8/25/13 - The Duel @ Dudley
Small crew today with 4 boats, but some damn good anglers. Water is messed up, between another weed kill, and get pounded this place is out of wack. I'm sure the blazing sun didn't help our cause either. Chuck and I caught at least 15 bass each, but the size was just not there this year.I caught fish on a worms, drop shot, chatter bait, and jig. Every boat had a limit with the Arrogant Anglers being up the rear with 7lb 12oz, Team R&R with 8lbs 13oz, Chuck and I had 11lb 15oz including Chuck's 3lb 14oz Lunker, and pulling off the upset with 13lb 11oz was Sam, and Shawn. Nice job everyone, nice to see you all!
As always I started off cranking. We targeted deep water so I busted out the king sized Strike King 10XD. I've been dying to get a fish on this thing but today was not the day, Sam started catching dinks on the drop shot. We both switched over to more conventional crankbaits and started cranking whatever grass we could find in the 6-10 ft range. Sam put the first 3 keepers in the well. As the sun got hotter and brighter we started to probe the pads. That's where Sam caught our biggest fish. We didn't weigh it but it looked to be over 4. It had a tail sticking out of it's mouth. A little while later we check on the fish and there's a huge blue gill floating in the well. It's amazing to see the size of their food. Our 4 pounder is now a heavy 3. LOL. We hit all the pads with only one more fish. Then we started to pound the shoreline. The fish were really tight to cover. Sam is pretty good at skipping a jig with a baitcaster. I was always afraid of the potential backlash so I never tried. But watching him catch fish after fish I decided it was time to try. Bam! I start catching fish. We culled a few times and at one time I culled the wrong fish and cost us 8 ounces. Fortunately I caught a fish that made it back up plus 8 ounces. We caught fish all day but couldn't find those 6 pounders.