!Warning, long story!

I went to visit my grandparents right outside Athens. They live on a private lake with about 16-20 houses. We had the lake almost to ourselves for 4 days, except for a few guys out in their boats once in awhile.

It was my first real bass trip.

Day 1

We went out after i got there around 12:30PM. Fished all along the weed beds and reeds with frogs and senkos. Didnt get any bites after about 2-3 hours, so we switched to crappie. Pulled in about 20 or so around 1 lb...nice crappie fishing.

Later that day we went back out in the evening, using frogs, senkos and spinnerbaits. No bumps after 2 hours so we went in for dinner. I went back out and did some brim fishing and hooked some nice ones off the dock.

Day 2

Went out early with my uncle, god some nice strikes off a small island in the lilly pads with some orange and brown frogs but didnt catch em. Fished for a few hours and went back to crappie fishing. Wind picked up and we went in.

Later that afternoon I took the boat out by myself and fished a little cove with crankbaits and spinner baits. No strikes.

Around 4PM, the trolling motor was dying after a fresh charge so we went to WalMart and got a brand new battery (this plays an important part later on ). Id forgotten my buzzbaits back in CA, so i picked up 3 or 4.

Went out for an hour, I was using frogs again and got a couple strikes, but being impatient and used to crappie and brim i was trying to set the hook too soon. Went in at sundown.

Day 3

Went out in the morning around 5AM by myself. Beautiful day, watched the sun come up and was fishing topwaters and frogs in the reeds. Had some real nice blowups close to my top waters but for some reason they werent hitting them directly. Probably my fault. Went in for breakfast around 8.

Went out later around 9:15ish after breakfast with gramps and was fishing a black buzzbait across the weed beds. Started getting blowups like crazy. Grampa was using a white spinnerbait, and then switched to a chartruse buzzbait. I hooked up a nice 2 or 3lb largemouth right up on the bank, which up to date was the biggest bass id hooked. Grampa got one about the same size.

About 10 minutes later, going around a point, I hooked up and the thing almost jerked the rod out of my hands. My drag went nuts and i had to click it 5 times to get it right. Got it up to the boat...thing was between 6-8 lbs...biggest d**n fish ive ever had on the line. Got it up to the boat, no nets on the lake, thing jumped up right in my grampas face and spit the lure into the boat. Was beautiful.

Went out later with my uncle who hooked up about 4 times on a purple frog, caught some nice 1-3 lbers.

Day 4

Went out early with my uncle and the outboard wouldnt start, but the trolling motor had a fresh battery and we were only going about 100 yards across the lake, so we just used it.

Fished for about 45 minutes, got some blowups on frogs again but didnt stick em. Decided to move. Trolling motor wouldnt start. Checked the connections, fuses everything. Finally we switched to the backup battery. Still nothing. Outboard was still dead. Finally i cut the line and connected the control for the trolling motor directly to the battery. Still nothing. After about half an hour of fiddling around scratching our heads, I picked up the control to check if maybe a wire was loose. Low and behold, we find the On/Off switch. Amazing. Two guys in a tiny boat with backgrounds in electronics.

Got back in right before the rain started...turned out the backup battery hadnt been charged and the outboard ran directly to it. Oops.

All in all I had an amazing time. Didnt catch a whole lot of bass, and i STILL have yet to even get a bite with a senko, but I was loving the frogs and buzzbaits.

(sorry for the long story!)

Sounds like a fun time, I love buzzbaits!!  (and frogs!)