February 11, Lake Wheeler, AL
Dan writes:
The wind blew all night. I awoke more than once listening to it, which just served to increase my stress and heighten concerns over how I was going to fish slowly today. By 8 am though the winds were subsiding, the skies were clear, and the temperature was up to 40 degrees. I launched here in the creek where the state park is, and spent the first two hours within sight of the tournament weigh-in. Gradually I moved out to the mouth of the creek, fished some main-lake pockets, and then all of the next creek, from beginning to end. At three o’clock I called Annie and told her that I had not had one bite. This has to be the worst practice period I have ever experienced.
With only two hours of daylight remaining, I considered calling it a day and returning to camp. The weather was nice though – fifty degrees, sunshine and no wind, so I decided I should take advantage of it while I had it. I began idling around at the mouths of the pockets, looking for baitfish on my depth finder. It wasn’t until I had moved across to the other end of the dam that I found some. I fished a little point nearby with a Carolina rig first, and there I got my first bite of the day. It felt like a decent fish, and he held on to it for a long time, but I didn’t set the hook on him. No more bites on that point, so I decided to try something that I had never done before: doodling. I tied on a five-inch Gambler finesse worm, with a brass weight and a brass bead to make noise, and I was going to shake that worm straight underneath the boat, down there in the middle of the baitfish, and hope there was a bass nearby.
I moved out off the point into deeper water, and when I found a school of shad holding in twenty-five feet, I dropped the doodlin’ rig and started shaking. Bang! Ten seconds later I had a three pound largemouth in the boat! Yeah!
I fished the remainder of that pocket without success, until I got over to the point on the opposite corner. I fished a Carolina rig up on top of the point, but when I saw bait underneath the boat in twenty five feet, I quickly dropped the doodlin’ rig down, and sure enough, quickly caught another fish. That’s three fish in one hour, out of this one pocket, after having caught only one fish in the past twenty-five hours of practice. Talk about waiting until the last minute to figure something out. I now have less than one full day remaining to try to duplicate this pattern in other areas, but at least tonight I’ll sleep better, and I’ll be excited about getting back out on the water tomorrow morning for the last day of practice.
Annie writes:
I feel so bad for Dan, he has been out fishing every day, the tips of his fingers hurt from being so cold, and he is now very discouraged with his practice.
Today I did the laundry and reorganized our tent. The weather is calling for lows in the 20’s tonight, and I want to be sure the bed is as tight and warm as it can get and the floor is dry. It is going to be some cold!
Dan came in around 6:00 and we did our usual one-pot meal. I have realized by now that we are never going to eat outside at the picnic table on this trip. It’s inside the tent every night.