Jacksonville Progress
May 17, 2008 07:32 pm
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Last week the Jacksonville Bass Club fished Lake Quitman, which is located in the vicinity of Lake Fork.
The lake was full and dingy. Visibility was about six inches deep. Quitman is blessed with a large variety of shallow aquatic plants which rims the entire lake.
Robbie Goodman won first place with five bass totaling 9.20 pounds. At one time Goodman hung a huge fish on a Brush Hog bait. Goodman said, “I thought I had hung the lake record black bass.”
It turned out to be a 17-pound Appaloosa catfish.
Goodman said, “I used a 1?2 oz. white/chartreuse spinner bait. The spinner had a single, large willow leaf blade. I was mainly fishing the grass line and by 6:20 a.m. I caught my first keeper bass.” Goodman fished the spinner slow around grass lines and logs. He also flipped a watermelon colored creature bait into the grass.
Goodman said, “This was the first time I had fished the lake. The fish bit best early in the morning, and I didn’t catch my fifth keeper until it was time to go in. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. I only caught one fish.”
Aubrey Underhill took second place with three bass weighing 8.70 pounds. His largest bass weighed 5.63 pounds. His big bass was caught on a buzz bait and ended up the largest of the tournament.
His fishing partner, Jerry Beasley, said that they saw a local fisherman catching bass around a certain boat house.
When the fisherman left, Underhill caught his biggest bass off of the same boat house.
Later they returned to the same boat house and caught another keeper.
Bass fishing for most of the 16 contestants wasn’t that good, but one thing that really stood out was the crappie fishermen. Frank Lusk said, “I saw a man and a woman catching a lot of crappie. She was catching them on a spinnerbait, and he was catching them on minnows.”
I talked to another crappie fisherman who told me he and his partner had caught 48 big crappie this week. While fishing in the tournament I caught two big crappie on bass lures. These crappie weighed about one pound each.
Lake Quitman has produced a lot of big stringers of bass over the past years, but for some reason the catch ratio has really declined. No one seems to know why.
The Jacksonville Bass Club voted to fish Lake Sam Rayburn on June 7 and 8.
Launch site is Cassells-Boykin. Hours are from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Jerry Miller can be contacted at: gonefishing@suddenlink.net
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