Well I have been short on time since I got back from my spring break trip to Alabama. Penn State had spring break from March 6th to the 14th. My buddy Derrick and I decided for spring break we wanted to fish a tourney down south. We chose to fish the Southern Collegiate Series. The tournament was held on Pickwick Lake, but it was off limits until Thursday. So we decided to fish Lake Wilson Tuesday and Wednesday then spend Thursday on Pickwick. Auburn was the host and a great one at that. Sorry for this long winded post it breaks down 5 days of fishing and thoughts .

We spent March 8th driving down to Florence Alabama which was about a 12.5 hour drive. We got down there and didn't realize the time change from Eastern to Central so we boat the boat in on Lake Wilson late in the day and picked up a few quick fish.

Tuesday March 9th was our first full day of fishing on Lake Wilson. It was a partly cloudy day water temp 51-53, and raining occasionally. We fished the lake blind. We ran to the Wilson/Wheeler dam just to see what it looked like. We began fishing an island and in about 5 casts I caught the first fish which weighed 5.3 lbs caught on a lucky craft 75dd pointer. Throughout the day we absolutely tore them up. We caught a ton of fish many around 3-4 lbs. My partner caught a 5lb even smallmouth on a white grub on a jighead, a 4lb smallmouth on a jerkbait along with another 4lb largemouth on a jerkbait. We found the larger fish near the mouths of creeks, and some others in a creek that was just stacked full of shad. They were chomping. We weighed every fish over 4lbs and our top 5 would have went 23-24 lbs.

5lb

4lb

5lb sm

big drum

Wednesday March 10th we decided to explore more of the lake instead of fishing the areas we knew held big fish. We caught even MORE fish in a large creek near the dam. We didn't catch many chunks, but flat out tore them up. We around 50 fish our total bag would have probably been around 13 lbs. It was again partly cloudy temp was 55 in this creek and there were a ton of bucks up.

Thursday March 11th was our first day of practice on Pickwick Lake partly cloudy water 51-53, but found 58 deep in Cane Creek. Being from Pennsylvania a 35,000 acre lake is a good size to break down. We first ran toward the dam, but did not fish the dam (mistake). We then decided to check out specific areas we found during map study and talking to locals. We fished below seven mile island near Cane Creek. There was a lot of fish activity in this creek, the water was ripping through, and it was warm. We found all the fish at the mouth of the creek. We then checked out an awesome looking spot recommended by Roadwarrior. The first section we checked was next to the 20 ft channel and came up to a one ft deep flat. We sat in about 8-10 foot of water fishing the stumps near the flat. We couldn't catch a cold, but it looked like it had great potential. We sniffed around there for awhile, and eventually decided to check some other areas. We ended up finding some docks in about 5-8 ft of water chalked full of fish. The only problem was they were all smaller fish. We estimated that we could catch a limit for around 10 lbs with what we were on. Fish were caught on jerkbaits, Spro Aruku Shad, Red Eye Shad, shaky head, and a jig.

Friday March 12th 1st day of the tourney, conditions unchanged. We decided to check the mouth of Cane Creek and then check the docks and pull a quick limit. My partner in the front of the boat was fishing a jerkbait on the point so I decided to throw a Hunter's Creek Cheeseburger Jig. Two tosses on the point and I hooked into a 3lb LM. At this point there were 4 other boats that saw it and then it was defense time.. (the not fun part about tourney fishing). We fished for awhile more catching one more dink and went to our docks. We caught a limit fairly quickly, but no good fish. We had around 11lbs at this point. We fished about 30 yards off the docks in about 10-15 foot throwing deep cranks crigs and came up empty. Those females had to be somewhere, but we couldn't find them. We weighed in this day with 10.87. Fish were caught on jigs, jerkbaits, shaky head, and traps. I caught one keeper on a jig, two keepers on traps in about 1 foot of water on pebble bank, and my partner caught two on jerkbaits around 5 feet at the docks.

Saturday March 13th 2nd day of the tourney, the water temp remained similar, rain and occasional hail was present. This day we had a later launch number. We went to cane creek and it was covered with boats, so we hit the docks for a quick limit. We caught a limit in about 45 minutes for about 5 lbs. We quickly looked at each other and said let's get out of here. The weather was consistent and the temp didn't change these females were not up yet on this spot. We used GPS and maps and went fishing. We pulled up on a good looking spot and I caught a 8lb catfish on a crank fished down and we culled all of our lb fish for two lb fish on jerkbaits in about 8 ft of water with pea gravel. We bounced around to a few more spots and culled some two lb fish with 3lb fish caught on jerkbaits/traps. We then decided to take a chance and went to the Wilson dam and with about 30 minutes before weigh in we caught a 3.5-4 on a jig and a 3lb SM on a jerkbait. We weighed in 16.22 lbs and was good enough for 17th/48 teams.

Our boys from Purdue

Tournament info

http://www.auburn.edu/student_info/bass_fishing/entrypick10.html

http://www.yourschoollive.com/event.php?event_id=273

yourschoollive also provided tournament weigh in coverage which is great for the families that couldn't make it to watch. Our coverage is in about 43 minutes if you have a fast internet and want to check it out.

The way we attacked both lakes were first we thought seasonally what these fish are doing then we looked at the weather pattern in the past week and present week. Prefishing we used the standard springtime baits (jigs, jerkbaits, shaky head, and traps). Going into Day 1 we knew we weren't on fish to win the tournament. After getting a limit we should have moved looking for bigger fish. Day 2 we resolved the little fish problem and went hunting in deeper water.

Thank you Auburn and Florence for being such great hosts and providing us with a great time!

Great little write up there man, I appreciate the thought and pictures you guys put into it.  Seems like a great spring break to me. Hope you guys have a great rest of the season.

Nice job. A good story also. 8-)

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post... I could have added a lot more details, but for 5 days it would be 3 pages long. This trip was neat for me, because my mind was in overdrive from the start. There are so many variables in bass fishing and you need to be the human super computer to figure out why or why not. It is neat to learn overtime and keep thinking about what happened in the past with creeks warming, rocks warming, fish moving, fish staging, what quality of fish and why.. I don't know if others think so much into it, but I definitely do.   

The post was well written. I do not have a problem reading longer posts like this. You painted the whole picture. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing.

Nice fish, and Glad to see a fellow Penn State lover. I  get season tickets for football. WE ARE!!!!!!!!

nice job Robby. Sounds like a fun way to spend spring break.

So, from what I gather...

RW = KVD?

Glad to see you had fun.  My eyes hurt.   ;D

I think the report was just right.  Good job, and cool post.