Tracking Laughin’ Bass’ Spring Fling Leaders On West Point

West Point Lake is agruably the best bass lake in Georgia. But it is about 36,000 acres of lake. That is an awful lot of water when you are trying to fish it one cast at a time.

Many of us know how to fish and the magazine racks are full of articles telling you all sorts of “How To” tricks. You’ve seen them—How To Fish a Roadbed, How to Fish a Crankbait, etc.

But when it comes to West Point Lake, what I want to know is Where To fish.

We don’t get many opportunities to do what we did Sunday a week ago. When we do get a chance, we take advantage of it.

Brooks Johnson and his Laughin’ Bass Tournament trail held their annual Spring Fling two-day bass tournament (April 20-21). First prize was a brand-new Cajun bass boat fully rigged with a tandem axle trailer and brakes, one 150 hp Mercury motor, a pair of Lowrance depthfinders, a Brute Motorguide trolling motor and many other extras. The package was valued at more than $24,000. Now that’s a payday.

In any two-day bass tournament there is always a leader going into the last day.

Enter GON and our question—where is the best place to fish on West Point?

With the kind of first prize offered by Laughin’ Bass sitting at the ramp at the end of the day, it is a good bet that the first-place team will be fishing, if not the best places on the lake, certainly the places that they think ought to be the best. And given the face that they were in first place at the end of the day, there is reason to believe that the places they think are good… are in fact good.

In other words, where these guys are fishing is a good place to fish.

So where are they fishing? And, OK, how are they fishing it?

That is what we wanted to know and the ONLY way to know for sure is to go follow that first-place team and watch where they go and what they do.

Now think about that. Certainly there are worse jobs—I could’ve stayed home and cleaned the bathroom—but my job Sunday a week ago was to go for a day-long boat ride on the best bass lake in the state and watch other folks fish. It’s sort of like getting to go watch someone else have a date with Heather Locklear.

Me and my camera and my thermos met Tournament Director Brooks Johnson in the restaurant at Highland Marina (home of the best hamburgers in Georgia) at 5:30 a.m. Brooks introduced me to the leaders, brothers Ronnie and Ronald Adams, of Tyrone. They’d caught 24 pounds of bass the day before.

Ronald Adams (left) listens as Ronnie Adams tells Brooks Johnson where and how they caught their fish.

We said our Howdy Dos, but they were a bit tight-lipped about the day before because sitting at the next table was the second-place team of Capt. Frank Kirby and his partner.

By 6:45 a.m., we were in the boats and the first flight of the 71 boats was easing past the No Wake marker and blasting into the growing daylight.

Ronnie and Ronald made a beeline from Highland down into Stroud Creek. Just before the second island and buoy No. 7 there is a small pocket on the right-hand bank. There is barely enough room to turn a boat around inside the non-descript pocket. They were fishing by 7:10 a.m., both throwing a spinnerbait. Fifteen fishless minutes later, Ronald switched to a Bang-O-Lure and Ronnie picked up a spinning rod and began fishing a small worm. They fished this small piece of water very carefully for another 25 minutes without success. When they moved, they didn’t go far.

By 7:50 a.m., they were at the mouth of a narrow finger of a cove that enters Stroud Creek from the left bank just at Buoy No. 9. They fished the center and the right-hand bank of the cove all the way in and out. Both men were now fishing with spinning reels. I could hardly believe it. I even told them that I was going to have to go back and write about this and most folks would find it difficult to swallow. They just chuckled and shrugged. It seemed to suit them fine that folks wouldn’t believe how they were fishing.

They were fishing with open-faced spinning reels spooled with only 10-lb. test line. They were casting 4 1/2-inch Culprit curley tailed worms Texas rigged and weighted with only a 1/16-oz. sinker.

Back up a minute and recall what West Point pockets look like when the water is low and the backs of these pockets are dry. As you move from the lake into these pockets, you see normal lake bottom until, in many coves, you reach a point where the bottom rises fairly abruptly. It almost looks like a step.

Grass grew on these shallow flats in the backs of the coves. The Adams brothers were swimming the lightly weighed little worm through this grass, and that is how they caught their fish on Saturday.

But by Sunday the weather had changed for the worse. A cold, stiff wind was blowing out of the north and the water temperature was dropping. Ronnie and Ronald stayed in their snowmobile suits until 1 p.m. Additionally, the strong wind made fishing the light sinker very difficult.

They fished the cove at Buoy No. 9 about 50 minutes, boating four short bass and missing three strikes.

When they got to the back of No Name Creek about 8:45 a.m., they stopped fishing the light sinker altogether and went to a Carolina-rigged lizard (pumpkin seed) for the rest of the day. They pulled up on point No. 4 (see map below) at 9:26 a.m. but after only 10 minutes of fighting the wind they moved on back to location No. 5. Location No. 4 was the only place they stopped all day that was not a shallow, protected flat.

They caught some fish at location No. 5, but you should note that they never cast toward the bank, and they were rarely if ever within casting distance of the bank. Instead they were fishing the center of the cove and along the edge of the abrupt rise in that cove. They stayed here from 9:37 until 11:40 a.m. and caught six bass, including two keepers.

Stop No. 6 was a small pocket behind Amity Park. This area was more protected from the wind, and they fished it much farther back than location No. 5. They fished it from 11:55 a.m. until 12:45 p.m., catching two short bass.

By 12:55 p.m., they were dead in the back of Whitewater Creek fishing the upstream bank of the cove on the left with all the standing timber, the cove between Buoy 10 and the bridge. They finished the day here, and they did throw the little worm some when lulls in the wind allowed. They fished this bank from the back of the cove to the point. Then they retraced their path. It was their most productive spot, producing eight fish, including one keeper.

Back at Highland Marina when the weigh-in was done, the Adams brothers had lost their hold on first place. They finished sixth with 31.3 pounds for the tournament, 7.1 pounds for the day.

Tony Morse, of Hapeville, and Max Leatherwood, of Newnan, won the Spring Fling with 36.8 pounds of bass (19.7 pounds Saturday and 17.1 pounds Sunday). They fished in Yellowjacket and caught almost all their fish on topwater, particularly Zara Spooks. As a matter of fact, topwater produced three of the four biggest bass caught during the tournament (Spook, buzzbait, Bang-O-Lure, lizard). Additionally, almost everyone was catching their bass in 5 feet of water or less.

Now all this was two Sundays ago.

But last Saturday during the Guys & Dolls tournament, and this on a full moon weekend remember, the top stringer did not come from the backs of these pockets. The third-place stringer did.

Current thinking is that most but not all of the bass are going on the bed or staging up to bed. The next two weekends should provide outstanding fishing, particularly topwater fishing in the backs of just about every pocket on West Point Lake.

And thanks to Ronnie and Ronald Adams, of Tyrone, for marking some of the better pockets to fish.