TNT # 7

What can I say? Not a good tournament again. Again we did not weigh in any fish.

Mizike was working so our alternate joined in. The water temperature was 72 degrees. We started out fishing the southern end of the lake. We fished at the point of a cove where the water dropped from 3 to 7 foot. Nothing. We moved back into the cove around reeds and fallen trees. Nothing.

Finally we made the move to the northern end of the lake where we have had most of our luck previously. We hit a cove. Nothing. We move to another cove and I see some small bass chasing shad on the surface. Our alternate casts between a set of fallen trees with a chartreuse Bomber. He gets a hit and brings it in. He landed a bass but it was only 11 inches. We cast in that area a little longer but judging the size of the bass that I had seen it was a school of small fish.

We moved a few more coves up fishing the bank along the way and found a road bed in the middle of a cove that came up to about 2 feet and on each side was 5 foot deep. The fish finder was picking up quite a few fish in the 5 foot depths right before the road bed. I made a few casts with the beatle spin. I saw one small bass look at it and turn so I decided to try something else. I cast a silver and blue crankbait through the area. Still nothing. Finally, I switched to my Tiny Dancer pink jig head with pearl and pepper crappie skirt. I jigged it along the bottom and got a hit. I set the hook and brought up a 10" crappie. He was a scrapper and I thought for a bit it might be a bass.

I cast a few more times and had a couple more bites that felt like a crappie so I switched back to the beatle spin. I cast through and had a hit on it. A few casts later we decided to go past the road bed deeper into the cove. There was a few fish surfacing in the cove so I decided I would try a popper. I had bought a silver busch beer popper because I liked the color of it. It was a sexy shad color. I cast a few times fanning the area. Then my cell started ringing. It was my wife. I figured that if she was calling during a tournament it would have to be important so I answered.

While I was talking to her about a groundhog she saw in our yard (real important), I continued casting and popping. I got a hit and told her I needed to get off the phone. She continued talking. Finally I said I had to go and right as she was hanging up the bass got off. I had not gotten a good hook set and then was not able to keep the pressure on the fish that was needed. My wife always calls at the worst time. This time it was when I had my 1 bass on. Usually I will just have gotten all in at a poker game and she will call. I always lose the hand if that happens. As mad as I have gotten at her in the past I don't know why she keeps calling while I am at events.

We were running out of time so we boated back to the first cove and cast a few times to see if the small bass had grown yet hoping to catch a 12 incher and weigh in. No luck in the few casts we tried so we headed back to the boat dock.

I called Mizike after the tournament and discussed just fishing on Thursday nights. If we start catching fish then we can start fishing the TNT again. We will save 35.00 a week that way.