardless, Old Town is processing my order for a replacement remote today and hopefully I’ll be back on the water by this weekend. At least the fishing off my backyard was decent yesterday.

Yes, I am planning to be there. I was going to fish the Clark’s Hill MLF that weekend, but there is another MLF there the following weekend so I will do that one instead. I’m going to see if there is an open campsite and spend the weekend there as well. Let me know if you want to meet up and do some pre-fishing. I’m planning to get out there twice before the tournament. Weekdays or weekends are fine with me. I just spoke to Johnson Outdoors and they are processing my replacement iPilot. With any luck it will be here by Friday.

The Autopilot trolling motor does not connect with Humminbird units. You can run it from the iPilot or an app, but the remote needs to first be connected to the motor to run it through the app.

After working the holiday weekend I was excited to have a day off to go fishing. Most of the tourists would be gone and the lake would be back to normal. I launched off my dock, turned on the iPilot remote and it shut down. I couldn't find any AAA batteries in mu house so I made a quick run to the nearby convenience store (weird that there's a convenience store in the middle of nowhere where I live), raced home, and inserted the batteries. The iPilot turned on but said "motor not found" then the screen displayed RF error and I could not get to the pairing screen. I Googled the issue and it's a fatal error. Hopefully Minkota/Johnson Outdoor/Old Town will replace it for free since I bought the kayak last December. If not, it's $230 for a new remote. It could have been worse. I was originally going to drive 2.5 hours to Lake Russell this morning. I would have been steamed if I got all the way out there and found out I had a dead kayak. And I did fish off my back yard this morning and catch a 4+ pounder. I just hope I can get the replacement soon.

In the mornings I’ll crash the banks and sea walls and while my FFS may be on I don’t really use it. But I do use it to eliminate water when fishing points and deeper water and to locate schools of bait fish. What i haven’t seen is suspended bass in deeper water. I’ve seen catfish just idling around, but the bass seem to be always on the move. Maybe I’ll see them once the water heats up in the summer or gets cold in the winter. Seeing moving baits is hit and miss, but that’s mainly because my kayak drifts and my bait gets outside the sonar cone. But if my cast stays in the cone I usually see the bait. FFS isn’t great in shallow water so I’m trying to use perspective mode in those cases , but I’ve only done that a few times.

Probably me trying to back my Bronco and small kayak trailer down the ramp using my backup camera. If you video taped it Yakety Sax from the Benny Hill Show would be a great soundtrack. But once I went old school I have no problems backing up and maneuvering. I lift the tail gate, put my right arm on the back of the passenger seat, and turn and look over my shoulder. Easy peasy.

Does your house have a rotary dial phone? 🤣🤣🤣

For a kayak, probably an 8 out of 10. I run FFS, DI, SI, and sonar off of my Garmin UHD93 and mapping of my Helix 7. It’s an Old Town Autopilot, so I do have spot lock. If I keep the kayak I may add a micro Power Pole since I do a lot of shallow water fishing. It would also make it easier to pick apart areas including docks. Maybe it comes from bank fishing, but I prefer to pick an area apart rather than run and gun.

Trailering on and out of the water makes loading and unloading easier. But I have been pulling it onto the bunks with a dock bungee. I’m going to add a winch within the next week or so.

I’ve looked at both a Tracker and a Lowe boat but haven’t pulled the trigger. I know a few people look down on aluminum boats and they are not the greatest handling the wind, but I still like them. My Bronco can tow only 2,200 pounds so that’s a big consideration. I also like my Bronco and have never even considered a pickup truck. But yesterday I entered to win KVD’s last tournament boat. If I win, that may change things 😀

I still love my kayak. And there’s no way any sane person would try to car top an Autopilot. It’s not a recreational kayak - it’s a fishing machine. And a dang good one. Speed is the limiting issue. It’s a big issue at times, especially on big lakes. That can be frustrating on some days. But by the same token, a kayak provides tranquility that you can’t find on a bass boat. You can also get to waters impossible to navigate in a fiberglass boat. It’s still a tossup for me, but I still love my kayak.

Airplane prop?

Definitely need to focus on fishing my strengths, but I can’t express enough that with going to a lake for the first time for a big tournament that getting there days early and scouting is more important than anything you can read up on about an area. I have a Bass Nation kayak event in mid June and since the lake is only 2 hours away I’m going out there at least 3 times before the tournament.

Day 2 - The Final Day This turned out to be an exhausting 24 hours for a lot of reasons. First off, I woke up at 2 am to shower, eat, and set up my kayak. Because I'm staying at a hotel and I don't trust anyone, after each day I break down all of my electronics. That means the two head units, the FFS transducer and arm, and the black box are removed for the night. I also pull the two 100Ah Lifepo batteries and my 18Ah battery to be charged, then put it all back together before I leave. I had decided to fish Town Creek the last day and that was a 50 minute drive from my hotel. I was the first one at the ramp and while unloading two more tournament anglers arrived - and that was it. We joked that we're wither three geniuses or we're in trouble. My little voice was telling me to pack up and go to North Sauty instead. But in practice I caught some fish at Town Creek and all of the pre-tournament info I gathered said it was a favorite spot for the Elites and BPT. We had lines in at 5:15 and I motored a short distance to a switchback close to shore. This deeper channel is surrounded by shallower water and weeds with lots of baitfish in the channel. The bass would come out of the weeds and hit the baitfish. I found no takers there and very little baitfish, so I moved behind a dock and tossed a buzzbait. I wasn't really paying attention to FFS and was just relying on the early morning bite. The back of the dock paid off with a 16 incher. Not great, but I was on the board early. And yes, I used my net this time. I had learned my lesson. Out in front of the dock and all around there were bigger fish crashing the surface. The area was thick with millfoil so it was hard to see anything far out with FFS. I cast around with a buzzbait and since the water was still calm worked a popper and a Spro popping frog but landed nothing. I went back to the switchback and saw a bigger bass on FFS and wasted 40 minutes chasing it and trying to get it to bite. I debated wasting time on one fish, but since there was no way I was going to finish in the money I was hoping for the big bass prize. I gave up, hunted around the next set of docks and found nothing. So now I had a few decisions. I could motor 3.2 miles to Siebold Creek, head back to the ramp, load up and portage to another area, or continue on up into Town Creek. With my Weedless Wedge prop and my load out, my max speed was only about 2.6 - 2.8 mph, so that was over an hour across open water to get to Siebold. I could portage, but I'd lose 30-40 minutes loading and unloading plus drive time. That's when I remembered something. While I use my Garmin for FFS and sonar, I have a Helix 7 that I use for my maps and navigation. I remembered I had my Smartstrike card loaded, and sure enough it had Guntersville on it. I popped in the criteria and it lit up with best spots to fish about a 45 minute push into Town Creek, so I set off for there. To gain more speed I pulled up my FFS arm and headed off at full speed. At one point I saw a ton of baitfish blowing up, slowed down, and dropped the FFS. I saw bass darting through the millfoil, but there was a boat that had already setup around there just outside of their casting distance and I didn't want to be "that guy". I knew they saw the baitfish blowing up, so I moved on. Along the way I slowed down to fish a bluff and that area was just filled with eel grass. The eel grass was not only a pain for fishing, but it would also build up around my motor mount and that would cause the motor to vibrate heavily so I'd have to stop and clear it out. There'd be so much eel grass that the motor would not release all the way so I'd have to wedge my hand in there, rip some out, and clear it enough to raise the motor and remove the rest. Anyway, I got a hit on a chatterbait near the kayak and it looked to be a smallmouth. But it only grabbed the skirt and not the hook and it took off. For the next few hours I hit a ton of the spots from Smartstrike and all I saw was sporadic baitfish. I fished more bluffs without any luck. There were a few prime looking spots recommended by Smartstrike, but other anglers were already camped out there. That's one thing about Guntersville - I saw a lot of anglers just camped out on spots and not trolling the area. So I made the run back towards where I had been fishing and again had no luck, so I headed further south to a small, very shallow cove. I turned off FFS and fished laydowns, rocks, and fan casted. The sky turned gray and the wind really started picking up. So now it was 11 am (lines out at 1:15) and I decide to head to a large point between Town Creek and Siebold and maybe make a late run at Siebold. The wind and waves are coming from the north and I'm heading west. Waves are crashing over the kayak and have me rolling back and forth. The occasional boat wakes make it worse. If I was younger I would have been fearless and pushed on. But it was a lot of open water to cover and I just wasn't competent, so I headed back in the direction of the ramp and docks. I shut off my FFS again and just fished. I tried deeper water, humps, dips, over grass, grass lines, and didn't even get a strike. With less than 30 minutes on the clock I packed it in so I could check out of the hotel without paying for an extra day and get home at a decent hour. Where did I finish? A lousy 187 out of 217. Only one fish on day 2 was a killer. So was not boating the ones I missed on day 1. Unfortunately, on the way home there was a terrible accident on i-75 that killed four people. It took us four hours to go only 1.2 miles where they had 4 lanes of traffic exit the highway. We hit another wreck and construction on the way. We got an emergency alert on our phones about the accident, and while tiring, knowing 4 people lost their lives kept me from being frustrated. We should have been home at 8:30 pm but didn't get home until 1:30 am (Eastern time). Remember, I arose at 2 am (central time) they day before. But I managed to get up by 7:15 and drag myself to work. Here's the scary part about that wreck. We hot the stopped traffic at 6:32 pm. The accident happened about 6:10 pm. But just before we hot that traffic I had made a 20 minute stop at Auto Zone to pick up a new wiring harness extension for my trailer thinking that might be the problem with my lights occasionally faulting. If I hadn't stopped, we may have been in that vicinity when it happened. Random thoughts on what I learned: 1. Speed on the water is a big factor. You're not in a boat that can just zip around at will. Efficiency of time is a huge factor. Let's put it this way - if you're in a boat and going 25 miles an hour and need to move 8 miles it will take you about 19 minutes. In a kayak moving 3 mph it will take you closer to three hours. Those light kayaks with the Torqeedo motors can really move. I wouldn't trade my Old Town Autopilot for the world, but it's a tugboat out there. When I fish at home I usually load just 3 or 4 rods, one small bag of soft plastics, and 4 trays that sit next to my seat. But I had 7 rods and my crate full of gear as well when I launched, plus extra drinks and food in a cooler. The weedless prop also slowed me down. Next time, keep the standard prop on and ditch the crate. Keep the extra gear in the truck. 2. Especially on a lake you've never fished before, practice means more scouting and less fishing. On a place the size of Guntersville, a day and a half of practice isn't enough. I had done a ton of research and found 6 top areas to fish. I studied maps of those areas as well. But in a day and a half I got to only three of them. Mind you, some of these places were an hour apart by car. What I should have done is taken advantage of FFS and scoped more of the areas rather than spend so much practice time fishing. But heck, I was excited to be on Guntersville. I marked spots, but I could have marked more. I now see why all of the top anglers spend the five open days of practice there before the tournaments starts. 3. Make some friends when you get there or beforehand to share knowledge. There were a bunch of 3-6 man teams there. You can bet they shared intel. All the knowledge I had before getting there was based upon known key spots that produced in other tournaments. But that doesn't take into account things like weather conditions, lake levels, time of year, pre or post spawn, moon phases, etc. This is why scouting is key, especially on a lake you haven't fished before. 4. Fish your strengths. All the fish I caught in practice and in the tournament were fishing the baits and locations that I like to fish. But I covered a ton of water that was 3-5 feet deep that had heavy millfoil up to the last foot. I tossed topwaters, spinnerbaits, swim jigs, wacky rigged Senkos and swam T-rigged Senkos really not knowing how to fish that stuff. But at least in the areas I fished, it was hard to get away from those weeds. On Day 1 I also fished lily pads briefly, but I should have spent more time there. Which leads to: 5. Paralysis of Analysis. On Day 1 in that first location I boated three and if not for bonehead mistakes I should have had my limit plus one or two. I knew where the fish were there early in the morning and I should have went back there on Day 2 having confidence that I knew where the fish were. Then I should have attacked the lily pads and pushed a bit further where I didn't fish. I forgot about the saying "Don't leave fish to find fish." Even if it was still only 16" fish, it would have been better than nothing. But again, my thinking in part was that since I was out of the money after day 1 I was looking for the one big bass rather than going for a limit. Dumb move. Get your limit and then hunt. For me the biggest factor was I got in my own head. I thought I had made a bad decision where to fish that first morning, but in hindsight it was fine. That spot allowed me to fish my strengths, and even though I didn't find a 10 pounder that doesn't mean they weren't there. Instead, I hit the panic button. 6. Don't stay in a hotel (said the guy that runs hotels for a living). Stay in a quiet fishing cabin or AirBnB. There was way too much noise at the hotel during the odd sleeping hours I needed for the week. I also spent some nervous energy wondering if someone would try to steal my kayak or my gear. There were some iffy looking people in the hotel! 7. Store some toilet paper in your crate or one of the hatches in your kayak! So, would I do it again? In a heartbeat! Next year I'll finish any of them within 4 or 5 hours of where I live. Hopefully I won't have that nervous excitement and over analyze everything. And maybe, just maybe, we can get a handful of BR guys to join me. We can rent a house to save some money and share some intel. Maybe Glenn will sell us some BR hats real cheap and we can represent! One last note - on the night before the tournament I spent some time once again talking to Kristine Fischer. She's a great ambassador for the sport and she was tremendous interacting with people and especially the young kids that were there. She mentioned that she wants to fish Lake Oconee, so I gave her my business card and told her to give me a call. I mentioned my kids fishing program and let her know I'll put her up in the hotel and maybe if she's there on a kids fishing weekend she can stop by and say hello.

My goal was a top 100 with the 200+ anglers out there and that was feasible if zi had just used the dang net. But I also made the wrong choice of where to fish. I should have fished Town Creek where I was catching them in practice. That would have also given me a 3 mile run to another area that I wanted to practice but didn’t get to because of weather. Hindsight is 20-20, but I should have come to town at least one day earlier. It was a 4.5 hour drive to get there and we got to the ramp at 7 am and I hit the water. With little sleep the night before I was tired at noon. Guntersville is 79 miles long and that’s a ton of fishing options. Where I fished today had been a hot spot many times for the Bassmaster elite series. While I lost time because of the storm, I also lost an hour loading up, driving, my potty break, and unloading again. That’s a rookie mistake. In the future I need to find a place where there are multiple good options within a 5-7 mile radius. I’m doing that tomorrow. But it’s 45 minutes from my hotel to the ramp and we launch at 4:45. I need to be at the ramp at 3:45. Today my first launch was from a tiny ramp and there was nowhere to put my kayak in the water even though I was at the ramp 45 minutes before launch, so I had to wait in line to get on the water. Again, rookie mistakes. My kayak is also slower by 1/2 mph because I have the Weedless Wedge prop. The good news is that with that prop I have not had to pick weeds out of the prop. While I’m a bit disappointed in myself with my mistakes, woulda shoulda coulda but I should have had a limit today. I did find fish, but now I need to find bigger fish. I’m actually cautiously optimistic heading into tomorrow. Sleep is my biggest concern.

Tournament Day 1 I decided to fish where I saw fish at yesterday’s practice but didn’t catch anything. I had been fishing south and mid lake and this was NW as I launched at North Sauty Creek which is above Goose Pond. I made a run for a bluff area and waited for lines in at 5:15 am. I saw fish but nothing bit so I pressed further up. Then I caught two on back to back casts, but they were only 16” and 14.25”. But I wasn’t going to be shut out. I stayed in that area, got another strike, but blew it. This one was 17” - 18” and instead of grabbing my net I tried to flip it in. I thought I had tired it out, but as soon as I lifted it, it shook off the hook. A little later I landed a 12”. Small, but it counts. It was only 9 am and I had three in my virtual live well. I had another good strike but must have missed the hook set on my jig head minnow. It wasn’t a giant, but it wasn’t a dink. Call it a missed 16” bass. I gotta start crossing eyes when I fish a minnow. I headed south towards Goose Creek and towards the shore the weeds were thick, almost all the way to the surface. I moved off between the heavy weeds and the lily pads and found some baitfish. Another strike, but it was maybe 10-12” and it shook off. I then headed into the lily pads and fished a frog for a while but had no luck. But now my life got interesting. It’s weird, but when I travel I’m not “regular”, if you know what I mean. But suddenly I needed a good BM and there was no place to go. Since the fishy had slowed down I went back to the ramp, packed up, and did my business at the convenience store, then headed off to an area that I had not tried out yet. This new area was choked with grass and weeds and most of it was 1-3 feet deep. FFS is just about useless, so I set off for some points, humps, and dips. I tried fishing the grass with top waters and even a big t-rigged worm but found no takers. I moved to deeper water (6-10 feet) and back to my style of fishing. I got another good hookup and I forgot to grab my net and I lost another 16-inch fish. I got it close, went to lip it, but when I stretched my pole went upright, lifter the fish, it jumped and shook the hook. I should mention all my catches - and the shake offs - were on jig head minnows. I caught a few more dinks that didn’t score, then the wind picked up, it started to rain, and my lightning alert kept going off and the thunder rolled in. I pulled out my lines with an hour left on the clock and “raced” a mile and a half back to the ramp. Before the event I changed out my standard prop for a Weedless Wedge. It’s been great in the weeds, but it’s at least 1/2 mph slower. I laid my rods down on the deck, headed back to the ramp, and packed it in for the day. Ovetall it was a mixed day. I scored 3 but should have had my limit if I had been smart and used my net. It cost me 32-35 inches. Last I checked I was 167 out of 217 entries, but if I hadn’t been a bonehead I’d be about 120. Live and learn. I learned my lesson today and will use my head tomorrow. I have no idea where I will start tomorrow. The weather is going to be mostly sunny so I will probably fish some main lake flats early on then move to ledges and docks. We launch at 4:45 am so I probably need to be at the launch by 3:15 in the morning. I’ll try not to make any boneheaded moves tomorrow.

Practice Day 2 Hit another location about 7:30 this morning and not another kayaker i sight. Is that good or bad. I don’t want to give too much away but I moved to something different than 3 feet of water and wall to wall weeds. Caught 3 but they were all only 15 inches. Lost a bigger one (4-5 pounds) that jumped and spit the bait. Packed up and stopped at a few ramps but didn’t put in. No one seemed happy with what they were seeing. Then the rains came. I traveled about an hour to the next spot and there was only one kayaker on the water in that location. I fished one section, scoped a lot of fish and baitfish, but no bites. Moved in a bit further, saw bigger fish, but no bites. This area has a bunch of different cover and structure. This place is near where I am staying. Now I’m torn - drive an hour to where I caught fish or stick close by where I saw a lot more fish but got no bites? It’s going to be a tough call in the morning. Weather for tomorrow is more rain. I still need to dry out from today.

Pre Fishing Day One I was at work by 6:30 am on Wednesday, got home at 6pm, packed out my Bronco, and managed a few hours sleep before my son, my dog, and I hit the road by 3 am. Within the first 45 we must have passed 50 deer along the side of the road. Thankfully, none of them bolted into the roadway. It’s always scary driving in rural Georgia after dark. But then the Gremlins started to hit as my Bronco flashed a message that my trailer lights disconnected. I found a place to pull over and checked it out. I had added a tongue extender, longer safety chains, and a wiring harness extension for this trip. I unplugged the harness, plugged it back in, and I was good to go - for now. Later on I-20 near Atlanta it happened again. Did you know there’s a ton of traffic in Atlanta at 4:45 on the morning? Anyway, with a closer inspection - as much as I could on the dark- it looked like the harness extension was pulling at my wire connectors. I knew I should have packed some duct tape. Lacking that, I used some 40 pound braid to try and tie it off to ease the pulling. Later that day I did a better fix for it. We finally made it to one of the ramps at Brown’s Creek. I parked the truck for a minute to survey the ramp and the area and as I looked out in the water I saw none other than Kristine Fisher in her Hobie leaving the ramp. She could really fly with that Torqeedo! If you don’t know who she is, she’s probably the top kayak bass angler in the nation or at least in the top three. The irony is that on the way to Guntersville I heard her on the Kayak Bass Nation podcast talking about her latest Hobie Series victory. I hit the water and did some scouting in the area. The water was dirty near the ramp and crystal clear deeper into the creek channel. I checked out some areas highlighted by my Garmin Smartstrike but saw zero fish. As I pushed deeper the water was a consistent 3 feet deep with two feet of that being weeds and there were a lot of partially submerged mats. I’m really glad I put on my weedless wedge prop before I came down here. Still, I had to pick weeds off the shaft of the trolling motor once. I also had to pull them off my FFS transducer multiple times, especially when I had it on perspective mode. I saw only two fish out there on my electronics, even fishing some deeper, less weedy areas. I really didn’t fish much as I spent time scouting and scoping. I wasn’t out there more than 90 minutes and I heard some thunder and headed back. I know that Brown’s Creek has given up a lot of big fish in the Elite Series and BPT but I saw nothing out there. Back at the ramp I met an older couple who were Old Town team anglers from New Hampshire. The husband had packed it in early while his wife fished a little longer and they said they were disappointed with what they saw as well. I also met Kristine Fisher while packing up. She was humble and nice - and didn’t tip her hand. I was going to check out Honeycomb Creek, but after gabbing and packing up it was around noon and I was sleepy and hungry, so we went to lunch and checked into the hotel. I just woke up from my nap and now it’s off to the grocery store. The weather has been both rainy and sunny all week and other anglers have said it’s made the fishing more difficult this week. We’re due for more storms during pre fishing tomorrow and again on day one of the tournament. I’ll try and dodge the storms and pre fish at least 3 of the other spots I mapped out. But this is a big, big lake and it can be a 40 minute drive to move from one spot to another. One other thing that stinks is because I am staying at a hotel I am stripping out all of the electronics from my kayak when I park for the night. I also put wheel locks on my trailer and lock my kayak to the trailer with a thick steel cable. I also have a ball tow hitch lock. It’s time consuming to set up and tear down. Anyway, more scouting and a little fishing tomorrow. I was just too tired to spend a full day on the lake today. Tomorrow it starts for real!

On two occasions I lived in the Greenville- Spartanburg area and I loved it. I lived in both Greer and Simpsonville. In those areas you are also in close proximity to a lot of great state parks. I also lived further south in the Hilton Head Island / Bluffton area. There you will find THOUSANDS of stormwater lagoons/ponds that hold big bass including double digits. Before he passed, my father lived in Sun City Hilton Head (which actually is in Bluffton on the mainland) and in that community alone there are over 300 accessible lagoons. You can’t boat or kayak in Sun City, but you can walk, bike, or drive to great fishing spots. Almost all communities in that area have stormwater lagoons teeming with big bass.

No, but caught a box turtle once on a treble hook. One hook was in the roof of his mouth and another in the bottom. It took about 20 minutes of gently pulling and his head retreating into his shell to tire him out. Once he was tired I was able to get the hooks out with my fishing pliers.

Only if I'm catching fish! If not, I'll slink away from BR for a few months and hang my head in shame. 😀