4th At Seminole GA Bass Nation Tourney

Mitchell Grimsley is a 15-year-old sophomore at Towns County High School where he competes on the high school fishing team. Mitchell’s GON Blog centers around his fishing outings and tournament experiences in Georgia.

Georgia Bass Nation Trail held a tournament on Seminole on Feb. 16.  

Lake Seminole was stained in some parts of the lake with water temperatures in the high 50s and lower 60s later in the day. We came into our practice days expecting them to be spawning but only saw empty beds and no cruising fish, so we knew the cold front had pushed them off their beds and back to deeper water. We caught very few fish in practice but had a couple spots we knew had fish in them, so we did not fish them at all in practice.

Our main spot was about a 40-minute ride from the launch at Earl May Boat Basin. It was a deep hole in the middle of spawning flats that was perfect for prespawn fish to set up in and feed. This hole is where all but one of our fish came from, and we culled many times in the location. We stayed there for about 4 hours, and all but one fish was caught on a soft plastic worm fished painfully slow. The area was very highly competed for, but luckily no one was fishing the hole we caught our fish out of. We were the only people in the area to catch multiple fish.

Our second spot was a flooded pond where I had two big fish follow a ChatterBait up to the boat during practice. The water was warmer in there, and we thought we would have the spot to ourselves. However, when we arrived there was another boat sitting on top of the area that I had planned to fish. We had to fish around them in an area of the pond we hadn’t fished in practice but only caught one small buck bass that couldn’t do anything for us. That team later weighed-in three good-sized fish—maybe they were the fish I had spotted during practice.

With only the one buck bass being caught in the pond, we moved to a weedline up the Flint River. Here we caught one good fish, good enough to cull one of the 3-pounders we had in the livewell. This fish was also caught on a worm by snatching it out of the submerged hydrilla.

Returning toward the boat ramp, Earl May Boat Basin, we fished a patch of sand that only produced a bite that took the back half of my worm off.  It may have just been a buck carrying it off the bed. Our last spot of the day was an old barge dock I had caught a spotted bass off of in practice.  There were no fish there this time, as it had been fished pretty hard all day by boats coming into the boat ramp.

We ended the day in 4th place with 16.40 pounds, and our biggest fish was around 5 pounds. We had a great average for our fish but were just missing a kicker. All of the fish but one came on a finesse worm fished slowly on the bottom. My partner, Adrian Hooper, caught one on a double Colorado bladed spinnerbait. Most of our fish came from the hole near the spawning area and were more than likely waiting for the afternoon warmer weather to move up to the beds.

The winners were Carter Koza and Lee Rose Koza from Mount Paran Christian School. They had 18.31 pounds. Carter told me fishing was tough for them, but they had a 6-pounder that came on an Alabama rig fished near the surface.