The Bass Federation of South Carolina held its fifth tournament of the 2010 schedule Saturday Sept 11th on Lake Wateree. The day was mostly cloudy with some sun in the later afternoon. Some quality bass were caught but many anglers found themselves struggling to find fish. The upper river section of the lake can be good fishing at times with its abundance of wood cover. This day however it did not produce for those that chose to go there. There was no flow of water from the dam above and that is the main ingredient to turn on bass in this area. Large schools of shad were easy to find in many of the lakes coves and one would think this might be the key to a good bag of bass, but it did not seem to be.
Jay Keith of Camden, however showed why he is TBF National Champion of 2010 by bringing to the scales a 5 bass limit weighing 18.39 lbs. to take the number 1 spot. His bag included a 5.40 lb largemouth that would take big fish honors also. Jay found a shallow jig bite pattern to his advantage. In second place nearly 5 lbs behind Jay was Donald Hinson also from the Camden area with a weight of 12.58 after a penalty for 2 dead fish. Rounding out the top three places was Calvin Hewitt also with a 5 bass limit that weighed 9.93 lbs.In the co/angler division bringing the only limit of that division to the scales was Preston Rikard of Lexington with a weight of 6.72 lbs. Second place with only one bass, but a good one was current points leader Kenny Grimes at 4.5 lbs. Third was relative new comer to the tournament trail Tom Rubbo at 3.17 lbs.
Most anglers reported catching their bass in a variety of ways including early top water, shakey head worms and carolina rigs. The lake appears to be in a stage between the dog days of summer and the fall season of great fishing as the water cools off.a bit more. It should be getting better in the weeks to come.
The last tournament of The Bass Federation trail for this year will be at Clark Hill on Nov. 13th. With a very close points battle going on this tournament will decide who will represent South Carolina as part of the 12 man state team going to Kentucky in June for the Southern Divisional Championship. For more information please visit www.tbfofsc.com
