John Buck
jbuck@granis.net

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Total Fish Caught
Claiborne Lake
39

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Total Dead Fish
Claiborne Lake
1

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Total Fish Weight
Claiborne Lake
56.10 lbs.

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Total Fish Caught
For Year
482

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Total Dead Fish
For Year
15

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Total Fish Weight
For Year
778.84 lbs.

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Pensacola Blue Angels
Bass Page
hook1. com

"John's Club Report"
Covering the Pensacola Hawg Hunters

Claiborne Lake
Isaac Creek Landing
August 21, 1999

The August tournament for the Hawg Hunters was held at Claiborne Lake near Monroeville, Alabama. We fished out of Isaac Creek near the dam. For those who have never fished Claiborne, it is basically just the Alabama River. There are few creeks and little backwater lakes to be found along the waterway There is a lock at the dam and but no power generating station. The dam helps keep the river navigatable and helps with flood control.

With the exception of extremely hot temperatures and high blue skies, fishing conditions were really quite good.
The early morning was pleasantly cool from the front that had gone through the night before. The river was low which is bad if you wanted to fish the shallow creeks and guts but not too bad if you wanted to fish ledges and rocks. The color of the water was really good and got better the further up stream you went.
Where we fished you could see 2-3 feet down. We found the water surface temps to run from the upper 86-90 degrees.
There was a gentle current all day.

The launch was in sight of the dam, so everyone ran up stream. Being the last boat out, we decided to run up river for several miles and fish heavy timber and lay downs. This proved to be a good strategy as every creek mouth we passed already had a boat in it.

My partner was Rich Cornelius. Rich was fishing his guest tournament. We were several miles past Haines Island Ferry when we passed what appeared to be some great timber and rock formations along the river. We shut down and started toward a rock shoal that looked just perfect. Sure enough as we neared the rocks, shad started jumping with bass busting the surface after them. I was able to hook up with a keeper spot on about the 3rd cast. Catching one early sure makes you feel good! My partner missed a couple with a jig and I caught a couple of short fish on a crank and missed three more on top water before they finally quit hitting.

We then started working some of the heavy timber, (both standing and lay downs) in the river. As we were working jigs , Rich made a cast under a willow tree. I felt the boat rock as he drove the hook home with a solid set. His line went slicing through the water heading for the channel and stripping drag. All he could do was hold on and chase it with the trolling motor. Once out over the channel the battle was on. After about 5 or 6 minutes we got the fish close enough to the surface to see it. What a giant!!! Turned out Rich had set the hook in the tail of about a 30 lb carp! Even though it didn’t count, it did give us a mid-morning thrill and laugh.

As the day wore on I was able to pick up a limit of keepers and Rich boated 2 keepers. I caught mine on crank baits and worms, and jigs, while Rich caught his on jigs.We each caught fish pretty
much all day each boating several non-keepers. Whenever you can have bites throughout the day inthe summer you gotta feel good.

Back at the weigh-in we found that several others had found some fish also. Stan "Snickerfritz" Wright had a pretty stringer of 4 bass with a 5.2lb kicker for the lunker. He came in first place with a total weight of 8.1 lbs. Rumor has it that he caught them on plastic crawfish and worms. Congratulations Stan, you won the tourney, won the lunker, and didn’t lose a Calcutta or break a rod!!!! I wound up 2nd place with a small limit weighing 6.1 lbs. Nothing special, but I was proud of ‘em anyway. In third place was Jim Bolleter with 3 nice fish weighing 5.05 lbs.I think he caught them on crank baits and worms. In the "almost ran" category was Rich Renner with 2 fish weighing 4.8 lbs. (Rich is currently in 1st Place for the "Non-Boater of the Year Award").

Even though this was the first time in over 8 years that the club has fished Claiborne, we filled all 15 tournament places and caught a lot of fish. Considering how hot the weather was (over 105 on the heat index), we had a very successful tournament.

Next month the Hawg Hunters will travel to Clanton, Alabama to fish Lake Mitchell. Lake Mitchell is located just north of Montgomery on the Coosa River. We’ll be fishing out of Higgins Ferry State Park.. Till next month.


Keep Your Hooks Sharp.....

Creek Chub

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