Chick. River Topwater

[3dkicker]

Spent three days on the river this past weekend. On Friday we pre-fished a couple areas to see if we could find any of the little beasts. I was pitching a Bama Papi craw and hooked a two pound bowfin. Yep the beasts were there. We also found some nice bass hitting horney toads, flukes, and other topwater type baits and what made it sweet was that it was at 2pm on a sunny day. I finished the day with a 6lb bowfin on the craw which was a very nice battle but nothing compared to the 8lb channel I caught two weeks ago.
Tournament day we headed to a couple of my favorite places to catch bass on this river and we were rewarded with a nice morning topwater bite that lasted only a few minutes but we caught them on and off all day long. We had low tide just after we launched and tidal fish have a tendency to bite in waves. Caught a nice 2.5-3lb fish on a buzz bait and a bunch of blow ups on the horney toad. Ran to a small creek and had some company due to the BFL tournament. Matter of fact those guys were everywhere except the backs of the creeks. We ran back and I hit another nice 2lb + on the toad. This fish exploded on the bait. Headed out and ran to our last creek before weigh in. Continued to catch a couple nice fish and culled my last 2.5lb fish on the same Knucklehead skirted buzzbait. Finished with just under 11lbs which isn't bad for this body of water.
Sunday started with a bang. We ran the long pad field below, follow the tree line, and found fish chewing on toads. I got my limit of small fish and lost a kicker during the last hour of outgoing and the first hour of incoming. My partner had four keepers and went to "Kermit" to catch his kicker fish. He found the kicker but the 5-6lb kicker won the short battle, coming up and shaking Kermie off. Once the bite died it was over for the day. Last fish of the day for me was another beast in the 4-5lb range on the same Papi craw.
We couldn't "catch" another bass until we came across a 5-6lb largemouth that was swimming just under the surface in a creek. We tossed a couple baits in it's direction and it continued to do it's thing. We got closer and closer to the fish and it just stayed there. I hit the fish with a couple baits right on the head and it just sat there. Finally the partner grabbed the net and scooped it up !!!! The fish was in really bad shape and died in the livewell . We attempted to do our best to keep it alive but it was an old fish beat up fish. We did have a little fun at the weigh in by throwing it back just before we weighed our fish saying we didn't need the fish to win the tournament . I took 2nd place by 1oz.

Enjoy the pics. The river has some sweet places to fish.

[3dkicker]

Couple more pics......

[Captmikestarrett]

At the base of the Cypress in the last pic I see a fish..

Look hard and you will see him just four inches to right.

Capt Mike

[BassAddict]

Sounds like a pretty good time 3D!! Congrats on a good finish too!! I can get info all week for that tourney if you have any tid bits you want to pm me. Sweet pics too. You would think that river would be close to as good as the Potomac just by looking at it. I'm going to hit it Sun. afternoon and try to locate some of those "green beasts" myself.

[3dkicker]

Originally Posted by Captmikestarrett

At the base of the Cypress in the last pic I see a fish..

Look hard and you will see him just four inches to right.

Capt Mike

I must have missed him.... cuz I know I threw a couple baits up on that Cypress tree. The laydown across from it didn't hold anything either. The fish got real stubborn by that time of the day. They weren't hitting anything.

[bamabassman]

ooohhh...trees n grass. mmmmmm love that kind of stuff. mouth gets to watering, lol. nice fish too.

[stevomac59]

B-E-A-Utiful Fishing area! Nice Fish!

-stevo

[3dkicker]

Originally Posted by stevomac59

B-E-A-Utiful Fishing area! Nice Fish!

-stevo

Thanks. Trouble is that it all looks good and should hold fish everywhere. We caught most of the fish out of the outside edge of the arrowhead pads. We caught some in the grass between the pads and I flipped a couple out of the thick pad areas.

I looked up the BFL results for Sat. My weight would have put me in the money, top 10 or so. The one I lost would have put me in the top 3. I was flipping a jig my partner had tied on to one of his rods, he custom builds them, and didn't tell me he had 10lb test on the Revo Prem. I saw the 3+ turn on the bait as it was dropping. I busted him off on the hook set.

[bamabassman]

think it was because of the water temp 3d? i think that is why the bass are holding off the grass here as well. they seem to be just off on the edge now. of course the water temps are above 80, more like close to 90. just wondering if that has something to do with it.

[3dkicker]

This river has flats that run in the 1-2' range that normally have pads but the hydrilla took over 10 years ago or so. Not the pads aren't as thick and the grass holds bait but doesn't have space under the grass for the bass, especially at low tide. So the fish normally hang on the drops from 2' to 5' or on the channel edges. Water temps were in the low 80's which makes the bass really aggressive when the tide is moving.