Lake Guntersville, Alabama.
I had the opportunity to spend a week on Alabama’s famed Lake Guntersville. With the Angler’s Choice National Championship scheduled for March 18th and 19th, my Partner Jamie Toon, his brother Jimmy and I headed south to spend the week.
Guntersville had been having a lot of Tournament pressure over the last few weeks, with consecutive National and Regional Events. So we weren’t really knowing what to expect. With water temperatures creeping towards 60 the bass could be in any stage.
We headed out for the first day of practice looking for isolated grass patches in the State Park area. Throwing a combination of Jigs, Chatterbaits and Traps we were able to find a few keeper Guntersville bass.
The following day we decided on focusing more on a river type pattern, again looking isolated grass along the Tennessee River.
Chatterbaits were quickly emerging as our best bait as a couple of really nice Guntersville Bass were brought to the boat.
The Day before the Tournament started the weather decided to quit cooperating and Thunderstorms moved in, we chose to take the day off from fishing and hit some of the local bait shops to give them some out of state business. We felt we had a game plan if the weather hadn’t ruined it for us.
We woke up to see over 6” of rain had fallen overnight with Tornado warnings in the area and winds blowing 20mph with gusts to 30.
305 boats launched at the Goose Pond ramp anticipating the start of the Championship. After the playing of the National Anthem the boats started taking off, we were boat 245 in the last flight.
Well on this day the weather got the best of us as the winds were blowing straight down the river. We had tried to keep to the plan, but with waves breaking into the boat, it was simply more than we could take, so we headed out looking for a place to fish out of the wind. As in any tournament someone always finds them and several teams weighed in nice bags. However the talk at the ramp was more on the weather conditions.
Not every team made it back intact.
Day two was completely different with a light breeze and occasional sprinkles with mostly blue skies. The pattern we had found in practice worked and we were able to catch a nice limit of 19 Lbs.
Angler’s Choice gave away Bass Cat boats to the winner and 2nd place teams as well as a boat to a randomly drawn team.
Congratulations to all the qualifiers who made it to this well ran event…
For Lodging at Lake Guntersville check out Kudzo Cove Cabins they have covered boat parking at every cabin.
For Guntersville guide service contact Shane Ellis at www.ShaneEllisfishing.com
Jeff Jewell
RBbass Outdoors
