Percy Priest March 24, 2012

Percy Priest March 24, 2012

First tournament for the Cumberland Bassmasters. My partner, Jack Neal, and I were on the water at 6:30 am raring to go. Five boats of bass fanatics stoked for the day. We hit the back of Savage creek on a shallow flat. Disappointed no bites. Motored down lake under the bridge and to the left in a pocket with an old roadbed. Finally caught a small non keeper. Jack caught a 15 " smallie on a jig and craw. I catch a couple more small ones and then Jack strikes again with a 16 3/4 largemouth. Crank it up and fished a steeper bank in water slide cove but no cigars. On to a point and down a shoreline in Smith Springs. I finally put a 12" keeper on the books. Caught a nice crappie and bream all on a ShadRap, which I eventually lost. The wind was blowing pretty good by now and fished the lee side of an island with lots of stumps. I caught a 16 1/4 LM on a SK square bill 1.0. Caught a couple more non keepers on the same bait. Moved to a main lake rock bluff fishing a jig along the edge. No bites. Fished a rocky point and picked up my third keeper on the 1.0. Raining by now but not too hard. Made one mor stop on an island but the rain was coming down pretty good now. Since we only had about 20 minutes to go we headed in with rain stinging the face like needles.

Everyone caught fish. Several limits reported. Big fish was an 18+" smallmouth but real skinny. We have two divisions, boaters and non boaters. Jack finished 3 rd in non and I finished a respectable 5th in boaters (5) with a fraction over 4 lbs. the winning boater had just under 10 lbs and the non had a little over 9 lbs. A fun day and successful launch.