This story is a true account of the best bad fishing trip I ever experienced. It begins one May afternoon on Pickwick Lake near Florence AL. For those not familiar with Pickwick Lake, it is a fabulous Small Mouth fishery with lots of rock piles, under water islands, buff walls and many other forms of structure. Due to water releases from Wilson Dam about a mile up river from the put in, the upper end of Pickwick is subject to extreme water variations, from dead calm to extremely fast, and heavy current.
The evening regarding this story was a local club tournament starting at 7 AM and ending 4 PM. At the time blastoff there was a very heavy current causing my partner and I to decide to take a run down river to avoid some of the current and fish a few holes that were somewhat sheltered.
This was the beginning of the Bad as we had traveled about 5 miles down river when my 200 Yamaha slung one blade off the prop. Luckily I got the boat shut down without any damage to the motor or boat although the prop was shot. Leaving us 5 miles down river with heavy current and only a 65 pound thrust trolling motor to maneuver my 20 foot Bumble Bee back up river against strong current to get back to the ramp, and weigh in.
During our slow trip back upriver we were able to fish a couple spot's, and I caught one nice Smallmouth about 3 pounds that was promptly deposited into the live well. Not knowing if we would need all the battery power for the trip back upriver we decided not run the pro air or aerator pumps and watch over the fish for signs distress.
About 10:00pm the power generators shut off, leaving the water calm and very little current. We decided to slow our pace and try to pick up a couple more fish along the way. I stood to make a couple casts to a rock pile that normally holds fish and promptly fell head first into the lake.
Luckily I hung own to all my gear and had a rain suit in the boat, so after my partner helped me back into the boat and joking me about rules against fishing out of the boat, I changed out of the wet garments and into my rain suit, finally we got back to fishing.
Concerned about the fish in the live well I ask my partner to look for signs of distress. He lifted the lid of the live well and the fish jumped out of the live well and completely out of the boat. I mean it never touched any part of the boat. He must have been doing laps around the live well to jump that far and touch nothing but water.
We stood and looked at each other dumfounded with our bad luck. After my fall in the river and our only hope of success jumped out of the boat we found ourselves running short on time and fishless. To make it back to the ramp before weigh in we would have only about 15 minutes of fishing time left, all the remaining time would have to be spent trolling back to the ramp.
thought of only one spot between us and the ramp that might offer any hope, and if it was dead so were our chances. We trolled to a small underwater rock pile in about 15 feet of water. One side dropped into the old river channel the other heads up onto shallow water flat. I made a long cast with a Black Buck tail Jig that I tie myself, and let the jig settle to the bottom raised my rod tip just a bit and felt it tick against a rock. Turning to my partner I said man it feels fishy down there.
Raised my rod tip one more time and felt a solid thump. I set the hook hard and with no movement at the other end for an instant thought rock. Then rock pulled back and the battle of a lifetime was on. The powerful first run peeled line of my reel fast as the fish headed for deep water and almost pulled the rod out of my hand. I told my partner to get the net this is a gorilla.
Suddenly the fish started up, I lowered my rod tip in an attempt to keep the fish down but it blasted out of the water a good 3 feet. My partner encouraged me to bring it to the net, but the fish felt otherwise. It made two more spectacular jumps in front of us, and a run under the boat peeling line as he went. As I struggled to get my rod up the fish jumped behind us. I was sure the run under the boat would end the battle but somehow I led the fish around the front of the boat.
The fish took three sizzling runs beside the boat and as many attempts with the net to finally end the fight. With this big Small Mouth in the bottom of the boat both my partner and I were shaking like a leaf. The pure adrenalin rush made me feel like a kid that just caught his first fish.
We had just enough time for a couple more casts before we had to leave. I quickly started retying my jig when my partner said "there he is" and from the sound of the splash, I put my gear down and headed for the net. He had several long runs and a couple of big jumps and led the fish into the net.
I hated to leave this kind of action, but had no choice. We arrived at the dock with about one minute to spare. My fish tipped the scales at 6 pounds 15 and ½ ounces, and had spit out about a couple ounces of shad in the live well. My partners fish was Just over 5 pounds with a total weight over 12 pounds, enough to win the tournament and the big fish pot.
This story tells to never give up, fight to the end and it just might pay off Big.
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