By midday I picked up Chris Brown from Strike King Lure Company and we went back out to do some fishing together. Chris brought a few packs of the new Strike King Thumper worm. It is somewhat like the Anaconda but looks more like the old curly tail worms from years ago. Lake Guntersville is known for swimming a ten inch worm. The bass absolutely go crazy on it. We started on a river ledge and immediately Chris boated a three pounder. Small for that lake. Then another nice keeper. I took the worm I was using off and put on a Thumper and caught one. We left there and hit a rip rap point where I caught a nice five pounder on a Series Six crankbait. We ran to a shell bed and once we located the sweet spot Chris and I proceeded to catch fish on almost every cast. We had to catch at least twenty bass in a row. We had a blast fishing together.
The next day I took Jake Tippie from Ardent Reels out. We started shallow with little success then headed out to the main lake and started swimming the Ten inch Thumpers. The bite was on as Jake and I exchanged good fish catches with the biggest being right at five pounds. This was Jakes first time swimming a worm in the grass and I can guarantee it won’t be his last. The technique is simple. We used 15 pound Vicious Fluorocarbon line, a medium heavy rod, a 6.3:1 Ardent XS1000 reel, a 3/16 ounce weight, and a 5/0 Mustad hook. We would make a long cast out over the submerged grass and slowly reel it in letting the Thumper Worm tick the tops of the grass. When they bit, it was with a vengeance. No other place do I know of can you use this technique with such great success. On our last spot we fished I broke a giant off due to my lack of retying after so many bass we had caught. I quickly marked the spot with my GPS and decided to go back there and start for the evenings big bass tournament. I knew it was a big fish and once you find one fish there are usually many more. I picked up my partner for the evening. We ran straight to the spot I marked. Arnold caught three reel quick including one over five and a four pound fish. I needed a good one. We were getting plenty of bites when I set the hook on one almost six pounds. Once I got him in the boat we decided to leave and go explore new water for the next days tournament. We caught several more on the Strike King Thumper but could never get any ones bigger than the two we had. I ended up getting 5th Place that evening out of 91 boats. I was surprised that my fish held up because normally there are some giants weighed in but it all worked out. The next morning I was fortunate to fish with Ben Leird. Former quarterback for the Auburn Tigers. I told Ben that we would be fishing one spot most of the day. When we got there I rigged up a Thumper Worm for him. It didn’t take long for Ben to boat a four pound fish. Then it was my rod that doubled and the next four pounder came in the boat. We continued taking turns catching one after the other and quickly had our limit of three. This year they had changed the limit to avoid fish fatality in the extreme heat. We fished for several hours combing the grass for a big bite and I finally got one but the six pound bass decided that he was going to win the battle. We ended up catching a little less than thirteen pounds with three fish and that one big fish cost us. It took over eighteen to win. What is so incredible is that even in less than favorable fishing conditions due to the heat, the bass bit well. Four pounders are comman with the chance to catch a real big fish in the eight to nine pound range. Lake Guntersville is one of the nation’s best when it comes to bass fishing. I would like to thank the people that hosted the tournament especially Jeff Bergstresser with The Orthopedic Center for all of his hard work and dedication to putting on such a great event. I look forward to next year for more fish catching action.
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