The sixth stop of the Bassmaster Elite Series took place this past weekend on the Tennessee River, at Wheeler Lake. Wheeler does not have the tournament history or big bass reputation that other Tennessee River lakes do like Guntersville, Pickwick, Chickamauga or Kentucky but it’s a similar body of water to these other lakes that are often on the schedule.
I had been to Wheeler a couple of times in my early years fishing in the U.S. but this was my first visit since 2016 so I was essentially visiting a new body of water. As it turned out I didn’t get near any of the areas that I fished in the past for this event.
When I launched my boat the first day of practice, I went the opposite direction of where I’ve fished in the past and ended up catching a couple of nice fish in an area that I felt was good. Over the next couple of days, I just tried to find as many options as I could in the couple kilometer stretch. I found a couple of small rock piles that had schools of fish on them. I was also using my forward-facing sonar to cast at stumps along the lake bottom that were holding individual fish. I also found some vegetation along the river channel that was holding a few fish so going into the tournament I felt like I had some options.
Going into the tournament, we all knew it was going to be a relatively tough event. It’s not an easy lake to catch bass over 2.5 pounds, at least this time of year and we were dealing with extreme heat. In the afternoons when I would get in my truck, it would be over +40 Celsius! Over the practice days I was catching a couple of bigger fish each day so my hope for the tournament was that I could catch a limit of bass over two pounds and get a couple of good ones over three.
Everything worked out great on day one. My five bass weighed 14 pounds and I was in 30th place heading into day two. The first goal in these tournaments is to make the top 50 cut after two days. If you make the cut, you earn $10,000 and you are getting some good points toward qualifying for the Bassmaster Classic.
Things did not go as well on day two. While I caught my five fish limit relatively early, I failed to catch any bigger fish and that was just how the day went. I knew my nine-pound limit was going to be a little bit short of the cut and while the weights went down overall a little bit on day two, I ended up finishing three ounces outside the cut, in 53rd place! Talk about disappointing.
Over the course of the season, I have lost very few fish. I feel like I’ve been fishing good and my equipment has performed as it should. Late on day two I had about a two and half pounder hooked up that was coming towards to boat really easily on a jerk bait but as it was getting close to the boat, I could see that it was only being held by one point on a small treble hook. As I started to reach for it, it did a little jump and escaped my grasp. It came off just out of reach and slowly swam off, an image that will forever be imprinted in my brain. I knew that fish was the one I needed but at the time I still had a couple hours left so I just kept doing my thing, figuring I’d get another shot but I just never did. It’s funny how the ones that you lose are often more memorable than the big fish you catch. I had a couple of small bass in my limit under two pounds so that one would have been a big upgrade.
With three tournaments left, I’m in 48th place on the points list. The top 40 anglers will qualify for next year’s Bassmaster Classic and that’s the number one priority for me so I need to finish off the season strong. We have an off week before we fish again next week at Lewis Smith Lake, also in Alabama. I’m going to spend the week fishing some other lakes in Alabama and try to get seasoned to the brutal heat. I said on the weigh-in stage that I think I’d take the six months of winter that we have over the six months of extreme
