Submitted by Super-Pro

Date Fished: 7/21/2007
Water Temperature: 85
Water Clarity: 0

A good friend and I decided to fish the Wal-Mart CMN tourney Saturday night launching out of Smith Lake park. It was my 5th time to fish the event and my partners first. I didn't have high hopes because I really struggled in our club tourney the weekend before. We were boat #329 in the fourth flight. The folks at Wal-Mart started letting boats go a little early so by 6:15 we were headed out to our first stop. My partner and I had decided that we would fish topwater before dark looking for a good bite. After reaching our first stop back in Simpson creek the water was some what beat up from all the pleasure boaters and the sun was still a little high for topwater. I decided to start out with a spinner bait mixing it up with a crank bait. We started down a stretch of bank and made it to some covered empty boat slips. After a couple casts with the spinner bait I picked up the crank bait and tossed it in one of the empty slips that had about 8ft of water under it. After a couple cranks I felt a good tug and screamed for the net. My partner was fumbling around trying to get the net out so I ended up just lipping the fish. It was a nice largemouth that would have went 3.5-4lbs. After putting him in the box it was time to start our game plan of throwing topwater. After running and gunning several spots we only had the big head and a small under spot.

As darkness settled in so did we by breaking out the shakey heads and big spinner baits. By 10:00 we had a limit of fish but still the one over largemouth. Around 12:00 we hit a spot close to Big Bridge and I put a nice 16.5 inch spot and another that I could just barely get to touch 15 inches.

At 2:00 we went to move to another spot and I turned the key and my cranking battery was weak. I had to switch one of my trolling motor batteries over to the cranking battery to get the motor to fire. Needless to say it woke me up a little.

By 2:30 we hit a wall and couldn't buy a bite. We went from 2:30-4:00 without a bite. At dead on 4:00 we pulled up on a point in Simpson Creek and boated 5 slots within minutes. This got our morale and focus back up. A few minutes later my partner set the hook on a good fish and ended up breaking his line. As the sun started to come up we made the decision to try our topwater stuff again and at 5:45 my partner boated a 16 inch spot on a spook. After running and gunning a few spots I went to pull the trolling motor up to move on a spot and my rope broke in half. I had to use a set of pliers to get my trolling motor up. We managed to hit a few more spots with no luck before we had to head in at 7:30.

The 15 inch over I caught around 12:00 ended up going back into the lake after I couldn't get him to touch the 15 inch mark which hurt pretty bad. We ended up with 3 overs and two small unders that went 8.87lbs. Good enough for 37th place and our money back. The good news was I won a 5 piece pattio furniture set in which the wife was more proud of than the finish. Once again great job by Steve Moore and the folks at Wal-Mart and I will be back next year.

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