I noticed on Wednesday night that there was a full moon out. I wondered if the bass would be feeding up and gorging themselves all night. At the ramp it was partly cloudy skies but mostly clear and sunny. The weather report said that there were supposed to be some afternoon thunder showers. The water temp was 83 degrees, up almost 7 degrees from last Sunday. We started out on a point with some brush piles where Dan caught a 6 pounder the day before. She wasn't there anymore. We had a few short fish and moved on to another ledge off of a point. Dan put a keeper in the boat and we started feelin' pretty good about the day.
After that, the bite fell off and we kept moving around. We went up Little River and tried the log jam close to the mouth of Muddy Fork Creek. It's one of those places were you either catch them or you don't. If you don't get something pretty quick then you aren't going to get anything. We hit a few logs and stumps and didn't find anything there. I worked a spook up in the shallow water off the bank. Nothing there. We headed to a place where there should have been a row of brush piles but there were only a few left. It seems that all of the strong current from the flood has moved everything around in the lake. There's a lot of folks who are going to have to redo their numbers. That Christmas tree just ain't where they left it last year.
We went back to our first spot to see if there were fish on it yet. Just knew that place was going to load up sometime. Started Carolina Rigging it again. We were about 50 yards off the bank fishing toward it. We each made about three casts and I noticed a pontoon boat with three guys on it coming around the bend about 100 yards down on our left. No big deal. As he got closer I saw that he was starting to edge closer to the bank and not turning around us. I told Dan, "Watch this, this guy's going to drive right in front of us over our lines." Sure enough. He trucked right on through not more than 20 yards from our boat right over the spot we were fishing. Dan put his Carolina rig right off the guy's bow as he started to pass us. On of his partners looked over with his hands up as if to say, "What's up!" He then saw that we were fishing right there and mouthed that he was sorry. The driver was driving with one hand and holding a Zebco 33 over the side with the other dragging something through the water. As he passed right in front of us he said, "Sorry, I didn't have time to turn." I guess that brand new pontoon boat must have a terrible turning radius if you can't turn right by 10 degrees in 100 yards.
I don't have a problem with a lack of common sense, but I do have a problem with a lack of common courtesy. Enough said.
So the bite was off at that spot for sure. We headed up and decided to try flipping some bushes even though we knew that the flippin' season is virtually over for the most part. We had a couple of small bass but that was it. We headed out on the main lake to try some ledges but the water was still pretty muddy. Nothin' happnin' out there. Our buddies in the pontoon boat stayed in our same vicinity for a long time. I think a mutiny broke out because we could hear them yelling at each other from a long way off. Must have been their first time out in a boat. They all had an idea of where they should be going and how to get there and it didn't sound like anyone was in agreement. The last we saw they were headed north on the main lake with the Zebco still hanging out the side of the boat.
We tried a few more spots that didn't have enough water on them and then headed back to our original spot one more time. It was about 2:00 now and the weather report was right. As we pulled up there were some nasty clouds building fast behind us. We cast in the brush piles and started catching fish immediately. They finally showed up....and so did the lightning. It was tempting to stay and fish, especially since we thought the storm was just going to skirt around us, but being from Florida I know not to mess with lightning on the water. We threw couple of more times and then took advantage of every bit of the 79 MPH Merc Pro Max to get back to the marina in time to get the cover on the boat. We loaded up and drove back through a torrential down pour and laughed about what could have been had it not been for Pontoon Boats and thunderstorms. Bet we would have each caught 10 pounders.
Love to fish deep water lakes. Used to fish Lake Nick-a-Jack and Chickamauga outside Chattanooga. Bad sportsman lurk everywhere don't they. Seem to get more plentiful every day. Folks squeezing in on top of you, pulling your crab and pinfish traps, breaking line at the ramp, it terrible. 