Smith Lake 3/4/2006
by Jeff Emens

Going into this tournament I had been on some solid fish and numbers at Smith. I was catching 10-13lb bags with regularity in the weekend tournaments and the previous week my partner and I had a best 5 of about 14lbs with spotted quintuplets that were hardly distinguishable from each other in my monthly club tournament. I was on a fairly dependable pattern fishing ledges 25-40 feet deep that had two requirements, deep water with timber and some type of cover on them whether it be boulders or wood. I know that sounds funny to most reading this but deep water on Smith can be anywhere from 60-200 plus feet. I was getting a big bite in the 4-5lb range every other day during this time but it seemed as if I got the big bite I didn’t have a limit and if I got the limit I didn’t get the big bite, I just needed it all to fall together for me for a chance.

I had a good practice the week before the tournament fishing a couple of afternoons and the full Thursday before the tournament. I checked a few other areas and found some more fish piled up in a creek that would be my backup if my primary area didn’t hold out. The fish in my primary area were what I consider pre pre-spawn , moving up out of the super deep timber to get ready for the staging process.

I drew out in the second flight and met my partner at the meeting. A Georgia native fishing the entire Bama division who blanked at the first tournament and had never seen the lake. I ended up dropping out of the Guntersville tournament due to sickness and felt even worse after I saw how much one keeper counted for in that tournament. I told him what we would be doing the next day and that I was pretty confident in my game plan and areas that I had been fishing on based on m previous weeks catches. I think he thought I was crazy when I told him the depths we were fishing by the look on his face.

Saturday morning the launch was slow in typical fashion for a site with long, steep ramps. FLW, Walker County Sherrif’s Deputies and what I guess were the Walker County Chamber volunteers did an excellent job with traffic control and parking. Smith Lake Dam is an excellent facillity and an additional new ramp and dock have made it more than adequate for a large tournament and attractive to the large trails. My hometown Chamber of Cullman should take note on how Walker County is aggresively using Smith Lake as an area attraction for their City and County and start trying to bring some larger tournaments to Cullman and improve our facillities like Jasper has done.

My first stop netted 2 solid bites one of which I broke off on the hookset and the other bit short and I reeled back in half of my worm and my jighead. My partner jerked twice also but airballed. Hole number two put my first keeper in the boat , a 2lber right where he should have been so I was hopefull of what the day would bring. Fifty yards down a similair stretch I catch a fat 12.75 incher that keeps on the under side of our lakes 13-15 inch slot limit and my partner catches a solid 15 incher to start his day off. After a short distanced move to a similiar area I catch a solid 3lber off of a sharp point that drops into deep water and proceed down the bank where I catch my fourth keeper which clears the 15 inch mark by just a bit.

Around 9:00 I move to another creek and fish two areas where I finshed out my limit with another fat under and my partner added another 15 incher and then caught a nice 2.5-3lber off of a point while I was retying. I got another good bite and didn’t hook up , the tail was gone once again so I started biting about an inch of of my worm. I decided to check my 15 incher again for some reason and now I could just barely make it touch so I added some rejuvenade to try and relax it.

I moved again to fish a couple of points and progressed my way to the back of Simpson Creek. Simpson had more color than I like on Smith and there were boats on the two main areas I wanted to fish in there. I pulled up to a dock with a little point that is kind of hidden behind it and my partner and I got bit simultaneously , he connected with another 15 incher and I missed onece again. I immeditely picked up my jig and cast to the same spot and caught a 14 inch fish and released him. I decided to retreat to my primary area and the deeper water to finish the day out.

With 2 hours left in the day my partner scored his fifth keeper, a good under spot that gave him a solid bag that I guesssed at about 9lbs. Further down the bluff we were fishing my bait touched bottom and I shook it twice and my line starting moving out to deeper water. My partner did a great job netting a 3.5lb Spot for me and now I could get rid of one of my unders finally. I decided to check my smallest over again before I cull and to my dismay he’s shrunk another 1/8 of an inch and I can’t make him touch no matter what I do. I chunk him and just go on and try to catch another good one. I get another good bite almost immediately and miss, yet again another short bite and a tailess worm get reeled in. I made one quick move straight across the lake to a pocket with some brush in it and work it over quickly. I pull the trolling motor up and make one more cast and it never touches bottom. I stick the fish and it pulls drag for maybe two seconds and breaks my line, I didn’t see it but I would say it easily fell into the 4+lb range. I laughed and shook my partners hand , strapped everything down and took us in.

My 3 overs and 2 unders ended up weighing 10-8 and were good enough for the 16th place check. My partner’s fish weighed 8-8 and he took home 4th on the co-angler side and got a nice check and some hardware. His finish also moved him up to the top 20 in points and myself to 71st after neither of us having points from the first tournament. Approximately 20 of those infront of me only fished one tournament also and are not fishing anymore of them so If I go to Wheeler I should have a chance to get back in the points and make the regional.

I started sniffling and coughing during this day at Smith. I had gone on a trip to Las Vegas with a friend a couple of weeks before and was exremely sick the whole time I was there and I don’t think I ever fully recovered. I was supposed to leave for Lanier on the following Monday for the FLW Series that I was fishing as a non-boater but I ended up feeling so bad after the tournament that I elected to wait until Tuesday and left Cullman with just enough time to get to the meeting. I’ll add my Series Journal later tonight or this afternoon as well as another from yesterday’s Dixie BFL at Lay Lake.