The Dawg Days of August. That about says it all!!! The Hawg Hunters monthly tournament was held out of Hubbard’s Landing on the Tensaw River. My partner was for the day was Paul Sullivan. We had 10 boats hunting and pecking around for the elusive fish. Sully and I decided to stay up north of the landing as we had heard of a few folks catching a few fish in the upper areas the week before. Traditionally that’s where you go to find ‘em in the hot weather….in the deeper areas of the moving waters and in the main river.

We ran up stream to a little lake that had a couple of feeder creeks and a lot of structure on the banks. The tide was coming in and the water was up on the trees. Within about 15 minutes, Sully hooks up with a nice 2 pound fish and then about a minute later he catches a non-keeper. We really felt good , we thought we had made a great choice in going there. Eight hours later we knew better. That was our only keeper fish in the boat. We each caught several other small fish but nothing that would keep. We worked the Stiggins area, the mouth around Globe, several lakes, and the main river above the landing. We even tried C-rigging some points, but still nothing…..Well it did rain, gully wash, flood, whatever you want to call it about midday, but even that didn’t turn the fish on for us.

Back at the scales, most everyone had the same story as us. Several guys had one fish and only a few had more than one. However as always, someone always finds the key that opens them ole locked jaws. Rich Cornelius was one of those who did it right. Rich, riding in the back of the boat overcame motor problems and still managed to catch a limit to take both first place honors and the lunker. Rich and his partner made it about 2 miles south of the landing and had motor trouble. They were near Douglas Lake and that’s where Rich caught most of his fish. Most came from a Carolina rigged lizzard. As usual at the top and in contention was Brian Metcalf, with a limit of small fish but good enough to capture second place. I don’t know where he caught his fish, but I think it would be safe to say that he probably caught them on flukes and worms. When Brian gets a fluke or a floating worm working, he’s hard to beat (and that’s just about every month). Sliding gently into the third spot was Mac Cramer with three nice keepers. I know that he ran south a long way and I think he said he caught his fish at several different places along the way. One here and one there. I’m not sure what he caught them on but I know that he really likes a junebug worm. That’s about it for the fish stories …well with one exception…in any tournament every fish is crucial but in a skimpy showing like we had, one fish, just a nice keeper fish, would have landed fourth place. Jack Maher was trying to train a keeper in not jumping as he laid the fish on the edge of the deck for a glance at the measuring stick. All he got was a glance as the 15 incher flopped over the side and into obscurity. Always measure a fish on the floor of the boat and never on the deck!

Our next outing will be a two day event at Lake Eufaula out of Lake Point. Maybe we’ll have better luck there. At least we know that there are some really big fish there. The race for the top six places in the club is tight, so I feel sure that we’ll have a great showing at Eufaula. There’s too many spots still up for grabs to make a sure call, but Brian Metcalf has a great lead in the pole position.

Til next month …Keep your hooks sharp!

Creek Chub