Last weekend the Riverbassin’ Tournament Trail came to Columbus, Georgia and was hosted by The Outside World. The Riverbassin’ Trail is a one of a kind kayak river fishing tournament sponsored by Jackson Kayak.

There were 25-30 anglers all vying for the top position. After all the water settled there was only one person at the top position. Jason Stutts of Jackson, Georgia edged out Lance Coley by a mere .25″ inches to win the Columbus Stop. Jason’s three best fish measured with 58.25 total inches while Lance was right behind him with 58 inches!

Jason and Lance went back and forth at the awards ceremony with each landing nice kicker fish. Jason landed a monster shoal bass weighing 7 lbs 8 ounces, only 11 ounces shy of the current Georgia record! Not to be out done, Lance stepped up and showed off an 8 lb 6 ounce largemouth that he caught in less than two feet of water on his third cast of the morning! What an impressive top 2 finish!

Rounding out the top 6 was Tim Perkins with 55.75 inches, Scott Starnes with 54.25 inches, Brandon Hicks with 51.75 inches and Todd Braswell with 50.75. This was an impressive top 6 with everyone in the 50′s and I believe this was the Trail’s longest top 6 stringer to date!

Congratulations to all the winners and especially to Jason Stutts for taking home the victory and winning a new Jackson Kayak Coosa!

I finished in 8th place with 48 inches and my fishing partner, Hal Lambert, of Hal’s Custom Rods finished in 10th with 44.50 inches.

We had originally planned to fish another location, but during the pre-tournament meeting Hal got wind that others also planned to fish the location. So instead of crowding the river with two more people, we decided to move on to Plan B. It’s always good to have a backup plan or two during these tournaments because anything can happen.

I told Hal that Plan B would be hit or miss during this time of the year. The water is very low and clear and without much underwater cover. The fish would be tough to catch once the sun made it over the trees.

We needed to get to a large shoal complex early in the morning and hope we could snag a few large feeding fish on topwater if we were going to be competitive at this stop. We made it to the river before daylight and geared on up. Before putting our Jackson Coosas in the water we made a couple of casts for good luck, hoping a fish didn’t bite on our first cast.

There’s an old river fishing superstition that if you catch a fish, especially a monster, on your first cast of the day then you might as well pack things up right there because that was probably going to be the last fish you caught all day. Luckily for us, neither one of us caught a fish on our first cast. However, three casts later Hal brought in a small 14.5″ spotted bass on a buzzbait. It wasn’t on the first cast and it wasn’t a monster, but I still didn’t like it. No, it wasn’t because Hal was now one up on me for the day, it was because neither one of us should have caught anything from the area we were fishing. I just didn’t like the omen of that fish.

We finally set out on the river and made it to the large shoal complex that was going to make us or break us. Each of us picked a line and worked the shoals incessantly with topwater lures such as buzzbaits, Zara Spooks, wakebaits, etc. We worked pool after pool, but had nothing to show for. Midway through the shoal complex I was starting to get a little worried. Surely at least one of us should have hooked into a nice fish by now. Surely one of us should have caught at least a small fish by now.

Towards the top of the shoal complex smaller fish started chasing the buzzbait, but we still weren’t hooking up with them. That was a better sign, but the sun was starting to get above the trees and I knew we wouldn’t have much longer before the topwater bite would die off.

That’s when I I had a fish blow up on a Zara Spook. Immediately, it starting fighting like a striped bass, making runs instead of diving for rocks like shoal bass tend to do. Knowing this, I was lazy when fighting this particular fish and midway through the battle, it shook off. I never got a chance to see it, and see if I was right, but I just shrugged it off at the time. Now, I’m beginning to wonder whether I was right and the fish was only a smaller striper and not a decent sized shoal bass. I guess we’ll never know, but things would have been at least a little better for me in the tournament had it been a nice sized shoal bass and had I brought it to hand.

Pushing on I was finally able to get on the board by landing a small 14 1/2 shoal bass on a 5 inch watermelon colored Senko bounced across the bottom of the river near some rock. It wasn’t much, but I was happy to get the skunk off.

Once the sun got high in the sky any bite we had immediately died off. We started searching out the deepest pools with some current pushing through those pools, hoping big fish would be stacked there.

We came across one particular pool and each of us hooked up with our largest fish that we measured for the day. Hal brought in a 17 inch shoal bass and I followed with a 16 3/4 shoal bass. They weren’t much, but we were happy to see those fish after what was becoming a long morning.

We pushed on and finally settled in on the Senko pattern that we stuck with the rest of the day. We weren’t slaying them by any means and we slowed WAY down in order to cover the river as best we could and not miss any potential fish. This at least enabled us to fill our stringers by 2:00 P.M. and gave us a lot of relief because we both didn’t think that was going to happen.

We started going after cull fish, but I was only able to land a few small fish. Hal on the other hand had a chance at a nice 4 lb plus shoal bass that initially caught him off guard. That always happens when the fishing gets tough. Concentration levels drop and minds start to wander and then IT HAPPENS. The big bite is on and it’s almost a frightening experience that wakes you from your day dream.

As fortunes would have it on that day, Hal never got the nice shoalie into his Coosa. It shook off at the boat and waved goodbye to our hopes of finishing well in the tournament.

We both know that days like these can’t be avoided sometimes and we all have them. We both agreed that the early morning spotted bass must have cast a gloomy omen over our day. There was no avoiding it and we did all we could do.

Once we got to the check in at The Outside World in Columbus, Georgia, we met up with old familiar faces and other participating anglers. There was a mixed bag of success, and people either did really well or had a really tough day with limited fish being landed.

The best part of the day was listening to all the great fish stories from the top finishers and it turned out to be worth the long hard day we faced!

Hall and myself didn’t finish like we would have hoped, but that’s just how it works. You win some and you lose some. Just avoid those dreaded spotted bass on the third cast! They’ll cast a gloomy cloud over the rest of the day!